Problems with bass distorting while tracking

[Matt Grondin]

Hi everyone, I'm having a real dilemna here... earlier while doing a session, I was getting a great bass sound... I even had the bass player turn the guitar down to 3/4 to avoid overdriving the input... everything went well and we finished the bass on all seven of the songs for their disc... well, I went back tonight and soloed it and it was distorting on certain notes... I know I wasn't clipping anywhere because I checked several times so I'm really kind of freaked, as well as pissed.

When I put the bass in the with the drums, I could barely hear the shitiness on the bass, and when I put all the scratch tracks in, it sounded fine, which would explain why I continued tracking even though it was distorting. So bottom line, is this something I should worry about? Is it going to become more or less apparent after mixing and mastering when the bass is fine-tuned and slipped into the mix? I really don't want to recut anything, plus it makes me look like an amateur. I have a feeling that the bass player turned up on me and started hitting the notes harder than when we were getting sounds. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, especially so I can avoid it in the future. Thanks.

[zarembo]

Originally Posted by dobby12

Hi everyone, I'm having a real dilemna here... earlier while doing a session, I was getting a great bass sound... I even had the bass player turn the guitar down to 3/4 to avoid overdriving the input... everything went well and we finished the bass on all seven of the songs for their disc... well, I went back tonight and soloed it and it was distorting on certain notes... I know I wasn't clipping anywhere because I checked several times so I'm really kind of freaked, as well as pissed.

When I put the bass in the with the drums, I could barely hear the shitiness on the bass, and when I put all the scratch tracks in, it sounded fine, which would explain why I continued tracking even though it was distorting. So bottom line, is this something I should worry about? Is it going to become more or less apparent after mixing and mastering when the bass is fine-tuned and slipped into the mix? I really don't want to recut anything, plus it makes me look like an amateur. I have a feeling that the bass player turned up on me and started hitting the notes harder than when we were getting sounds. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, especially so I can avoid it in the future. Thanks.

Hey Dobby, sucks to hear you didn't hear what was happening with the bass till it was too late.

I'm wondering, tho- how you recorded it in the first place?

You don't mention a DI or amp or anything.

I pretty much always leave the bass turned up all the way and adjust gain structure from there where I can control it, especially if the bass player lacks finesse.

Can you strap a compressor across it on the way in next time you record?

As to your questions about it sitting in the mix un-noticed,

I guess you'll find out when you mix it.

I'm kind of a basic recorder person, as in no software or such so if it's on tape with distortion then it's a done deal. But I was involved with something similar where we had to find the offending note which WASN'T distorting and cut and paste it over the clipped ones. Didn't always work so well.

Because of this experience in the past I don't like to leave bassists
any more gain on their end, just so they can't trick me.

Good luck man, maybe one of the masters around here will have a good fix for you.

take care

[Matt Grondin]

Hi, thanks for the response. My fix would be to recut all the bass... I think the most time consuming part of it was just getting his parts worked out and now that's done, it shouldn't be too hard to recut or convince him to recut, especially if I can get better sounds.

The tone wasn't that great anyway, which is surprising considering how nice some of the gear is that we used. I would like to order a REDDI DI, but I don't see how I could use that with an amp. I'm also looking at the TAB-Funkenwerk V71.

To answer your question, I recorded the bass with a Music Man Stingray into a Aguilar DB 680 preamp, taking the direct out of that, and went into an Aguilar power amp into the speakers. The part that's messing with my head is that the mic'ed signal was sounding distorted too and that's why I had him turn down. I know the API pre for the bass mic wasn't clipping so maybe something isn't working properly with the input stage of the Aguilar preamp? It belongs to my friend so I'm not sweating it too bad if it's not working properly. Thanks again for your response and I plan on doing some serious tweaking/testing to avoid this problem ever again. Later.

[goldphinga]

hi there, had another thought as i have had the same problem. is the stingray an active bass? if it is then you should replace the batteries straight away. what you are describing is the classic sign of batteries on their way out (with active basses anyway) also, try a new lead try a different bass and check the jack socket is clamping the lead properly, then if no joy the problem lies in the outboard di's and pres.

Most likely the problem is with the bass itself.

my 2 pennies worth!

