Suggestions for Bass Micing

N

nuss

New member
Can you guys give me some suggestions on mics to record a Bass rig with 1 4x10 cab and a 15" cab? I am looking for something other than the AKG D-112.

Anything between $200 - $500 CDN (or $100 -$350 US)

Thanks in advance!!
 
I beleive that a much better tone is acheived by blending a direct signal with a mic'ed signal.

Still need new ideas for bass micing!!!
 
Chill, I'd use my at3525 for micing a bass rig. their $200 in musicians friend. Use a sm57 on one of the 10's then the AT3525 on the 15".
Or don't play through the 15" and mic the 10" w/ the AT3525.
Cuz your bass guitar is gonna kick through those 10's anyway. You could also cover up the 3 10's that you aren't micing w/ a blanket or some old carpet.
Adam
 
thanks for the info!!

Fantastic idea about covering the un-miced speakers, I never would have thought about that!!

Off to try!
 
Great article.

For the cab sound, you may want to experiment with a Beta52, Sennheiser E-602, or Audix D-4. I have had good results with all three, as well as the D-112. I could get more specific, but you didn't mention what type of sound you're looking for.

By the way, be honest with yourself, before you decide to start messing with cab micing. Does your cab really sound that good. I often encounter players who want me to mic their cab, just because they read in an article that famous engineers get great bass sounds this way. Of course they do! They're capturing every nuance of an incredible rig, being played by a world class bassist.

If you do choose to mic the rig, be sure to experiment with different mic distances, while listening to both the mic and the DI sound. I also like to turn the L-Pad all the way down on the horn(if it has one) and EQ the cab that way. It's too hard to find the perfect position to catch both sounds equally.

Good Luck,

Brad
 
You could buy that expensive mic, or get a bass pod and go direct I thought it may prevent kicking yourself when you find out you could have had one for about the same price.
 
If you want to buy an AT3525, don't go to Musician's Friend. I have had bad experiences with them...really cheap and crummy way to do business. 8th Street Music is selling the AT3525 for $150. www.8thstreet.com

Isaiah
 
Gotta agree with Darrin... If you're trying to decide between two options, DI is where you should invest your money. However, I have don't like the POD. For the money, the SansAmp Bass Driver DI is a much better value.

We've run a Ken Smith, Streamer Stage-1, and a Stingray in the studio. I've tried these basses through a Grand-Pre and a vintage SVT. The SVT wins hands down, but it costs twice the price of the Sans Amp just to replace the tubes! Check it out. You won't be sorry :-)

Brad
 
I'm a big fan of the pod and the sansamp stuff. I can record bass and guitar at 3 am. If you don't have gnarly equipment, it's hard to get a gnarly sound.
 
nuss said:


Fantastic idea about covering the un-miced speakers, I never would have thought about that!!
Click to expand...

Yeah, in the home studio the whole point of the exercise is to try tons of goofy experiments until you find something that's a killer technique. There's nobody there to laugh at you!

Craig Anderton, grandpa of the home studio concept, made this point over and over in his books. You don't have a lot of money, but you have time and ideas. It was Anderton who first popularized the expedient of using a closet full of hanging clothes for an acoustically-dead vocal booth, for example.

Who was the first guy to use those rough-fiber commercial egg flats for acoustic tiles, I wonder? 8-)
 
Prism said:
If you want to buy an AT3525, don't go to Musician's Friend. I have had bad experiences with them...really cheap and crummy way to do business.
Click to expand...

My main beef with them is their notoriously poor packing of anything fragile. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Shudder to think what a decent microphone would work like after being bounced around in a 2'x2'x2' box with no packing from coast-to-coast via UPS. They wrecked some vacuum tubes by sending them to me like that. Idiots.

They teach them to bag the eggs under the canned goods, I think.
 
bongolation said:
My main beef with them is their notoriously poor packing of anything fragile. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Shudder to think what a decent microphone would work like after being bounced around in a 2'x2'x2' box with no packing from coast-to-coast via UPS. They wrecked some vacuum tubes by sending them to me like that. Idiots.

They teach them to bag the eggs under the canned goods, I think.
Click to expand...
They used to have a store here so I never had to order anything from them (good thing it sounds like), but I did find it a little odd when they asked me if I wanted paper or plastic. :D

-tkr
 
Great article - but just one small thing...

"It's got to go down pretty much where it needs to be if you're going to get the killer track."

er, um - isn't that kind of obvious, or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

I don't think it's obvious at all. In fact, it's often a trouble spot. Lets say, you go back and decide that there is not enough of a rhythm center so you add a tambourine to the snare on two and four, or a sixteenth note shaker track. When you do that, it changes the groove of the track and you end up having to adjust compression, etc to make things fit. It pays to conceptualize the entire rhythm from the get-go, but that's often easier said than done.

I also disagree with his apparently universal statement that you should limit the amount of compression on the bass track. He's talking about Chuck Rainey for one thing.

Listen to any popular hard rock/"new alternative" song on the radio. The bass is compressed to hell and back... There's no such thing as dynamics on these tracks!

Please don't respond that the tracks are compressed again by the radio station... duh, we all know that. Even on the CD's these songs have no dynamic range. Actually, is a recording trend that kind of sucks if you ask me.

Anyway, I got way off topic... sorry. I hope that answers your question at least a little bit. :-)

Brad Gallagher
http://www.just-for-musicians.com/
 
mix it

wether you mic a bass cabinet or get the sound from DI is basicly a question of with what you derive the sound you like, e.g. always mic a hartke cabinet when the bass player likes 'his sound' - you won't get it when DIing his bass. If the guy or tha gal play an old fender or ibanez musician guitar, you can make him or her happy with purely DI signal. In general I end up using both the mic and the DI. DI transforms the transients much more acurate than a speaker will ever do, on the other hand a mic will often add the characteristic the player is used to, once I miced a bass cabinet with e large diafragm condenser from 2 meters away, delayed the DI signal - put that on HD and put it back to original time again. Sounded nice and the way we wanted it, with a tiny littlebit of a wooden room ambience for warmth.

talking about that, anyone of you heard the empirical labs DISTRESSOR on DI output of a good sounding bass giutar?

I'm a big fan of the TECH21 too, I like their bass version of the PSA1.
 
wether you mic a bass cabinet or get the sound from DI is basicly a question of with what you derive the sound you like
Click to expand...

this is why i started this thread!! I usually mic and go DI and blend the two if I cant get a tone with just mic or DI

I was wondering what some alternative mics to use would be and got some suggestions for a few few different ones.

Thank you all for your replies!!
 
once I miced a bass cabinet with e large diafragm condenser from 2 meters away, delayed the DI signal - put that on HD and put it back to original time again
Click to expand...

Try delaying the signal and then panning them out a little... creates a nice hole in the center of the mix for the kick-- You can hear that trick used a LOT on R&B tracks.

BTW, as you said, the cab will not reproduce transients accurately. Dat's da whole point! The reason so many people like the acoustic properties of 10" speakers is partially because of their frequency response in the transient range (roughly 1 to 3k, depending on how the strings are attacked, etc). This will inevitably give the bass track more "punch".

BTW, nuss... If you just record the track DI'd flat, you can run it out of your recorder into a mic'd amp. That way, you can try out any number of cab and mic variations, after you have the right feel for the track. I've gone back and done this when I found that the mic track didn't fit quite the way I had hoped.

Brad Gallagher
http://www.just-for-musicians.com/
 
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