Recording Bass

[Eric VB]

getz, are you saying that the low-frequency compression waves have, what -- such a long wavelength? -- that microphone technology can't accurately record it? Do you need a diaphram the size of a large kick drum or something?

[alexclaber]

One issue is that bass cabs have multiple sources - woofer/tweeter/port, even midrange as well. And in small studio rooms you can get cabin gain and standing waves causing low frequency boom.

 

The mics are fine - it's the interface between mic, room and cab that's the problem.

 

Alex

[The Bear Jew]

You could always use a bass Pod for tracking.

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Originally posted by RicBassGuy:

 

1. Is it any different when a g****r player brings in a rig? I'm sure a lot of them insist their rig is integral to their sound, whether or not it is better than just "mediocre sounding". Or, are there simply more makes/models of quality g****r rigs?

 

2. On the other forum the only acceptable bass rig for recording is an Ampeg B-15.

 

 

3. How impractical? If a studio can have a separate vocal booth and drum room, why not one designed to mic a bass rig? Are we talking something the size of a one-lane bowling alley?

 

4. Have you ever had a bass player in your studio that really blew you away, ...

 

5. For an acoustic bass, I'm sure you'd rather mic it.

 

6. Is there something about amplified electric bass guitar -- - that makes it sound terrible next to an acoustic instrument? (Based on what you said, it would seem that the problem is the means of amplification.

 

7. I hope you can see things through the bass player's eyes.

 

8. Wouldn't it be better from a recording engineer's position to record g****r DI and then add distortion/etc. ...Maybe they should all play a Gibson LP through a Marshall stack?

 

9. I don't mean to sound confrontational. I'm just wondering why no one ever tries to think outside the box (in the general sense) when it comes to bass.

Not 'should' or 'shouldn't'.... just generally 'is'.

 

 

1. You know from reading my posts on the other forum that I kept a collection of basses, guitars, and amps at the studio. Bass amps, too. But mostly guitar amps. (Hint: why do you think that is????? hmmm.... maybe guitarists have problems, too.....)

 

But you do bring up a good point in that there is a line between trying to capture the performance, and changing the performance. I try not to change the performance. Any time any player wants to hear why I request the changes in setup that I do, or choose to record the way that I do, I am always happy to let them hear it their way and my way. Drummers are the toughest... trying to explain to them the difference between "ring" and "tone" is hard, but playing back a soloed tom track and letting them hear their tom ring and ring and ring in sympathy with the music, in spite of never or seldom being hit... now THAT is worth a thoudand words. They 'get it' when I do that, because they understand then how it muds up the final sound.

 

2. I'm an old shcool guy and there was an old Ampeg bass amp in the studio, but that is for a particular sound. There is a G&K there, too. I have not caught up to Edens and Ashdowns etc, just because of the expense.

 

3. A dedicated room for a bass amp would have to be large.

 

4. Many times. Yes, I work very hard to capture their sound. There is no cookie cutter answer, but generally (I have to generalize here, sorry...) the bass sounds super, and I get the bulk of the signal if not all of it from the bass DI. The rest of the rig may or may not sound as good. Obviously, if it sounds good I use it. Oh, and for what it is worth, usually the killer players that I see have simple rigs with few outboard pieces. (I love the stories about recording Jaco, where he never changed his strings... another case of the talent overcoming the technology, which we talk about from time to time.)

 

5. Absolutely.

 

6. Usually it is the rig. Yes, a lot of you guys spend money on good stuff. Bass amp technology has leaped forward in the last ten years. There are better and better choices available... much moreso than when I was coming up, and the choices were an SVT or an Acoustic 360.

But just as many players cobble together some of the most horrific Frankenstien rigs I've ever seen. And as has been mentioned, even good rigs might have multiple speaker components that make micing impractical in a normal small studio envrionment.

 

I have to tell you that for the most part, the natural tone of the instrument is great. Throwing 37 eqs, multiple gain stages (and God save me from more damned tube preamps....) and all the processing... gee whiz, I get it when someone is trying to absolutely make a different sound, like a fuzz bass or whatever, but for a straight up bass sound, all of this junk just muddys up the sound. (Then of course, we add in a BBE to sharpen it up.... oy....)

 

7. I like to believe that I get hired to make the band sound like themselves, only on CD. But in reality, we all want to sound just a little better when we finally hear ourselves. A lot of time is spent/wated trying to hide flaws in recordings. I prefer to eliminate these flaws at the start. I believe that it is faster, cheaper, and easier for you to replay the part than it is for me to fix it after the fact. I believe that we should start out getting the tone you want before we record, not at mixdown. I believe that you should come in well rehearsed and with equipment in good order (I have to have my shit together, why shouldn't you?)

