Getting a Bass sound for Rock music

[JonnyGinese]

Hello, I'm a Bass player and I have the following to be used as YOUR tools to get ME the sound i want. lol.

Combo Amp - Fender vintage Bassman 4x10
Head - Hartke 2000A
Cab - Gallien Krueger 4x10

Plugins --
Guitar Rig
Amplitube
WaveLab Platinum
All the free digi plugins.

I'm looking for that "heavy" sound of the bass guitar. Everytime I record it the sound will come out too "pure". I'm playing on a Vintage Fender P-Bass. Its not a question of the skill of the player.. because its me.. and although im nto the best player around... I know how to play well. I've tried using a Pick, My finger Nail, finger tips and slap bass.. It all seems to come out too "pure"... Any thoughts? And cool techniques yhou guys could throw my way?

Thanks

Jonny

[sgladm]

Try compressing hard, relatively fast attack, medium to slow release. Rcomp sounds good, but adds latency, so i wouldn't recommend that on bass. I usually reach for the mcdsp stuff, but other compressors might work.
Also, for the dirtier bass sounds i'll creat an aux track with an amp simulator and a dist. setting (gtr rig, fuzzplus (free), amplitube, whatever), and send a good amount to that (to drive it) and then bring it's fader down to blend just under the original. depending on which plug you use, you might get phasing, so you'll need to put the same plug on the bass track and bypass it. Basically adding distortion helps, the sansamp on bass gtr trick is one of the oldest.
One more thing, don't push the low frequencies on your bass if that's a possibility. Many bass players do this and these frequencies just hit the compressor and as a result you lose the ballsier frequencies. if anything, i usually roll off my bass gtr track around 40-50hz depending on what else is going on.

hope this helps,
Good luck
SG

[JonnyGinese]

hmm... I'll try it. I was talking with an engineer the other day and he said that setting a mic up close on a bass amp along with setting a wide diaphram condenser about 12 feet back will give a much better sound for a bass. I haven[t tried it yet. Any one try this kinda thing before?

[GothicV]

a mic that far back - you better have one nice room to do that in. Or o0ne dead room. And if it's live room, a mix that has room for a lively roomed-bass tone.

I usually run my bass direct into a pre with an instrument input, then reamp a bass amp [my amp is a SWR Studio 220 into a Warwick 4x10 cab] and mic that with an SM57 or something similiar. Basically a mic that will pick up more high end to help cut through a mix. Time-align the tracks so there are no phasing issues, compress to taste/obviously varies by the song, mix the two bass tracks. Sometimes I use the aforementioned distortion bit to add some growl. Sometimes I overdrive a tube mic preamp I have, that sounds good too.

[bb_aus]

I'm looking for that "heavy" sound of the bass guitar.

Sansamp
nuf said for heavy bass

[joethebassman]

I think Gothic is correct. I also use a slight chorising effect or flange. When in the the mix it is almost unnoticible. It really does help to cut through. Also use a spectrum to see where it sits in the mix. Do adjustments if needed. You can always reamp later too!!!!

[JonnyGinese]

hmm... last night i was playing in direct and i had the following on the track.

EQIII - Lowend Cut @ 50hz + 24oct, Highend Cut @ 2.5k + 24oct
Dyn 3 Compressor - Very Fast attack and very fast release to point it was ALMOST distorting.( i think 2ms attack and 10us release with a treshold at around -50... Basically at about 5db above no signal. Ratio was 30:1, Gain was 15db.
BF76 - Input at -10 and out put so the signal was about 2/3 on the meter. 7 for release and attack.

It sounds pretty good and kinda like what im looking for... but i dunno. Can some of you try that and tell me what you think of the sound? All the details for each plug i used are there.

[JFreak]

1) have your bass instrument & cabinet combination sound the way you like in the room you're playing
2) put in a mic one meter away from the cabinet
3) hit record

If you miss the first one, you miss everything.

[graveleye]

1) have your bass instrument & cabinet combination sound the way you like in the room you're playing
2) put in a mic one meter away from the cabinet
3) hit record

If you miss the first one, you miss everything.

Beat me to it... only make sure that mic is in a good place first too.

[JonnyGinese]

Hmm... I tried that today... with the 1 meter away thing and it came out pretty well... Sounded prettymuch like the track i had with all the effeects on it but it was just a straight recorded track with no effects. I'll probably end up micing the amp along with running it direct because I don't want to get stuck with a miced sound just incase I didn't get the sound that i thought i got before mixdown. Anyways.. Any more suggestions? I was messing around with guitar rig and i didn't get any sounds for a Bass that i was happy with.