Recording bass with mic and rev phase DI

[pepperman]

Hi there, has anyone tried recording bass guitar with a mic (in my case a sennheiser e602) and a DI and then reversing the phase on one of them? I don't know why but it sounds to me like it results in a clearer more defined sound. Anyone tried this or has any way of explaining it?

From Kiwi Land:)

[Peter Duemmler]

The DIed signal will play sooner than the miked signal (very short delay caused by the speaker/mike distance).
Best would be to time allign both tracks. Phase inversion CAN get you nearer but not quite there.
If I use both signals at once in a mix I mostly hipass the miked signal and lowpass the DIed one.
Most of the time I only use the DIed bass though (even more since I have the Bombfactory Sans-Amp plug-in...).

Good Luck,
Peter

[Fletcher]

Originally posted by pepperman:
Hi there, has anyone tried recording bass guitar with a mic (in my case a sennheiser e602) and a DI and then reversing the phase on one of them? I don't know why but it sounds to me like it results in a clearer more defined sound. Anyone tried this or has any way of explaining it?

First of all, it's not "phase inversion" it's "polarity inversion". Chances are better than even that either your Mic is Pin 2 hot and your DI is Pin 3 hot, or vice versa.

You can indeed alter the phase relationships by moving the mic closer or farther away from the speaker, this will effect the relationships of the timing of different frequencies. Moving the whole track with a time offset may kinda do this, but not with as cool a result.

You are onto one of the 'golden rules'..."if it sounds good, and it mixes well with the other tracks, then it is good". Best of luck.



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Fletcher
Mercenary Audio
mercenaryaudio.com

[pepperman]

Thanks for your replies, I figured that the most important thing was that it sounded good, and this is about as close as I've got to the bass sound I've been trying to achieve. Does anyone else have any bass recording techniques?

Thanx
From Kiwi Land

[Road_Hogs]

I've created some very nice tracks by recording directly from the DI (pre tone) of my SWR Baby Blue and then patching in a Line 6 Bass POD to dial in the bass sound during the mix down. This will give you ALOT of control on how the track sits in the mix.

[Digi9000000]

When the bass player kicks in the distortion, you want to duck or bypass the bass DI.

[johnnyprotools]

I don't go in and line up all of the waveforms on the drum tracks anymore, ya know, so that they are all PERFECTLY together and in phase, something happens there that's not supposed to, like I've violated some law of acoustics in playing back the edited tracks, now I just leave it. I am at peace with myself now