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Getting the Newstead treatment?
- Thread starter Tommygun_ted
- Start date
For anyone interested, here is a music video and how the recording turned out.
Sure, you have an input. They might also have software to work with, too. A lot of people record direct, choose a tone and cabinet impulse (based on the speaker cab), and are done with it.
Sounds like the "leader" likes having a vice grip on the band tho. Try and reason with the guy?
good luck with that: now and in the future --- if you have a future in the studio!
i may be an outlier regarding this issue --- on this thread, but: attempting to 'protect' your tone actually limits the sound of your bass on those tracks when all is said and done. there are some great reasons why going direct is best practice (most of the time) where the bass is concerned.
you'll have a more productive future (in the studio) if you leave that "tone issue" to the guy who mixes/produces your recordings. even if (especially if!) he knows about as much as you do!
best of luck on your recording venture!
godofthunder59
Life is short, buy the bass.
- Feb 19, 2006
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- Endorsing Cataldo Basses, Whirlwind products, Thunderbucker pickups
The final answers to these sorts of questions ultimately depend on the vagaries and logistics of the recording process and the purpose of the recordings.
There are a lot of factors, but some of the biggest are...
Purpose and budget of the recording. Is it just a songwriting/arrangement demo to be recorded later? Are you a short schedule paying for studio time? Or are you in the basement making your epic debut album with nothing but time to experiment and try things?
Method of recording. Is everyone playing together in a room? Separate rooms? Overdubbing instrument by instrument? If overdubbing there's definitely no reason not to have an open mic on the bass. Recording all together in a room, there's still no reason NOT to, but how usable it is may vary with the room, sound treatment, distance between instruments/mics, etc...
The gear. Are you trying to record a whole band together live into 8 channels? Then a DI and mic for bass might not be in the cards. Of course I would go for a mic over a DI, as long as you have an appropriate mic. Of course, even on a budget, you could get clever and record 1 track onto one computer, and send the other track to another computer and merge them later.
Anyway, politically, a bass guitar is just that, a guitar. If whoever was recording suggested the guitar player just use a DI, that would last about 3 pico seconds. Fine if the person uses axe fx, etc... and is already set up for that, but if you just took a regular "gibson through marshall" player and sent him straight through a DI without at least letting him dial in his own plug in fantasy world, he's not going to be happy with the results most likely, nor should he be.
A mic is what makes a sound sound like a sound. What that means is a microphone is a damn close analog to how our ears work. And a speaker is the same thing but in reverse. So you take a microphone picking up vibrations from a speaker, and it sounds natural because it IS natural. That sound happened in the natural world and was captured by technology that approximates biology. When you go through a DI, that electromagnetic signal bears no relationship to how an ear works, other than that both deal with sound waves. But it's the "distortion" (of air molecules bumping together) that makes it sound pleasing and "normal". For americana and folk and any other more "roots" based music, that is key. If you wanted to record your ken smith direct and just leave it as is, it would just sound totally wrong in that context. The other thing is you have to add back in ambience. And even the real ambience of a few inches of air between a mic and speaker is better than most fake ambience from a plugin. With a DI, you've sort of cheated physics out of a layer of air the sound gets transmitted through, and so you have to doctor things up to basically put that back. It can be done to some degree, but better to have the real thing.
Personally, if track and microphone limitations aren't a problem I would ALWAYS record with a mic and a DI together, and mix and blend them as appropriate to get the best sound (or just use one or the other if that turns out to be best). But I find they both offer me something I want to hear most of the time and each makes up for weaknesses in the other. The mic generally has a bit of grind to it (in the sense of some nice upper mids that keep things interesting), and some ambience. While the DI is maybe more even and flat with more sparkle up top because that is what those air particles lose first.
There are a lot of factors, but some of the biggest are...
Purpose and budget of the recording. Is it just a songwriting/arrangement demo to be recorded later? Are you a short schedule paying for studio time? Or are you in the basement making your epic debut album with nothing but time to experiment and try things?
Method of recording. Is everyone playing together in a room? Separate rooms? Overdubbing instrument by instrument? If overdubbing there's definitely no reason not to have an open mic on the bass. Recording all together in a room, there's still no reason NOT to, but how usable it is may vary with the room, sound treatment, distance between instruments/mics, etc...
The gear. Are you trying to record a whole band together live into 8 channels? Then a DI and mic for bass might not be in the cards. Of course I would go for a mic over a DI, as long as you have an appropriate mic. Of course, even on a budget, you could get clever and record 1 track onto one computer, and send the other track to another computer and merge them later.
