Hey guys!
I'm a fretless bass player currently playing in several metal bands and I'm looking for some advice to get a better recorded sound.
First, here's my current recording gear: I'm playing a passive Peavey Palaedium fretless, plugged into an Ashdown MAG 300 head going to an Ashdown 1x15 cab (can't remember the exact name of it, I think it's discontinued), miced with a Shure Beta 52; I usually blend the direct out of the head and the miced sound with an M-audio Fast Track Ultra.
This worked quite well for several recordings I made, but mostly with fretted basses, and the last time I recorded my fretless bass for one of the projects I'm working on, I was very dissatisfied by the sound I obtained from that recording chain: the sound from the head's direct out had very good definition but was quite over-agressive in the highs, while the miced sound was extremely dark and bassy, and blending the two together didn't result in a good sound by any means: I actually preferred the sound of my bass going directly into the M-audio because it was more balanced and had much better sounding midrange, even though it lacked power, and that's eventually what I used to record... Obviously, I've been thinking of upgrading my recording gear ever since.
In the long run, I'm thinking of getting a better head and cab, but in my current situation I'm looking for something that would help me get a better sound while still being somewhat portable, i.e. a preamp or amp head but not a head + cab combo. My first idea was to go looking for a bass preamp/di that I would put between my bass and recording interface, and I actually tried out some of these: the Aguilar ToneHammer, EBS ValveDrive and Tech 21 VT Bass. The one I liked better was the ToneHammer because of the adjustable mid frequency control (which I think is particularly critical for fretless) and its rather transparent tone; I thought the other two were great as far as overdriven sounds were concerned, but that's not really what I'm looking for, I like the clean sound of my fretless bass and I'd like to make it beefier without coloring it too much.
But my main question here actually is: is a preamp the piece of gear I need in that situation? Wouldn't it be better to get a good amp head and plug it directly into my recording interface? I've not often heard of people using amp heads only for that purpose, i.e. without even plugging it into a cab, but I'm wondering if that might not be better than getting a preamp, with the added advantage that I would then only need to get a new cab to have a good setup for both recording and live shows. What do you think? I'm sorry this is all kind of vague, I actually wish I knew what would fit my needs here, but any suggestions as to how to make my recorded sound better would be greatly appreciated!
I'm a fretless bass player currently playing in several metal bands and I'm looking for some advice to get a better recorded sound.
First, here's my current recording gear: I'm playing a passive Peavey Palaedium fretless, plugged into an Ashdown MAG 300 head going to an Ashdown 1x15 cab (can't remember the exact name of it, I think it's discontinued), miced with a Shure Beta 52; I usually blend the direct out of the head and the miced sound with an M-audio Fast Track Ultra.
This worked quite well for several recordings I made, but mostly with fretted basses, and the last time I recorded my fretless bass for one of the projects I'm working on, I was very dissatisfied by the sound I obtained from that recording chain: the sound from the head's direct out had very good definition but was quite over-agressive in the highs, while the miced sound was extremely dark and bassy, and blending the two together didn't result in a good sound by any means: I actually preferred the sound of my bass going directly into the M-audio because it was more balanced and had much better sounding midrange, even though it lacked power, and that's eventually what I used to record... Obviously, I've been thinking of upgrading my recording gear ever since.
In the long run, I'm thinking of getting a better head and cab, but in my current situation I'm looking for something that would help me get a better sound while still being somewhat portable, i.e. a preamp or amp head but not a head + cab combo. My first idea was to go looking for a bass preamp/di that I would put between my bass and recording interface, and I actually tried out some of these: the Aguilar ToneHammer, EBS ValveDrive and Tech 21 VT Bass. The one I liked better was the ToneHammer because of the adjustable mid frequency control (which I think is particularly critical for fretless) and its rather transparent tone; I thought the other two were great as far as overdriven sounds were concerned, but that's not really what I'm looking for, I like the clean sound of my fretless bass and I'd like to make it beefier without coloring it too much.
But my main question here actually is: is a preamp the piece of gear I need in that situation? Wouldn't it be better to get a good amp head and plug it directly into my recording interface? I've not often heard of people using amp heads only for that purpose, i.e. without even plugging it into a cab, but I'm wondering if that might not be better than getting a preamp, with the added advantage that I would then only need to get a new cab to have a good setup for both recording and live shows. What do you think? I'm sorry this is all kind of vague, I actually wish I knew what would fit my needs here, but any suggestions as to how to make my recorded sound better would be greatly appreciated!
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