Recording Bass guitar

[MTL GTAR]

How do most people record bass guitar?Do they mike the cab or go into the board.Ive heard people use direct boxes.Do you still use an amp or what? I know its a beginners question. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[dhughes]

I will typically use DI, preamp out (if the amp has one), and mic the cabinent. Most often, I use the DI as the primary sound and will mix small amounts of the mic and pre out into the overall picture. However, you can get a pretty great sound with just the DI. Look into the Groove Tubes Brick or an RNP as a lower priced great sounding DIs that can also function as standard pres for other applications. Standalone DIs like SansAmp, EvilTwin are great if you want to spend that kind of money on a DI. Do a search for Bass DIs and you'll find a few helpful threads there.

Nothing wrong with asking beginner questions.

[neilsby]

I recently recorded some bass for a rough demo, pre-studio thing. I used it direct into a jmp-1 guitar pre-amp and then into a focusrite penta (bass preset) with a touch of gain and it sat better in the mix then anything i've recorded before. I've found that mic'ing cabs can be a nightmare, especially when the room you record in hasn't been made for the sole purpose of recording. The volume jumps up and down, could be sorted with automatioin or something, but still takes time.

Don't listen to me though, i'm easily pleased and inexperienced.

Neil.

[neilsby]

I recently recorded some bass for a rough demo, pre-studio thing. I used it direct into a jmp-1 guitar pre-amp and then into a focusrite penta (bass preset) with a touch of gain and it sat better in the mix then anything i've recorded before. I've found that mic'ing cabs can be a nightmare, especially when the room you record in hasn't been made for the sole purpose of recording. The volume jumps up and down, could be sorted with automatioin or something, but still takes time.

Don't listen to me though, i'm easily pleased and inexperienced.

Neil.

[MTL GTAR]

you answered alot of my questions.

[LTA]

DI if i don't feel like working on it, or micing a cab isn't an option. DI can be great on its own too. Best of all, it allows you to bypass having to deal with potentially bad 'taste' concerning the player's amp/cab selection and eq/pre/master/effects settings. DI will expose a bad bass, but will sound nice with better basses (with proper setups).

I've gotten back into actually micing amps when possible lately. I will run a DI in case i need to use it in the mix or to reamp, but i personally have issues mixing DI and amp signals together. It is more than just phase cancellation. Bass is such a wide frequency instrument, and sometimes the amp/speaker combo can be just what you need to find a place for the bass amongst guitars and big drums.

Plus, you can do some cool stuff with amps. Use a Y-connector or equivalent and run the bass through a real bass amp, a guitar amp (with some distortion perhaps *smile*), a bass practice amp (good midrange cut), and maybe something like a PA subwoofer or small bullhorn intercom speaker. Treat it like sound design, and have some fun. Make sure everything is in time alignment, and you should be able to get a sound far more unique than a p-bass run direct to the board. If it is too much work (or you want to be safe), go with the proven DI method. No reason the guitar player, drummer, Hammond organ w/ leslie, and jak player should be the only ones with more than one track on a single part

[Sharp11]

Lakland four string direct into a Summit MPC100A

When I have the time, I'll take the out put from my 1972 Silverface Twin and run an extension cab.

This sounds great, too.

[henryrobinett]

Millennia TD-1.