I am now the proud owner of a Traynor yba300 and an ampeg svt classic 410 cab. super happy with the massive thick tone btw, and the di sounds great ran thru my mixing board and into the computer...
But when I play guitar I mic rather than going direct obviously, and I'd like to mic my bass for recording too, but when I do it sounds thin (I am using a sm57 on axis on the lower right cone in the 410 cab).
What can I do to get a really nice thick tone recorded, like I hear in the room or via the direct...what am I doing wrong and maybe do I need to use a different mic for this? Or should I just use the di and be done with it? I'm kinda new to bass recording but been playing guitar for about20 years and bass about 2 years And wish I had realized I should have started on bass a long time ago - love it.
I am now the proud owner of a Traynor yba300 and an ampeg svt classic 410 cab. super happy with the massive thick tone btw, and the di sounds great ran thru my mixing board and into the computer...
But when I play guitar I mic rather than going direct obviously, and I'd like to mic my bass for recording too, but when I do it sounds thin (I am using a sm57 on axis on the lower right cone in the 410 cab).
What can I do to get a really nice thick tone recorded, like I hear in the room or via the direct...what am I doing wrong and maybe do I need to use a different mic for this? Or should I just use the di and be done with it? I'm kinda new to bass recording but been playing guitar for about20 years and bass about 2 years And wish I had realized I should have started on bass a long time ago - love it.
Help would be appreciated!
The old trick is to get a hi fi bass loudspeaker and stand it in front of a bass guitar loudspeaker or kick drum and wire the hi fire loudspeaker up to a ribbon mic transformer and input that into a nominal 600 ohm pre amp and mix that output in as good phase (= distance) as you can get with your 57 Picking up on another cone.
Yamaha make a ready made one called a Subkick.
The old trick is to get a hi fi bass loudspeaker and stand it in front of a bass guitar loudspeaker or kick drum and wire the hi fire loudspeaker up to a ribbon mic transformer and input that into a nominal 600 ohm pre amp and mix that output in as good phase (= distance) as you can get with your 57 Picking up on another cone.
Yamaha make a ready made one called a Subkick.
I don't even know what you're saying. But maybe what I would recommend is using an SM57 on one of the cones, another one out in the room, and a mic that is dedicated to low-end, like a kick-drum mic on another one of the cones. Just an idea.
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Thanks good suggestions. What I ended up doing was a 57 on the cone plus direct out, and a 58 or 57 on a boom to mic the bass itself to grab string noise and slap sound... Mix to taste, three channels used but awesome.
Get the mic off axis and use a more suitable mic for bass than the 57, but not a kick drum mic, which literally, sucks for a bass cabinet, their being pre-EQ'ed for a kick drum. Try a decent LDC mic like a AKG C214 or Audio Technica 40 series mic, for a couple of examples.
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I typically use 3 mics and a DI when I record, to have a broad palate of sounds with which to mix. With that setup I use an SM57 and RE20 close up and an AT4047 a few feet back. You could always go very simply, with any decent dynamic mic close up and a DI, play around with the position of the mic and the eq on the DI track to get a nice balance of high end and low end. Adding a large diaphragm condenser mic farther back will give you some more high end and a little more depth to the sound, but you need to check phase relation between the two mics.
Mic setup for bass 
Well! 
