Authentic bass tone with no amp?

[Orkin]

I recently managed to pick up a bass quite cheaply from a friend for ?15 (absaloute steal) , good nick, straight neck, nice materials, gives a decent sound. Anyways I want to record it for some band stuff, unfortunatley as of yet I cannot afford a decent amp to get some nice tone out of the thing for recording, so I'm wondering if I can work a bit of magic after direct injecting it into my pc and tweaking it slightly to get a decent punchy metal/rock sound as I wont be able to afford a decent bass amp until about august. I've got cubase LE, Sony Soundforge and Acid as well as Audacity. Any Ideas?

Cheers,

Owen

[brandondrury]

You don't need to inject magic.

While I'm huge on recording guitars with real amps, I hate recording bass amps. I haven't recorded a bass amp in over a year. I always go DI. This is common with big engineers.

Direct guitars sound fake, plastic, and shitty. Direct bass is the sound you hear on most records. You don't even need a specialized DI (like a Sansamp). You can go straight into a preamp (as long as it has 1/4" inputs).

I'm wondering if I can work a bit of magic after direct injecting it into my pc and tweaking it slightly to get a decent punchy metal/rock sound as I wont be able to afford a decent bass amp until about august.

You can get just about any sound with the direct bass, you just have to tweak it. 99% of the tone comes from the bass and the bass player. If it was me, I wouldn't buy a bass amp for recording unless I already had a Ferrari.

I would buy a kick ass bass. You can't go wrong with a Fender P-bass or Precisions. Both record very well for the rock stuff.

The thing I hate most about basses is lack of balance. I hate basses that have 10,000db of 100hz in the low E and have now low end in the A. The best recording basses stay even, more or less from string to string.

Brandon

Brandon

[Orkin]

Cheers,

It's a decent enough bass for just now. I normally put it through a high pass filter at about 32Hz then a Low Pass at about 350 Hz. I was just wondering what the best way to get a bit of distortion out of it was as my effects pedals a bit redundant as it just completely over does it.

[brandondrury]

Low Pass at about 350 Hz.

What kind of music are you doing?

I've never rolled off everything over 350Hz. Is the bass conflicting with some other instrument?

My gut says you've rolled off all the definition to avoid the "clack" sound. If this is the case, it should be said that the clack is the player's responsibiity. For the way I record, killing everything above 350Hz could screw up the entire mix. It would certainly make it much harder to hear what the bass player is doing.

Your type of music may be different.

Brandon

[Orkin]

As I've said Im completely new to this, Im just picking up bits and pieces from all over the joint. >_<

It's typically metal I'm doing and I literally only started recording about a week ago. I was doing it to resolve a bit of conflict with the guitar primarily.

[brandondrury]

As I've said Im completely new to this, Im just picking up bits and pieces from all over the joint.

Great! Don't take it personal, dude. I'm just trying to help. I'm an asshole and have a tendency to offend people. I didn't even mention Nazis or anal sex yet, in this thread, so consider yourself lucky.

In all seriousness, in metal I definitely want a more midrangy bass tone. I like the bass to sound more like "ding ding ding" than "boom boom boom" when I'm doing metal (for the most part).

I find myself boosting the crap out of 1Khz all the time on lots of bass tracks, but it really depends on the song and the sound of the bass you already working with.

You mentioned bass distortion earlier. When we think of distortion we are generally talking of adding harmonics higher than the fundamental frequency. So think of electric guitar for a second. Think of plucking the A string with a clean tone. Now think of it with more a Dimebag Darrel or whatever tone. There is just a whole lot more harmonic junk in there.

So I think by killing everything above 350Hz, you are increasing your need for this distortion. The only problem is you are not giving it enough high end stuff to add harmonics too. Does that make sense?

Post the song in Bash This Mix and I can help you further.

Brandon

[Orkin]

Yeah perfect sense, first rookie mistake over with
And yeah, I have a tendancy to offend people as well, when I know what the hell I'm talking about - unfortunatley for my ego when I dont know something it just has to shut up and I have to listen.

Re-doing the guitars this weekend, going to ditch the effects pedal that was in use in favour of a more beefy clear cut amp tone from my Flextone II, its a lot less tinny and has more flavour to the sound in general, its a v.good amp actually I was half expecting it too sound like a spider when I got it, never really favoured line 6 products. I'll post the song up when I get most of it recorded again.

Cheers,

Owen

[brandondrury]

I haven't heard a Line6 product that I liked either. Based on their price, it's a little dissapointing. The Line6 amps aren't super expensive new, but they don't hold their value for shit. So, a $600 amp new that is worth $200 in 2 years has lost $400 of value. My vintage Marshall cost me $1600 2 years ago but I could probably sell it for $1800 today.

Sometimes it pays to get the good shit. Of course, I had to scrape up $1600 (which wasn't exactly easy).

Either way, I'll be waiting for you "Bash This Mix" post.

Brandon

[Orkin]

I bought a used one so I never paid top dollar anyhoo. Although I've got two guitars to fix before I re-record this thing, the plastic covers holding in the input jacks have smashed on both. Would replacing them with some iron or copper plates be a good idea or is there too big a risk of the occassional mild electricution (I'm assuming thats why they're cheapy plastic)? [/offtopic]

[brandondrury]

Would replacing them with some iron or copper plates be a good idea or is there too big a risk of the occassional mild electricution (I'm assuming thats why they're cheapy plastic)? [

Well, if you THAT experienced with electronics, you wouldn't need to ask this question. So, I would recommend sticky with plastic. Electrocution is not really a risk. The output of guitar picks is about nothing. It would probably take a couple thousand guitars playing exactly in unison (impossible) to even shock you. However, if any part of the guitars output gets grounded (other than the ground itself) you won't get any signal out of the guitar.

Brandon