I produce rock and metal so this is pretty specific to heavily overdriven tones. I always blend together a mixture of clean and distorted signals to get the balance of midrange grit/aggression and clean fundamental that I'm after. My recent tracking signal chain is as follows:
- Bass into Darkglass B7K set for a grindy and aggressive overdrive.
- Wet output runs to one channel of a Vintech 273 pre, with some reduction at both the high and and low end using the shelving EQ.
- Parallel (dry) output is run into a Chandler Germanium preamp with the "Thick" switch engaged for a fat and rich DI tone.
- I patch a parallel send from the Germanium output to a Empirical Labs Distressor (compressor), and compress it hard (usually peaking around 10dB of reduction) at a 4:1 ratio, medium attack, fast release.
When it comes to mixing, the heavily compressed Distressor channel is used to form the basis of the low end, since it is very even in volume - in my sort of productions I need the low end to be really consistent or the bottom of the mix falls out.
The uncompressed DI is usually routed into Ampeg's SVX plugin for a slightly pushed amp sound (I like the SVT-CL and SVT-4 PRO amp types). I bypass the cabinet section in SVX, instead preferring to use the Ampeg SVT 8x10 impulses made by Redwirez, often choosing a 421 up close on the speaker cap, and a Coles 4038 much further back for some ambience.
I'll generally suck more low end out of B7K track, pinpoint and surgically cut any nasty resonances/whistles that are a exacerbated by the distortion, then route it to an instrument bus along with the other two bass channels I'm running. At this point you have to check phase coherence to make sure you're not cancelling low end when you combine the signals (the SVX plugin always inverts the polarity of the signal so I always find I have to compensate by flipping it back with a plugin).
At the instrument bus I'll then apply processing to the three signals together. Usually a lot of 1-2kHz needs to be boosted to get the bass to hold its own against a wall of distorted guitars. This has to be judged in the context of the mix, it may well sound too abrasive when solo'd but just right in the mix. I also will sculpt the lower mids and low mids to prevent nasty peaks, but mainly to fit around the kick drum (I'll also be doing the same on the kick drum channel so the bass and kick can coexist happily). Next I'll often pull up a multiband compressor, engage only the low band (usually 100Hz and down), squash it really hard then make up the gain - this will even out the low end response further. Depending on the player/bass the low mids and/or pick attack region could need evening out too, which the multiband can take care of happily with its remaining frequency bands.
I use console emulation software by Slate Digital on all channels in the DAW, and occasionally will put a tape emulator last in the chain on the bass bus to thicken and saturate the sound as well as taking care of any errant transients.
The end result comes out like this (this is with my Dingwall Afterburner, played by me with a pick):
[SOUNDCLOUD]https://soundcloud.com/nolly/ryan-nolly-song-1/s-iG813[/SOUNDCLOUD]
For other projects I've done recently I've swapped the B7K for the Vintage Microtubes and used a DI splitter to achieve a similar routing. I'll also occasionally choose to use a software guitar amp simulator to distort the signal rather than a pedal on the way in.
For more mellow music I'll forego a lot of the more surgical processing, though I still like to use an overdrive pedal set much cleaner (around a light crunch sort of sound) to enhance the definition of the tone. I typically don't mic up amps since the room you set your cab in will play such a large part in the low end response - usually it comes out rather lumpy and uneven, though this can be filtered out and augmented with the DI track. I have had good results surrounding the cab with bass trapping though.