 

8. No. As much as you might like to deny it, the guitar is a fundimentally different animal than the bass. Similar in shape, yes. Not in sound, or in what most bass players want their instrument to sound like. I'll agree that there are some guitarists who simply kill and use a lot of effects and junk in their rig, but with bass players? Far fewer can get away with the multiple effect rig without losing it all in the resultant mud, and making my job as a recordist a lot harder.

 

If a big effect mix is a part of your sound, obviously I have to find some acceptable way to capture it. But the average guy? He's playing bass. His rig is not designed for recording, it is designed to be used on stage. Different acoustics require different solutions.

 

9. I didn't take it that way. But 'thinking outside of the box' seems to mean something different to you than it does to me. You've seen me take the guitarists to task about the difference between what they -need- on stage and what they choose to carry. Wanna think outside of the box? Think about smaller cabinets with tighter designs giving crisper, more lively and responsive tone. Think about fewer electronics in the signal path, and more tone. Think about spending less money on the latest 'gotta haves' at GC, and more time on practicing, recording, and listening with a critical ear. (Because, standing anywhere near your amp, you cannot hear what the audience hears, and when you are playing, you cannot be concentrating on the sound.) I love live music, and I wish that the technology that is available today was around when I was a lot younger, because the possibilites are amazing. But generally, the music that I hear on club stages is less than inspiring, in spite of some great songwriting and some cool ideas. The art of tone and individuality seems to have been lost in the need for distortion and the desire to sound like everybody else.

 

 

Bill

[Eric VB]

Bill, thank you for your outstanding response! A plethora of valuable advice, as always! (Thanks too to getz and Alex for helping me "get it".)

Originally posted by bpark@prorec.com:

[... The average guy's] rig is not designed for recording, it is designed to be used on stage. Different acoustics require different solutions. [...]

I think this is the "take home" message in terms of lukebass' original query (sorry for the slight hijack, lukebass). But as Bill points out, the recording engineer can always try a mic on our stage rig; however, we as bass players shouldn't expect much and we may just be wasting time. Further, relying on our stage rig to define our sound doesn't help when it comes to recording (and may not even help with FoH SR).

 

[...] 'thinking outside of the box' seems to mean something different to you than it does to me. [valuable advice follows]

Well, I set it off in quotes so as not to confuse it with mixing ITB/OTB that's bandied about in other contexts. Here I meant "why not try something other than DI electric bass?" Obviously, it has been tried, but recording a stage rig in a (small) studio space is often (but not always) disappointing due to differing acoustic environments.

 

In this light what Geddy is doing makes even more sense. And one of the things he's giving his recording engineer is DI.

 

I think my next rig will feature a "transparent" power amp and cabs, so the sound is defined before that, and there's no need to mic anything when it comes time to record. (I know others of you have already been down this road; now I see why.)

 

Bill, I can't afford to pay you for the "preproduction", but I'll definitely buy you a beverage if we ever meet.

[ArwinH]

Quick question:

It's become obvious that mixing the signals from many mics ( as placed on the horn and woofer of a 2 way cab, or as used when using a room mic and a mic on the speaker) can lead to congestion and a muddy sound in terms of a miced signal from a bass amp.

Now, what about the recording techniques for acoustic intruments such as acoustic guitars in which several mics are used in different areas surrounding the guitar/ guitarist. Why is this common practice if it has been seen in other applications to lead to muddy, congested tone?

[cloclo]

hey luke,

 

if you guys have the material, time and tracks to spare, try both:

 

- a DI for the clean cut signal

- a miked tube amp for the fatness

 

try not to add/boost frequencies later in the mix. get them recorded in the first place.

 

above all, get the fun in your playing instead of being overwhelmed by the studio factor. good songs played with gusto sound super on a cheap tape-recorder also. a million dollar setup with perfect recording cannot disguide a lifelessly (?) played set.

 

just 2 cents from another guy

[g.]

Arwin,

 

I'm going to sidestep most of your question but try to underline what Bill said about using DI. It's not that DI is superior per se - it's that most bass cabs are INFERIOR ; } ...OK, sounds like a word game, but the fact is that low frequencies are harder to deal with even before acoustic space is introduced.

