bass tone

[disarmwithasmile]

Hi,
This is my first post and first i wanted to thank ya'll for starting this site and for all of the people throwing in thier two cents. This has been extremely helpful to me so far as i am only beginning my recording journey. Im not really yet looking to record other bands and such but am mostly right now looking into recording my own stuff. I have come accross an issue with the bass. it sounds like crap lol. i am using a cheap ibanez bass with active pickups and i have limited funds. I tried going direct in using an emu1616 pci and im using cubase le. is there any way for me to get a good sound out going direct in? will i get a better sound by using an amp and a mic? if so then what amp would be a good choice for this considering i dont need anything for playing the bass live at any point? the bass tones that i really like the sound of as far as bands go are u2, the smashing pumpkins, etc. any amount of help is greatly appreciated and i know this is an ultra beginner question but i thought id ask for help rather than spend alot of cash with no results lol. thanks alot.
joe

[brandondrury]

first i wanted to thank ya'll for starting this site

Your welcome, dude!

i am using a cheap ibanez bass with active pickups

I've recorded a handful of cheap Ibanez basses and I've been VERY impressed with them, actually.

is there any way for me to get a good sound out going direct in?

I almost always go DI for just about every genre. There are exceptions, but they are fairly rare.

will i get a better sound by using an amp and a mic?

"Better" a tricky word. Depends on a billion factors. When you say "better", it implies that there is some sort of objective standard. The bass on a Marilyn Manson record probably wouldn't work so well with Dave Mathews or Phil Collins.

u2, the smashing pumpkins,

That's a fairly brought bass tone pallette. The Pumpkins have always had that REALLY deep tone. At least they have on Siamese Dream, Melloncollie, and Machina. The U2 tone usually isn't quite as meaty in the subwoofer region.

My advice is to post a clip in Recording Reviews and I can help more. Using words to describe this stuff is sometimes a waste of time.

Brandon

[Jroye82]

I honestly dont think I have ever mic'd a bass cab.

Always record directly in.


Sometimes we will go out of a head unit. or into a compressor or something.

We used a fuzz box once...

[brandondrury]

I mixed a song the other day. We had ran a DI bass along with the output of a Boss overdrive pedal. It was really cool having the second track to play with. It added ROBO character when subtlely blended in with the "clean" DI, but didn't have any of the undesireable junk I get out of micing a bass cabinet.

Brandon

[cbtbass]

I am new to home recording, but have some experience in being studio- recorded as a bass player. I have recorded playing active and passive basses going direct or from my Avalon Ultra 5 DI. My sound was ultimately shaped by the engineer or producer so my job was to follow directions and play. Passive basses have tone controls that shelve so in effect they cut frequencies, while active basses have a combination of boost/cut and shelving tone controls. Usually, I was told to have my tone controls full-on (at 10 or full boost) so that no frequencies were cut at the bass. Also, i was told to not dig into the bass so that it generates clicks and buzzes. It sometimes sounded weird through the monitor, but later the guys at the dials got their mojo into the bass sound when editing. That part you will have to get from the recording forum guys.

Also, I think that Ibanez basses (esp their Soundgear line) are voiced low-mid with clickity highs (sorta along the lines of Fieldy in Korn). If your recordings are thin and you prefer a deeper tone, a cheap experiment is to replace the strings with worn-out flat or half-round strings to see if you get different tonality out of the Ibanez. Meshell Ndegeocello uses flatwounds that she has never changed and gets all sorts of tone into her recordings (see Bass Player Magazine, Nov. 2007, p. 38). In that article she discusses her recording technique (in her hands) and the equipment (mics, preamps) she used.