Recording Bass

[bleyrad]

This is a good post.

And bleyrad - you will hear 1.5 - 3ms... it's not theoretical... depending on the frequency. It'll sound like coloration, because it's combfiltering the bass note frequency because of the time/phase shift.

I wasn't speaking of 1.5-3ms out of phase, i was talking about two perfectly-in-phase signals (time aligned) that are BOTH exactly 1.5-3ms behind the groove of the song. it would sound like the bass player hits his notes 1.5-3ms later than he actually did. this is the only sort of correction i'm talking about, and that's why it's theoretical. moving one ahead or the other behind, you will get them in phase either way, but only one way will give you the exact instant the bass player hit the notes.

 

[bleyrad]

ummm. if the electrical current is in phase the waveform would be inphase. Why wouldnt it be? And phase and timing is not necessarily the same thing . You can be 1 beat off and still be in phase. The electrical current is transfered into waves, thus if the electrical current is in phase then so will the wave?

We're talking about seperately DI'ing and micing the bass amp, and combining them. They may not be wired out of phase (180 degrees), but there will be a SLIGHT time difference between the DI (first) and the amp (second). It might make the waveforms look like this:

As you can see, both the waveforms (DI and mic) are pretty much aligned. They're in phase. Now imagine (sorry I don't have another picture) that the bottom waveform is moved to the left about 2ms. The crests of the two waveforms would no longer match up horizontally. This is where it originally was, and the selected part of it that you see is pasted-in silence to move the whole track to the right, in order to correct this phase misalignment.
Making sense yet?

 

[bleyrad]

The electrical current is transfered into waves, thus if the electrical current is in phase then so will the wave? Danny

It just so happens, that due to the magical properties of sound physics, flipping the phase electrically on a sine wave has precisely the same effect as delaying the waveform by the time difference between where the waveform crosses DC going up and where it crosses DC again coming down from a peak. Both these cases will cause 180 degrees of phase shift. Moving the sine wave lesser amounts will cause lesser degrees of phase shift, and will cause the thinning, flanging, comb-filter-effect when two similar/identical waveforms are used... one of them somewhat out of phase.

 

[kid klash]

Hi Bleyrad,

You wrote :

"moving one ahead or the other behind, you will get them in phase either way, but only one way will give you the exact instant the bass player hit the notes."

That's true - but if you want to hear it realtime, even before you record a single note, there's only one way to do it, and that's by delaying the mic'ed signal.

 

[darnold]

Ahhhh ok i understand what you were saying now. Some where there i got a little confused at what the phasing and timing things . We were talking about totally different things. Sorry about that. I understand now what you are saying.

Sorry for the confusion.

Danny

 

[Psychotic Deli]

Get a compresser. Use the noise gate. If your using the same equipment for everything else, it is probebly the bass itself or the amp. Some times a instruments ground inside the body gets loose. Check it. Its not you r equipment, if it works good on all else.


Also, too much low end hurtz can cause problems. I have noticed through personal expierience that all is good until the bass is brought into the mix. Try easing up on the bass. Bass is loud! Its one of the hardest sounds to regulate (as in noise proofing). A little bass goes along ways.

 

[maestro_dmc]

Yep, too much bass really Hertz . . . er Hurtz


Hurts?