Awesome Bass Guitar sounds... Help plz

[JonnyGinese]

hey guys...

I can work with any of the following.

Line6 Bass Podxt
Fender Bassman 10 (4x10 studio amp)
Hartke Systems 2000 head with 9 band EQ built in compesion
Gallian Krueger 4x10 cab
or... Direct

I have a variety of mics to mic my amps with to..

Sennheiser MD441 (2)
Sennheiser MD421 (2)
ElectroVoice RE-20
Tascam PE-150 (2)
TEAC ME-120
Sony C-22FET (3)
AKG 414EB
Peavey PVM480
SM-57 (5)
SM-58 (3)
SM-Beta 58 (3)

Is there a certain failsafe way to record a bass guitar? Or will i have to fish around like a regular guitar... A song that I LOVE the bass guitar is is the new Avenged Sevenfold song "Bat Country" Along with the guitars.. but they use Bogner amps... which are way out of my price range..

Let me know what you think..

Jonny

[Aussie169]

Jonny

It's ALL about the player!
You can have the best axe and equipment money can buy, but if you ain't got the chops, it aint gunna happen.

Plug the bass direct into a decent preamp and PRACTICE!

[Chris Cavell]

Yep...the player's touch makes or breaks a bass track ime. That's an Andy Wallace track you're referencing if I'm not mistaken...you could try panning the bass just a tad to one side (like +/-5) and create a send panned exactly opposite with the subtlest of flange effects on it. Andy's kind of known for doing stuff like that...really subtle choruses and flanges blended into the bottom end.

[JonnyGinese]

lol... im not talking about ME as a player... I'm decent enough to knwo how to play.. i can slap, pick, pluck, triple finger, nail... kidna sounds like a porn description. ha ha.. but yeah.. i can play well.. I'm looking for a great tone.. I'll try that flange/chorus thing though tomorrow.. thanks..

[Ross H]

Yea I know this guy who comes over and does bass tracks for me time to time. Fender P bass through an Avalon 737 through Apogee Rosetta and it's pure "butter". Every other guy who plays through the same set up takes some work to get right...so I'm with the rest of the guys, it starts with a good player.

Ross

[Aussie169]

A hint of distortion can really make the bass stand out better.
Duplicate the track and "fiddle" with only the duplication.
Then mix the dry track with the affected track.

[markblasco]

Here's what I do: I duplicate the bass so that I have 2 tracks (taken from a DI) The first I use a little EQ to bring out a little low end and reduce a little in the mids. The second I run through 2 Waves Ren EQ. Why 2 you ask? Well, in the first one I take all of the bands and boost them as much as I need in the mids to overload it (15-20 dB at least). I take the second EQ and shape that sound. It ends up giving me a usable distortion that I can adjust at any time (and sounds way better than I expected it to). I usually cut all of the lows and highs with the second EQ, leaving only the crunchy midrange. I then mix a little of that with the other bass track, send them both to an aux track, and there I add the compression, more EQ, and other FX. The distortion really helps to define the bass in a busy mix. I did this at first on accident, but now I do it almost every time (plus I don't have any sort of bass fuzz)

Whatever you decide to do, try to make sure you get a DI signal. You can always reamplify the DI signal through an amp later if you want that sound, but you can't remove an amp sound once it's there.

[JFreak]

I'm looking for a great tone..

hire a great player that plays a great instrument. change a fresh set of strings to the instrument, connect it with great quality cable to a great preamp and then record that through a great a/d converter. that'd give you great sound. great means no compromises. any bad choices and you get less than great results.

but if you cannot get the best, then pay attention to whatever is closest to the music -- the most important aspect is a great piece of music, then the second most important is the artist who interprets the music. and only after that come the tools. and with the tools, pay attention to whatever is closest to the artist -- the most important is the instrument, it's tuning and strings. only after the instrument you should think about how to record.

if you had all that covered with the best of the best, then here are my recording tips:
1) the cable. it's cheap and saving a dollar only makes you cheap, so therefore buy great cables. basically the inner conductor is the most important part of the cable, and you should use such cable that has the most strands, but that's hard to evaluate without actually breaking one cable and it's not everything about the cable quality. use anything that has braided copper shield, and if you can find a cable that has a conductive inner wrap under the braided shield, even better. i'm a big fan of whirlwind leader cables, but there are others too.

2) the preamp. anything that has a tube usually sounds great. for example, the "gainstation" or "gold mike" by sound performance labs. if you use a direct box, then get the very best, as bass sound suffers greatly if you lose the upper harmonics due to crappy DI box. again, i favor whirlwind's boxes if a tube preamp is not available -- the "hotbox" is a great sounding active DI, and the passive "director" is good also. director is also available with jensen transformers, which sound even better. those are the only direct boxes that i (as a bass player) have been satisfied with; however, DI is never a match for a tube preamp.

3) the converter. actually this point is more about levels, as the converter has very small role in the overall tone. use whatever you have, but do record your bass track hot. use a compressor and limiter before you go digital, but don't get crazy

ok.

...and in case you have a great sounding amp in a great sounding room, and you have a great selection of great mics, you can also try to mike it. you can get some classic sounds that way. the DI method is just so much easier.