Recording bass with guitar amp?

  • Thread starter Thread starter killthepixelnow
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killthepixelnow

killthepixelnow

Do it right or dont do it
Hello, I recently read in a book that a great way to have an extra bite on the bass (especially for busy mixes like in death metal) is to blend the original clean signal with a pinch of a distorted bass signal.

So, the idea is to split the signal using a Direct Box. On side goes directly to Pro Tools and the other must go to a distorted guitar amp with a microphone in front of it. My question is, will it hurt my amp? I'm planning to close mic a SM57 but maybe is not the best choice given that the bass has different waves. What would you recommend?

Any help will be appreciated!

PS: Should I use a compressor or should apply it as an insert point on the recording software?
 
Will it hurt your amp to play a bass through it? No.
As for your other questions, try some stuff out and let us know how it goes.
 
Now that I think of it, a guitar amp is a guitar amp so a SM57 maybe will do the job. Not sure about the compression, because I won a Boss CS3... not a really good pedal.
 
It'll be fine. Do it. Be warned though: a little distortion on bass goes a long, long way. It's not like a guitar where you can keep cranking it. Bass likes just a little bit, and anything after that is just noise. A 57 will be fine.
 
I'd agree with that. Less is more unless you want mush. That goes for things like chorus, reverb, flangers and the like, too. A pinch will suffice. In the past, I've pushed the levels of effects and distortion on the bass till I can hear them well because the subtlety isn't easy to hear at first..........then come mix time, found that I have an almost indistinct bluuuuurg. It's like an over ripe banana. Mushy and good only for fritters and home made compost.
 
Thanks for the advices. I've never recorded bass using a microphone, it always went direct thru a DI, a 57 will do the job on a BASS AMP? Should I try other kind of mic?
 
A 57 will do the job on a bass amp or a guitar amp. I have used all kinds of mics to record the bass. Given that it's your tastes and your recordings, you should try whatever you have and see how they sound to you.
 
Uh, hold on a sec. It CAN harm your amp- or at least, the speaker(s.) They may not be built to reproduce frequencies that low, and you could end up having to re-cone them. That happened when I let a bass player play through a Gallien-Kruger 250ML- those little 6" speakers are built like tanks, but they can STILL be overwhelmed.

If you keep the volume low-ish, you should be okay, though.
 
You can also just use an bass amp sim on your DI track to get the distortion as well. Try Ampeg SVX. It has some awesome sounding models.
 
My experience has been just fine using a guitar amp for bass. I use it all the time into a 5150 head going to a Marshall cabinet since my primary instrument is guitar and I can't afford a bass rig. I run it through the clean channel using very little pre-gain, (3-4), into a Beta 57a which works great for both . I do use compression as a plug-in in Cubase. But as mentioned, use post gain with discretion.
 
Lemmy says quit being a pussy and do it.

image.axd
 
I have an Ashdown bass amp head which i use through a marshall 1936 (2x12) guitar cab and it sounds awesome. I can't push it tho as the cones arent going to take endless thrashing of low end.
 
Nothing happened (yet) with my Peavey amp. Bass sounds fine on the distorted guitar amp. I haven't used so much volume and gain, just the right amount in order to record it with a 57. The pure DI signal mixed with the distorted one sounds great. I will use the distorted channel just to add some bite, so I used a little more gain that I actually need. Will post some audio when I record this week.
 
I'd just plug the bass into a DI than record it through a guitar amp. DI + Ampeg SVX would be great!
 
Very growly. But that's growly good, not growly bad. My son told me to tell you the song is "freakin' awesome" {He's in a good mood as I told him 'freakin'' isn't swearing}.
 
I was tempted to use more gain on the amp but I followed the advices from this forum, just enough distortion to add bite without muddying the sound. Then, mixed clean signal 70% with 30% dirty signal. I like the results, especially after our last (and only) album was recorded with a dull bass sound and was lost in the mix (my fault, my fault!).
 
stevieb said:
Uh, hold on a sec. It CAN harm your amp- or at least, the speaker(s.) They may not be built to reproduce frequencies that low, and you could end up having to re-cone them. That happened when I let a bass player play through a Gallien-Kruger 250ML- those little 6" speakers are built like tanks, but they can STILL be overwhelmed.

If you keep the volume low-ish, you should be okay, though.
Click to expand...

Absolutely right. The low end in a bass signal can harm guitar speakers if you crank it too loud. If you're di'ing it anyways, you could roll a lot of the lows out of the guitar amp to save the speakers and still be able to get it reasonably loud (move some air) without hurting anything. Goodluck. Id be interested in how it turns out.
 
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