 

Most bass cabs are two-way* at most, with a gap in the midrange from both the tweeter horn and the woofer being somewhat out of phase with each other, the low freq response is often uneven and doesn't even have the low extension of a good home stereo system of decades ago... and then also many players are running cabs in parallel that are not even all that similar. So you have to work very slow sometimes to get a compelling signal that you could get from a DI and a good channel strip or preamp in a small amount of time CONSISTENTLY.

 

Guitars in this regard are quite different, their role does not require more than the historical full-range speaker system and the sound of the head/preamp also is an accepted part of THE INSTRUMENT, rather than being seen often as some substitute for on-stage monitoring in the live context. Take the "amp" away from most guitarists and you have taken the feel, the character, the very essence of their collected set of gestural performance techniques.

 

You can't really say that about many bassists.

 

Then there are mics. Having a good selection that are kind to various bass cabs and sounds that also handle high SPL is again not as easy to come by as a decent DI'd signal chain. You can spend a lot of time messing with 'em too, and bassists are often last on the plate and expectations are that very little time will be spent dialing 'em in.

 

Again, they are also more problematic of the local acoustical space too, with standing waves, exaggerated changing reponse according to position and placement around walls, floor, and ceiling, and needing more acoustic treatment and I think a larger area to really minimize some of the aberrations.

 

* * *

 

I take CMDN's offhand comment pretty seriously as well: as bass modeling tools improve and a greater selection is available, at least some people are going to be able to get great results pretty quickly that way once the learning curve is dealt with, and it may be especially suitable for people who use the same setup live. And as with guitars, I expect to see a lot more "reamping" - modeling done in the computer - done in the future for bass as well as guitar. This will often be at the project studio level, but taking a note from guys like Geddy I expect to see some people with a lot larger budgets considering modeling preamps and reamping at least part of the time.

 

 

* EDIT: Here\'s a bit from Acme describing two-way systems I consider relevant to this discussion for bassists and production styles where a full range accurate bass sound is considered essential as a starting point.

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Originally posted by ArwinH:

Quick question:

It's become obvious that mixing the signals from many mics ( as placed on the horn and woofer of a 2 way cab, or as used when using a room mic and a mic on the speaker) can lead to congestion and a muddy sound in terms of a miced signal from a bass amp.

"mixing the signals from many mics ... can lead to congestion and a muddy sound ...."

 

I didn't say that. I said that in most cases it is impractical to try to mic the different components of a bass cabinet. And due to the physical limitations of small rooms, (because the 'problem' frequencies tend to be in the audible range, and low enough to be a big part of the bass signal) distance micing the cab can be a problem. Small/home studios in general have a tough time with low frequencies and low frequency buildup.

 

I recently recorded a concert pianist. She found the 'perfect' Steinway, in the right concert hall. We booked the room for three days. They did piano tweaking prior to my arrival. I did an evening of setup, moving mics and the instrument around the space, putting up acoustical treatment, listening, changing..., then the tracking started. I used 2 Schoeps small diaphragm condensers, at the approximate ear level of a seated concert attendee, at a distance from the instrument that gave me enough presence of the piano, plus enough of the entire acoustical signature of the instrument, and just enough 'room tone' to give the recording a 'live concert' feel.

 

Though my studio has room for a Steinway concert grand (barely...) and the room is acoustically treated, I could not have recorded the instrument in my space. It would have sounded like shit.

 

If is is important to you that I record your speaker cabinet, I can do that. But if we try to do it in my small studio, it is going to sound like shit.

 

Why the great desire to use the concert speaker rig? Just curious. I have a rig with which I play out, (I play guitar) and a much better rig with which I record. Different jobs which I find easier to do with different tools. Just as I use different mics, different eqs, and different other components for recording than I do for live work.

 

Bill

[g.]

Damn, Bill - ya stole my kazzoo recording story. Just disguising it with a piano won't hide that fact! ; } - Best to you, man!

[ArwinH]

Thank you guys, especially BPark and GreenBoy. I think all of this information is stuff that I should have gotten a long time ago. Some I have known, but what I didn't I really value.

Sorry if I hijacked the thread, and ranted and questioned for too long.

Bill, I don't really have much of a desire to send an amp signal all the time. Sometimes I find that if I plan on using effects, reamping a track, or recording with a miked amp for effects and a di signal for bass is useful. But, I've done some projects where I've jsut added effects through pro tools at mixdown. Also, sometimes if I'm limited to a di without any outboard tone controls , then using a post eq line out from my head or miking the cab gives me better results. I've gotten the greatest results with a di and a high quality preamp and compressor in the past though.

