Recording: DI or Mic?

[jmeid]

The past two weekends my band has been recording, both times I've gone direct, pre EQ on my LMII, into a firestudio, then into logic. Both times I have been unsatisfied with the tone. I love the tone that is comming out of my cab (we record live). Is there something I should change aobut my DI, or do you think it is a good idea to mic it?

If so, how should I mic it?

[batman1]

try going post EQ. i love my post EQ sound, not so much my pre.

[seanm]

Are you listening to your bass by itself or with the rest of the band? What sounds bad soloed may sound great in a band setting and visa versa.

I am not an expert on micing a cab, but I do know that you mic it off to the side of the speaker, not dead center. An SM57 is a good mic to use, but try whatever you have available to start.

[Dave Martin]

If you're unhappy with your direct sound, then you should try miking your cabinet. 99% of my electric bass recording is direct (both my own instruments and other bassists who work here), but every project is different. Give it a shot, see what you like.

[geoffkhan]

Originally Posted by jmeid

Is there something I should change aobut my DI, or do you think it is a good idea to mic it?

If so, how should I mic it?

I'd suggest not losing the DI. What you can do is to re-amp the DI signal. That means after recording, play back the bass DI signal through your rig with the cab mic'd. That way you'll be able to set up the mic and the amp settings EXACTLY the way you want it when re-amping the signal. You have a lot more freedom this way, since if you just mic'd the cab for the recording, you're stuck with whatever amp settings or mic/mic placement you used.

The '57 works well on guitar cabs, but I don't like it for bass ones. Try different mics and see what you like. I'd probably go for an AKG C2000B. Also try out a kick drum mic and see if you like the sound of that on your cab.

[JoshB]

I always take a DI AND a mic on my cabinet. I perfer a tube large diaphram on my cab, but I'll take what I can get. Usually in mixdown though, my tone is 75-85% mic and 15-25% DI. The DI gives me a nice punch and my mic gives me that beautiful tone.

[Dave Muscato]

Originally Posted by geoffkhan

I'd suggest not losing the DI. What you can do is to re-amp the DI signal.

+1

[DocBop]

Why not just record both mic and DI tracks are cheap these days.
Also remember what an amp sounds like in a room and a mic'd amp are two different things. Mic's recording gear and etc don't have the range to reproduce the sound. When you hear something in a room true our human hearing is in the range of 20-20K when young and ears haven't been blasted too much. But they are sounds being produced much lower and higher bouncing around the room. You don't hear them, but they are affected the other sound vibrations in the room. Most learn this the first time they mic'd an amp especially a loud amp. The recording can be a bit sterile sounding. That is why recording double up lines add, layers of keyboards and percussion mixed down low to fill out the sound lost in recording.

[superkicky]

I'm with JoshB on this one... I send 3 signals to the board and mix/match with the producer:

1 post-EQ DI from SVT-3PRO head
1 AKG D112 on 10" cone
1 Shure SM57 on 15" cone

I know the mic placement is the reverse of what people normally do, but this seems to work pretty nicely. YMMV.

[jmeid]

Thanks for all the imput!

I would like to try to send more the one signal but here's my problem. We do all of our recordings at home, fire studio, to logic in a Mac Pro.

The thing is there are only 8 imputs on the firestudio. It works out perfectly with 1 guitar, 1 bass, 1 vocal, and 5 drum mics.

Is there any other way to open up more imputs on the firestudio, or even a better way to record?

We've tried putting the drums into a mixer then that signal to the firestudio but it was not quite where we like it.

[JoshB]

Originally Posted by jmeid

Thanks for all the imput!

I would like to try to send more the one signal but here's my problem. We do all of our recordings at home, fire studio, to logic in a Mac Pro.

The thing is there are only 8 imputs on the firestudio. It works out perfectly with 1 guitar, 1 bass, 1 vocal, and 5 drum mics.

Is there any other way to open up more imputs on the firestudio, or even a better way to record?

We've tried putting the drums into a mixer then that signal to the firestudio but it was not quite where we like it.

Kick, Snare, and Overhead Condenser...or just do separate tracks...

