recording bass (help!)

[paulf]

feeling like the biggest idiot in the world right now. but i have to ask this question:

when you record a bass, does it have to be almost entirely inaudiable?

seriously. i have a fender pbass, mxr di box, alesis 8 chan mixer running into either cubase or cakewalk, and i am still unable to record anything halfway decent. when i try to turn up loud enough to get a good sound it peaks and sounds distored as hell. its solid in the yellow on my mixer input and if i turn up to where its just before red its already distorting. tried compression, no luck.

if i record and stay below the red, you can just barely, barely make out the bass. recording guitars was a breeze and the sound quality is great, but the bass is so bad i cant even put the two together.

is this something to be solved with mastering? like keep your levels low till then? surely there is some anwser that involes me being an idiot.

thanks for your time, any suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

[aviv]

Try taking things out of your chain for the moment, maybe something in there is causing you a problem. So just try the bass straight into your mixer. See how that works.

I have the Ashdown Mag300 amp, that amp has DI out, i use that and mic it with a d112.
Keep experimenting mate.
good luck!

 

[second skin]

how about leave the bass level where it is, turn everything else down and turn the overall monitor level up.

also maybe put a plugin compressor across the bass to even out the level a bit when you are listening.