recording bass amp

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daveblue222

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i know nothing of recording a bass amp. how is this done?, why is a DI box needed and what does it do? where do i put the box in the signal chain?

all help much appreciated

cheers
 
You don't necesarilly need a DI box. There are a number of ways that you can do this. You could just plug into the amp and use the line out or you could mic the bass amp, ie just stick a mic in front of it (at it's most basic level).You could blend the two. You could experiment with where you put the mic {close, far, straight on, at an angle}, you could play with volume, treble and bass settings etc. Do you want a boomy sound, a thud, a trebly sound or a distorted snarl ? Even at the most base level {sorry....:o} you can try a few different things. Muck about and see how things sound to your ears.
 
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Many DI's have a parallel output that you can track directly. So one output goes to the amp and the other to track. This will always give you a clean non-amped track to work with. Later, you can then take the clean track and use an output on your interface to send signal back to the amp. This will give you some flexibility to place the mics while the amp is playing back.

I like to mic a bass amp with two mics.
-Dynamic - close mic off axis
-Large diaphragm dynamic placed about 18" or more away.

Its important to have a mic placed back off the amp because of the physical size of some bass frequencies.
 
IMHO:

consider you monitors your speakers now. like the guy 'upstairs' said... the physical size of bass frequencies are huge... (up to 26 feet long! that's a big, old, slippery snake, huh!?) so mic'ing isn't really going to do it justice. when you play live, you need big cabinets to push that kind of sound for the audience. but the speaker is just making what the amp is doing audible... which is what your monitors are doing as well... when you DI an amp or go direct, you get ALL the frequencies straight off the bass/amp/DI which you can later manipulate and control without losing the low end because the mic couldn't capture those frequencies. you can always cut frequencies if needed.

you know when you see youtube videos and can't hear the bass?... well... that's because the mic in someones cel phone didn't know what to do with those big, old, dirty, slippery snakes! fight all you want with mics, but i don't think there is a large enough diaphragm out there to capture that 'rumble in your chest' sound. i could be wrong and maybe all you guys like recording with mics on bass amps, but i don't even bother and bass is usually my favorite part of music.

that mic'd sound does work for some things though... like 80's punk. you know, some dig it, but i like the 'felt over heard' approach.

...and now for the 'on the other hand comment'... a lot of people do listen to music with their laptop speakers now a days, and think it's 'just fine', so maybe you don't really need those low frequencies in music anymore?... umm... i try to use them anyways.

all of this of course; not proven. just an opinion. :)

s
 
NCdan said:
Maybe you can try this: http://www.yamaha.com/drums/drumproductdetail.html?CNTID=544671. :confused::rolleyes:
Click to expand...

well, there you go.

get that mic and then you can get all the low frequencies off your amp. then put a 57 on the cone, a 58 besdie that, a neuman 2 ft away and 2 pencils near the ceiling (so you get stereo 'room sounds' even though it's a mono track) and a dictaphone in the other room (for that lo fi feel) ... oh, and a remember to use a vintage ribbon mic somewhere in your technique so you can say you used one of those too. then mix that with the DI'd signal...

why do i have this feeling that the DI'd track is going to be the louder one in the mix?

s
 
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