Again, thank you guys for your help and guidance, and sorry for hijacking the thread.

[g.]

Seems like it was all grist for the mill to me, Arwin... Ironically I was just getting out of recording for the most part when I had been using my first DAW (rather prehistoric by today's standards) for a year or so. Most of what I talk about is from analog experience and soundman logic.

[Eric VB]

Originally posted by bpark@prorec.com:

Why the great desire to use the concert speaker rig?

I can't speak for Arwin, but I only have one rig. I don't have an acoustic bass, so my rig is generally the only way I hear myself. Any other means of making myself heard will obviously sound ... different.

 

Often in a recording session headphones are used. These can cramp your style, to say the least. (One pair I had to use was so bad I had to guess at intonation, dynamics and timing, and just made a blind leap of faith that what my fingers were doing would translate later on.) I've heard some bass players prefer to record direct in the control room (when multitracking) and use the reference system for monitoring. This makes much more sense to me.

 

But then you get back to what you were saying earlier. What is captured in the studio doesn't sound the same as what is heard live on stage, which I agree is probably for the better considering most venues. Your piano story is a counter example, but it also highlights the impracticality of everything that greenboy echos. I can't imagine trying to rent the same space a month later and getting exactly the same recording conditions, for instance. (Would a studio with a "big room" make a difference?)

 

What's a bass player to do? The solution appears to be to remove any dependency your sound has on power amps and cabs. (Not good news for the bass gear manufacturers, but they may have a new day dawning anyway due to the current fiasco.) As long as you plug in to transparent/flat amps/cabs, you should always sound the same. (Or is my naivity showing again?)

[getz out]

Get used to headphones (by playing with headphones) and bring your own set to a session. I would never do a session without my headphones.

[g.]

RBG,

 

I have tended toward flatter extended-response bass rigs for another reason - they provide a more transparent window for modeling (and effects use, at times). But, yes, ther is some merit to their use on stage even when modeling is not a prerequisite.

 

With that in mind, how you have tailored your live sound with bass, strings, EQ etc will have some effect on how well that translates to a different signal chain in the studio, but don't forget that the live rig is still interacting with a variety of acoustical environments that are less than optimum, and thus, some of your choices may be to counteract or minimize that.

 

So what you are doing live still might not translate directly in a studio environment, and also a stage and FOH mix isn't what is always desired for a studio recording. When some parts of the mix change because of this obviously ripples spread out to all the other parts of the mix.

[g.]

Yeah, getting used to cans can be considered akin to getting comfortable playing with click tracks. You can run but you can't hide ; }

[Eric VB]

Originally posted by greenboy:

[...] a stage and FOH mix isn't what is always desired for a studio recording. [...]

True. Even a symphony orchestra recorded in a grand concert hall can pick up annoying things, especially if the conductor likes to hum along ... off-key.

 

OTOH, I haven't heard any orchestras recorded by multitracking, either.

 

All wisea**ness aside, I agree that your statement applies to the overwhelming majority here (if not everyone).

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Originally posted by RicBassGuy:

[qb] I don't have an acoustic bass, so my rig is generally the only way I hear myself. Any other means of making myself heard will obviously sound ... different.

 

Often in a recording session headphones are used. I've heard some bass players prefer to record direct in the control room (when multitracking) and use the reference system for monitoring. This makes much more sense to me.

 

But then you get back to what you were saying earlier. What is captured in the studio doesn't sound the same as what is heard live on stage...What's a bass player to do? The solution appears to be to remove any dependency your sound has on power amps and cabs. As long as you plug in to transparent/flat amps/cabs, you should always sound the same. (Or is my naivity showing again?)

OKay, lets back up a bit.

 

First, why would you not want your rig to accurately and smoothly reproduce all the notes on your instrument at the same amplitude?

 

Okay, that should take care of what we expect out of an amp. Now, are you adding eqs from the amp? Compression? What else is available on the modern bass amp?

 

So... the EQ should be used to fix the sound in a given room, and would change from room to room. You might want to use the eq to somewhat shape your instrument tone. The eqs that we use in the studio go for about $3,000 each, and have a pretty strong level of precission and a totally sweet sound. Still want to use the one that came for free with your amp? Same idea with compressors...compressors smoothe out the differences in level and are mostly used to reduce dynamics... something that I abhor, but could be a part of your signature sound. If I've got world class compressors that make your DIed bass sound exactly like you wish that it could on stage, do you still want to use the one in your amp? If so, I'll take a DI from your amp. Questions answered, done, moving on.

