Recording Bass direct tips?

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CavityCr33p

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Starting to work on a album, and I'm having a hard time getting the bass to sound "good". I'm recording it direct through a small mixer with built in pre-amp, using Sonar 3. Whats some good tips on effects/mixing/compression to get a good nice bass sound? I find that it often sounds that my picking on the lighter strings is way louder than the top strings. Is there anyway to kinda normalize or get those strings not to stick out as much?

Playing heavy grunge rock btw.

Any help is appreciated.
 
My partner and I record bass direct and we also use Sonar.

We run the bass into an ART Dual MP (a relatively cheap preamp) and use Monster cables from the bass to the ART and from the ART into an Aardvark Q10.

Don't worry about the effects. Concentrate on getting a warm, yet distinct sound from the bass. Apply the compression lightly... don't over-do it! When you get the bass to sound pleasing and musical, then you can add an effect if you'd like, but I'd go easy on it. You could use a limiter to take some of the volume-spike out of the higher bass notes, but it will probably make the bass track sound sterile and lifeless.

Remember.... LESS IS MORE!

We try to keep it sweet, natural and melodic... and then let the guitars dirty-up the song.
 
How are you plugging it into the mixer? DI or straight in? If its straight in, you might want to check for any level or impedance issues that could degrade the sound. My best advice would be to get a good pre like a Sansamp Bass Driver or RBI or Countryman DI or Avalon U5, and bypass the board. Granted, that will cost you a couple hundred bucks for the cheapest option, but it would be worth it. Alternately, you could use an ART Tube MP like someone else suggested...a lot of people here have had success with one of those as a bass DI. It just doesn't afford you all of the tonal adjustments that a better preamp would.
 
We are recording straight in, I'll look into getting a good DI or preamp when if I land this job Im working on.

Is there any specifics on compression that you guys could tell me about? I've been recording for years, but havent messed with compression very much, as I have always tried to get the sound good before it got to that part. I'm open to try anything, I just can't seem to get a consistant volume among different notes.
 
If you're playing heavy grunge rock, I bet you're really digging in and hitting those strings hard. Well a good trick to recording bass (apart from the need for a DI as already mentioned) is to turn up the volume and play gently. Just stroke the strings, let the pick ups do the work. Try it that way and might not need a compresser.
 
Seriously, you should. Any session bass player will tell you the same. Let us know :)
 
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