Anyway, politically, a bass guitar is just that, a guitar. If whoever was recording suggested the guitar player just use a DI, that would last about 3 pico seconds. Fine if the person uses axe fx, etc... and is already set up for that, but if you just took a regular "gibson through marshall" player and sent him straight through a DI without at least letting him dial in his own plug in fantasy world, he's not going to be happy with the results most likely, nor should he be.
A mic is what makes a sound sound like a sound. What that means is a microphone is a damn close analog to how our ears work. And a speaker is the same thing but in reverse. So you take a microphone picking up vibrations from a speaker, and it sounds natural because it IS natural. That sound happened in the natural world and was captured by technology that approximates biology. When you go through a DI, that electromagnetic signal bears no relationship to how an ear works, other than that both deal with sound waves. But it's the "distortion" (of air molecules bumping together) that makes it sound pleasing and "normal". For americana and folk and any other more "roots" based music, that is key. If you wanted to record your ken smith direct and just leave it as is, it would just sound totally wrong in that context. The other thing is you have to add back in ambience. And even the real ambience of a few inches of air between a mic and speaker is better than most fake ambience from a plugin. With a DI, you've sort of cheated physics out of a layer of air the sound gets transmitted through, and so you have to doctor things up to basically put that back. It can be done to some degree, but better to have the real thing.
Personally, if track and microphone limitations aren't a problem I would ALWAYS record with a mic and a DI together, and mix and blend them as appropriate to get the best sound (or just use one or the other if that turns out to be best). But I find they both offer me something I want to hear most of the time and each makes up for weaknesses in the other. The mic generally has a bit of grind to it (in the sense of some nice upper mids that keep things interesting), and some ambience. While the DI is maybe more even and flat with more sparkle up top because that is what those air particles lose first.
It's all in the basement. I am now recording with a mic. After trying multiple times DI, the tone is just better with the mic in front of the cabinet. And this is coming from the guitarist! We generally do a DI bass track while recording the drums so we can groove together and then re cut the bass with a mic once the drums are down. Seems to be the best way so far. Ive given up on being picky about the tone though and let the guitarist who mixes everything and does all the post work worry about it. All I worry about is playing the parts. Seems to have worked out for everyone that way. Thanks for all the input guys.
I can't give you any good advice because this happened to me, I sucked it up, and now I never listen to our CD because it makes me mad.
I guess being a 2nd class citizen is part of being a bass player.
I nailed most of my parts in half the time the guitarists took, especial one that didn't even have his solos completely written out, but still had to pay an equal portion of the bill. I kept telling the producer\engineer I wasn't trilled with some of the tones he was getting, and he said they'd fix it in the mix down. Of course it wasn't. I gave him a bunch of notes about the mix which he ignored. When I told my band that I was getting @$$ed out of the mix, they all said "it sounds great to us."
Unless you are the BL, just get used to it. It doesn't change.
In regards to mic'ing your cabs, it is normal procedure to DI the bass either through a box or a DI out on your head. Guitarists have to have everything just-so. They are brats; what are you gonna do.
I guess being a 2nd class citizen is part of being a bass player.
I nailed most of my parts in half the time the guitarists took, especial one that didn't even have his solos completely written out, but still had to pay an equal portion of the bill. I kept telling the producer\engineer I wasn't trilled with some of the tones he was getting, and he said they'd fix it in the mix down. Of course it wasn't. I gave him a bunch of notes about the mix which he ignored. When I told my band that I was getting @$$ed out of the mix, they all said "it sounds great to us."
Unless you are the BL, just get used to it. It doesn't change.
In regards to mic'ing your cabs, it is normal procedure to DI the bass either through a box or a DI out on your head. Guitarists have to have everything just-so. They are brats; what are you gonna do.
The world is not fair.
The guitarist will call the shots because he is the important member of the band.
They will spend hours miking the drums.
They dont understand music, let alone bass.
You hang around amateurs, this mat be your life.
Suggest you go to music night school and hang with a better crowd.
The guitarist will call the shots because he is the important member of the band.
They will spend hours miking the drums.
They dont understand music, let alone bass.
You hang around amateurs, this mat be your life.
Suggest you go to music night school and hang with a better crowd.
If he records your bass direct, then he can use a technique called "re-amping" to run it through any type of rig or processing he wants later on. That direct track does NOT mean that will be the final sound in the mix. Lots of new stuff in the recording world has changed all of that.