 

Headphones traditionally have horrible bass response. Why would a bass player try to get a sound from them? The rest of us are just using them to keep us on track, we don't really expect anything that we hear to sound that way in the mix.

 

Now, the audience doesn't hear what you hear. This is the biggest falacy going. It's not just bassists, but guitar players, too. So let us not pretend that the sound that you hear 5 feet from your bass rig is the same one that the typical bar patron is hearing at 35 feet. Which sound do you want me to capture? If it is the sound of you on stage at the bar, then lets go there, and put a mic up around your ears and get that sound. A mic in front of the cabinet won't hear it.

 

What is a bas player to do? The answer is simple. Pick your studio carefully. Listen to output from that studio before you commit to anything. If there is another band in town that plays in a similar style and you like their recordings, find out where and how they did it. In other words, be a conciencous shopper.

 

Once you get in the room, let the guy do what he does. Do what you do. The end result should be music.

 

Bill

[getz out]

Thanks to Bill and greenboy, this turned out to be a great thread.

[Eric VB]

First off, thanks again Bill for the info. The "golden rule of recording", in particular, cannot be overstated:

Originally posted by bpark@prorec.com:

Once you get in the room, let the guy do what he does. Do what you do. The end result should be music.

Either I'm not communicating efficiently or I'm still not understanding something. Thanks for your patience, either way.

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Originally posted by RicBassGuy:

Either I'm not communicating efficiently or I'm still not understanding something. Thanks for your patience, either way. [/QB]

 

Well, ask again. What am I not answering? Maybe I don't have an answer, and I've been ducking the question!

 

Bill

[Eric VB]

Heh. Well, Bill, as long as I'm not making your life a total living hell ...

 

Long story short, at this point I'm trying to agree with you.

 

My last lament was aimed at the conundrum of getting a consistent sound both on stage and in the studio. According to your post, your solution (for g****r) was to have separate amps; "the right tool for the job". For bass, often the right tool for the studio is DI.

 

First, some common ground. Many here (including myself) will agree that the player and the bass are mostly responsible for defining the sound. Hence, (to paraphrase your earlier post) most of the sound is in the DI. Makes sense. So we know we can get good sound in the studio with DI.

 

If the studio gives the better sound, then obviously the problem lies with the stage rig. In other words, the stage rig is not producing accurate audio (like a reference system).

 

How do we get the DI sound on stage? Ideally with transparent (flat) SR. (The sound guy is still allowed to work his magic of course, as greeboy points out, in accordance with the room acoustics.)

 

And there in lies the problem. (Huh?) In order to differentiate their products, bass amplification manufacturers have to play the marketing game. "If you wanna sound like celebrity-X then you need brand-Y, for that trademark brand-Y sound!" One would hope that at least the power amps in these systems are flat. The bigger variables, I think, are the ones you've sidestepped: preamp and cabinets.

 

Now, we've already been down the road that involves bass cabs in the studio. So hopefully this isn't where the magic is happening.

 

Preamp? Yeah, any studio is going to have a bunch of these to choose from, and yes, they too will be of higher quality than something built in to a bass amp. That's probably why some people here run a separate pre; one you'd also find in a studio.

 

But, even if I like a particular pre, we can still record DI in the studio and get the pre with either a channel strip or reamping.

 

Back to g****rs. Yes, they are "different animals." No, a bassist isn't often going to depend on some overdriven tube sound inherent in a combo or on some sort of feedback. So again, it should not be necessary to use any rig to capture the sound of the bass.

 

But, this is what you said in the beginning! (Experience is a wonderful thing, ain't it?)

 

So, my point was that bassists should probably look for different qualities in our stage rigs if we want a "portable" sound than trying to get that brand-Y sound.

 

Now, just for grins and chuckles, here's a recent thread on: what is growl, and how to get it . Maybe you know the secret? Is it "even order harmonic distortion"? Can we duplicate that without a GK rig? Is it a bump between 700-850Hz? Is it in the pre settings? Or is it as some claim, just something between the fingers and the bass?

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Dude! They can't even agree on what it IS! If I knew what it was, I might be able to figure out how to achive it...though I'll warn you... I spent 20 years trying every kind of guitar, string, mic, and effect to get that Beatles (Gibson J-160e) acoustic guitar sound. Then I bought a mid-1960s Gibson J-160e. Like magic, there it was, no trickery needed.

 

Bill