[zarembo]

gosh you know I've been using my Sadowsky in pasive mode for so long I forgot about the way it distorts as the battery g.....o.....e.....s. dead.

exactly!

p.s. plus not to be an ass but you did mention it's a stingray (yuk)

[gwailoh]

Hi Dobby, sounds like you've already got a preference for re-tracking, since you're not happy with the tone to begin with. If the band are open to that and it won't strain your relationship with them, then there you go. If it's not something you feel you really want to drag the band into, though, it sounds from your description that you've got some other options:

1. Pick one song which has a lot of bad bass notes, mix it, and see what you think. Does the kick hide the bass distortions? Are the distorted notes super prominant? If the mix doesn't sound bad, maybe it's not a detail that's worth sweating.

2. Use your DAW editor to replace the distorted bass notes with undistorted ones.

3. Re-amp from your recorded tracks. I've only ever done this with guitar, never bass, so I dunno if it'll make the distortion worse, or if you might be able to hide it. Might be worth the experiment, especially if the band really love the performance and would prefer to salvage it.

If it were me, the decision would depend largely on my relationship with the band. Am I the "producer"? Then re-track or re-amp, to fix the tone I dislike. Am I the "engineer"? Then edit the bum notes. Stuff like that.

Hope this helps.

[heyman]

No one asked him this. How are you playing back your tracks? Through a Console ? How is your playbak setup..?

[Zooey]

Are the pickups on the bass active? A weak battery usually results in distortion and/or noise with active pickups.

[Matt Grondin]

It could have been the battery.... I asked him if it was new and he said "pretty new" which could mean anything. Seriously, we're talking about the same people that boil their strings instead of buying some new ones. I will try to retrack with a passive bass.

[cdog]

Personally I like a passive basses for a number of reasons.... they tend to be less prone to RFI in my experience and the battery always dies at thr wrong time....

If you or the player prefer to go active, make sure you change the batteries every time you change the strings - especially at the start of the session!.

Also, when recording I like to use a piece of electrical tape to keep the voulme knob on guitars and basses pinned at the max gain setting, unless the player needs to use it for dynamic reasons.

If the distortion occurs only occcasionally and isn't egregious, its probably workable.

You could try penciling it out, filtering it, or using some restoration type tools to minimize it.

[zarembo]

Originally Posted by dobby12

Seriously, we're talking about the same people that boil their strings instead of buying some new ones.

That's hilarious dobby!

what a stop-gap measure that is, boiling the strings.

I did that once just to see what it did and found
it gives them about five minutes of bright and
then they go darker and deader.

What's that cat's name who tracked all the Motown and California hits in the 60's who didn't change the strings on his p-bass for 17 years!?!

Not Jamerson or Carol Kaye, but.....

back when bass was this mysterious creature that floated up way in the back of the mix somewhere coming out the single speaker on your mono AM radio....

[Zooey]

On my active Fender jazz bass, the battery will run down in 24 hours if you leave the instrument cable plugged into the jack. Maybe the Stingray does the same.

Regarding strings: try flatwounds for recording. No joke.

[chetatkinsdiet]

I'll throw out my "hot sports opinion"....
Active basses tend to record like ass. Get a pbass or other passive instrument and you should be fine. An active bass through a DI is asking for trouble. You mention the tone wasn't that good anyway....that's probably why.

Really, a nice meaty bass sound is what you want out of the mic'd amp. You mix that with as much of the clean DI as you need to keep the note definition....that's it.

later,
m

[rogernumber2]

Originally Posted by chetatkinsdiet

I'll throw out my "hot sports opinion"....
Active basses tend to record like ass. Get a pbass or other passive instrument and you should be fine. An active bass through a DI is asking for trouble. You mention the tone wasn't that good anyway....that's probably why.

Really, a nice meaty bass sound is what you want out of the mic'd amp. You mix that with as much of the clean DI as you need to keep the note definition....that's it.

later,
m

I'm having the same problem. I have a KIMA bass(you've never heard of) but I put EMG pickups in it several years ago and i dont remember what type they are. I'm assuming active and I'm trying to run it thru an api512.

Not always, but here and there I get distortion. will the volume you are tracking at affect this?