recording bass guitar

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p.babs

New member
I've noticed that there is a ton of advice with regards to 'how to record guitar/vocals/drums'. but I'm not sure I've seen very many conversations regarding recording bass.

anyone want to share any advice or tips?

I don't know much (as a guitarist, for some reason I spend all my time getting great guitar tone), I just throw my kick drum mic infront of the bassists cab and away we go!
 
it all depends on how you are recording, whether you are doing a live set at a gig or studio built for live sets or you are recording track per track in a studio. In a live set you do not want the kick drum facing the bass player rig. It might drown him out plus any mic you put in front of his speaker cabs are going to pick that up and mix with his playing. For a live set I would suggest a large enough room with as many microphones on each individual instrument plus boundary at a distance and overheads on the drums. For the bass exclusively you can get away with a dynamic mic in front of the bass cabinet close enough to capture all the lows mids and highs that the bass player is putting out. Try to listen to the Bass players style of sound tailoring first on his rig because you want to come close to what he is hearing when you apply it to the mix. You can always use a live set recording as a scratch track when you want to go for recording a multi track recording later. where every body in the band records there work individually track per track, and mixed for a professional recording.
 
p.babs said:
I've noticed that there is a ton of advice with regards to 'how to record guitar/vocals/drums'. but I'm not sure I've seen very many conversations regarding recording bass.
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Actually, over the last 18 months there have been quite a few in various guises. Do a search and you may surprize yourself with what you discover..........
 
The D112 is about the only $200-range bass dynamics that can do bass guitars....it was designed for upright bass, after all. The D6 is shit for bass cabs, and the Beta 52a I'd assume would be way too woofy.

D112 works pretty well, as does line in.
 
It just depends on what sound you're looking for. I use several techniques. The DI built into my Mesa head gives me a pretty good picture of the sound of the amp. The SM7 does the best job of all the mics I've tried on giving me an accurate picture of the sound of the cabinet. Sometimes I will mix these two to taste.

If I want to bypass the head and go direct, my favorite DI would be the GA Pre73. I probably go direct more often than any other way. I can then use compression and/or tube overdrive to make the bass sound more like it's been amped, if that's what I want.

For grittier, more distorted bass tones (rarely used), I like my Sansamp PSA-1. It also does good distorted guitar tones.
 
What I've found works great is to unplug the bassist's stomp boxes from the amp and plug them right into a good D/I box. Or just bypass the stomp boxes if you want a natural sound.
 
Seafroggys said:
The D112 is about the only $200-range bass dynamics that can do bass guitars....it was designed for upright bass, after all. The D6 is shit for bass cabs, and the Beta 52a I'd assume would be way too woofy.

D112 works pretty well, as does line in.
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I've had really good results with the Sennheiser e602 or the e902. ;)
 
Bass ---> DI ---> Done. :)

The right DI can make a difference...though IMHO...you gotta work hard to f*ck up bass sounds...with most any DI setup. :D
The FET-type DI boxes seem to excel at bass guitar recording.
I was using the built-in DI on one of my older preamps for a long time now, which is a FET circuit...but this week I tried the built-in DI on my Langevin DVC which I recently acquired, and I think the DVC is going to be the new go-to DI for bass. It really adds some nice texture to the sound, and it sound more like a bass going through a big, open speaker cab...than a real speaker cab!
Plus, I like the fact that my DVC has built-in EQ and also there's the built-in ELOP limiter...so it's going to be a real sweet tone-shaping machine.

But hey...you don't need an expensive box like the DVC. I've taken a simple standalone DI box, and it gave me darn good bass sounds. I tried a Groove Tubes DI a few weeks back, and it was sweet sounding. I could work with that just as easily...and you can get them for like $40.
 
I use D112, DI, sm57, and I've even used an NTK and Fat Head on the bass guitar. I don't have a sound I'm in love with yet, but i've used pretty much every mic I have except for my SDCs and they all sound decent and different. Get the sound you want, pick the mic that best captures that sound. As for placement and technique, I kinda do it like guitar: between center of cone and edge of speaker, at grill or up to 6" away. I've done some distant micing and didn't like it.
 
I've done a few different things, my favorite was a blend of a direct signal from a Mesa Titan and a D112 in front about a good foot in front of it's matching cab (10" drivers).

My second favorite was a SVT-3 through a 6x10 classic with again the D112 in front about a good foot away.

My third is just going through my pre (a Bmax with the Sonic Max and Compressor on bypass).

My fourth is direct through an instrument in on my interface.


But all of the above is moot if the bass sucks or the strings are old.
 
The biggest thing I've taken away from the replies were the comments about DI.
So far I've found that the bassists stomp boxes suck when they are recorded,
as well, I'll play with mic use, as i stated i was using my bass drum mic, I'll try the sm57, see how that goes.
thanks for the starting tips.
 
p.babs said:
The biggest thing I've taken away from the replies were the comments about DI.
So far I've found that the bassists stomp boxes suck when they are recorded....
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What do you mean by "bassists stomp boxes"...?...are you refering to DI boxes or something else?
 
miroslav said:
What do you mean by "bassists stomp boxes"...?...are you refering to DI boxes or something else?
Click to expand...

When we play live, quite often he will use some sort of a distortion box, sounds really cool live, but didn't come through very well when we recorded it.
 
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