Reverb on bass guitar..... thoughts?

[tlester]

Hi all -

The way I used to record in days past had drums, bass (amp'd), and guitars (amp'd) all in one room together. There was some gobo'ing, but still plenty of bleed... mainly into the room mics. So, everything had some level of ambiences to it.

Well... I don't get to record in good rooms as much as I used to. I end up doing a lot more bass through DI and usually as overdubs. I've been playing with putting the bass into the same room with use of reverb. I'm having mixed results. Obviously, I have to be careful as things can get muddy fast.

I'd love to hear some opinions on adding reverb to bass. If you do this, what works well for you?

Thanks,
Thomas

[KingFish]

I myself have never done it.... but you've peaked my curiosity, and on a fairly "Wide open" recording, perhaps just a trio.... I may play around, and add some "Room verb" to the bass, see how it works out.

And that's just it.... no "Rules" you'll likely "Just have to play" use your ears, and if you like it.... go with it.

Every recording is going to have a different density, as per the overdubs, and individual variables in the recording.

I'd say, in a more "Common sense" way of thinking, rather then "Rules", I wouldn't ever use ambience on a big, dense, pop recording, with lots of overdubs... you don't want the bottom end of your track, having "Decay" - I'd probably always shelf any ambience I put on a bass, not effecting anything below 125hz.

[Stig Eliassen]

I say do it. Try a short ambient reverb with medium pre-delay, or a cool spring reverb. Sometimes this really makes the bass killer in the rock genre.

[crizdee]

Hi,

If you haven't tried Izotope trash yet, then try it out, it has some cool presets for bass, some of which have some nice ambient effect.

Chris

[badboymusic]

I run through a Line 6 Bass POD with the DI output running into a Manley preamp to one track and the model output to a second track. I set the amp model to around 12% room ambience.

[saw]

Usually a touch of ambience on bass guitar and kick with HPF on 200 Hz.

[Logichead]

Brian Wilson used reverb on bass all the time.

Best....H

[PTUser NYC]

I got a chance to hear the multitrack of several songs from "Who's Next" by the Who. i was really surprised to hear thaty the bass was SWIMMING in a huge long reverb. I didn't hear it that way on the record, but there was a huge, longer than 2 seconds, reverb at basically equal volume to the dry Bass.

Wild. Its amazing how someone can do something exactly opposite of what you know works, and get great results. Hmmm.

[tlester]

I'm going to try it on a mix I'm working on tonight. Just some basic ambience. I'm going to try to replicate the sound I get when I'm tracking all in one room.

-Tom