[Son of Bovril]

just record everyone separately to a click and guide track

[jmeid]

Is there any way to do it live recording? Multi-tracking is not much of option

[Dave Martin]

Originally Posted by jmeid

Is there any way to do it live recording? Multi-tracking is not much of option

Sure, there's a way to do it live - it's called "Make a decision and live with it." Run the song, listen to the playback and make adjustments, then run the song again, listen to the play back and make adjustments...

Once you have a sound you can live with, you just need to record it.

[allexcosta]

I like using 2 signals. One miked and one DIed. I mess with mics and positions, usually on the 12" speaker.

[jmeid]

Originally Posted by Dave Martin

Sure, there's a way to do it live - it's called "Make a decision and live with it." Run the song, listen to the playback and make adjustments, then run the song again, listen to the play back and make adjustments...

Once you have a sound you can live with, you just need to record it.

I like the way you think because I was thinking it would resort to that.

One last question. Is the way we are recording good? or are there better alternatives? As a band we are fairly new to recording so I/we are always open to new ideas.

We do like having every individual track on the computer, so that is why we chose the firepod

[el_Kabong]

What is that you don't like about the recorded tone? Can you make changes to the di signal to get closer to what you're after? Things like strings, technique, eq, compression.... You might try setting the LMII post eq and see if you can get closer to an acceptable di tone using it's eq.

If you're all playing live in the same room keeping your volume low can be a good idea as the bass will bleed into all the other mics, especially the drum overheads & vocals. The difference in phase, plus the room can make the bass sound mushy. Make sure you have high pass filtering on every channel you can to minimise the bass bleed. Also check the phase of the bass channel individually against the other channels. Double check it after you install any plugins when mixing as the processing delay can upset it again.

You could also try submixing the bass di & mic rather than the drums, to save a channel.

+1 on listening to the track in context too, rather than solo'd.

One last thing that's sometimes overlooked with digital recording because it can be so clean, it's important to have a strong input signal to the recording interface. The higher the signal, effectively the more bits actually encode it, ie the bit depth is greater. Digital interfaces (in theory at least) give their best performance right before they clip. It can make quite a difference.

[Dave Martin]

Originally Posted by el_Kabong

One last thing that's sometimes overlooked with digital recording because it can be so clean, it's important to have a strong input signal to the recording interface. The higher the signal, effectively the more bits actually encode it, ie the bit depth is greater. Digital interfaces (in theory at least) give their best performance right before they clip. It can make quite a difference.

Umm... not in the real world. A 24 bit signal has a theoretical dynamic range of 144dB - not only a wider dynamic range than the analog equipment can handle, but a much wider range than the human ear can handle. Even a 16 bit signal has a theoretical dynamic range of 96dB - still more than the human ear can deal with. There's no problem at all with leaving 10-12dB of headroom when recording digitally - the reason we used to record as hot as possible in the analog tape days was to get the best possible signal to noise ratio - problematic because of the inherent noise of analog tape.

[el_Kabong]

Originally Posted by Dave Martin

Umm... not in the real world. A 24 bit signal has a theoretical dynamic range of 144dB - not only a wider dynamic range than the analog equipment can handle, but a much wider range than the human ear can handle. Even a 16 bit signal has a theoretical dynamic range of 96dB - still more than the human ear can deal with. There's no problem at all with leaving 10-12dB of headroom when recording digitally - the reason we used to record as hot as possible in the analog tape days was to get the best possible signal to noise ratio - problematic because of the inherent noise of analog tape.

I guess my world must not be real then. I can clearly hear the difference between signals I record at a lower level vs those recorded at a higher level (when replayed at the same level). After quite a deal of testing I've found I prefer to place limiters before the converters to maximise the input signal with dynamic source material. I can't reliably pick the limiters when properly set but I can reliably identify the track recorded at a lower level. As far as I'm concerned it's something worth checking, even given your assumption the OP is recording at -12db.

[derrico1]

Originally Posted by jmeid

Thanks for all the imput!
Is there any other way to open up more imputs on the firestudio, or even a better way to record?

This depends on what you're doing now, how experenced the players are, and what you're after.

Since you're squeezed for tracks, in your shoes I'd try recording everything except the vocals in one pass, and then overdubbing vox once you have band tracks. If you're recording all in the same tracking room, this will also likely clean up the drum sounds and help the vocal track a lot.