lifeless bass recording from home

[Allhailthefail]

I have been recording from my apartment with my Fender Mexi J Bass going straight into a Focusrite 6i6 into the Neural DSP Cory Wong VST.

No matter how much tweaking I get into I have not been able to get a truly warm or full tone. I am have been reading into this issue and I am thinking a preamp might help my situation some as my bass signal sounds a little lifeless.

What pre amps or other solutions would you recommend around the $150 or less price range?

 

[Wanker_Joe]

Are you compressing the bass signal after you record it? In my opinion recorded bass *really* benefits from adding some comp to it. Personally I use a 4:1 ratio (attack and release adjusted to the tempo of the song) and just enough make up gain to really make it pop.

 

[Basslice]

Ya. Compress. Also new strings always brings life to a recording when direct.

Also, have you played without the plugin? Sometimes plugins muddy things up. You have to play around. I usually go naked before adding clothes - so to speak.

p.s. To your question about pre-amps, Ihave never found the need. I use Scarletts as well. The pre-amps in those are pretty darn good.

 

[Frank Tuesday]

The Cory Wong VST is a guitar amp sim. I've never used it, but it may not be voiced to work well with a bass. Somtimes guitar amp sums work well with bass and sometimes they don't.

I'd start by trying a different FX chain.

 

[silky smoove]

The Cory Wong VST is a guitar amp sim. I've never used it, but it may not be voiced to work well with a bass. Somtimes guitar amp sums work well with bass and sometimes they don't.

I'd start by trying a different FX chain.

It contains some bass presets and Cory has used it for bass tracks on some of his records. I’ve used that sim before and while it wouldn’t be my first choice for bass it’s definitely serviceable.

 

[silky smoove]

No matter how much tweaking I get into I have not been able to get a truly warm or full tone. I am have been reading into this issue and I am thinking a preamp might help my situation some as my bass signal sounds a little lifeless.

Please post an example recording so we can better understand what you’re hearing. A version that’s completely dry and a separate version with your ITB processing applied would be best. Additionally, some references to what you’re trying to sound like would be helpful.

 

[hbarcat]

Most of these can be found used in your price range, but will be $200 or more purchased new.

• Xotic Effects BBP-MB
• Aguilar Preamp Direct Box Tone Hammer Bass
• Tech 21 Bass Driver SansAmp
• Hartke VXL Bass Attack Pre-Amp
• Darkglass Electronics Alpha Omega Ultra Bass Preamp Pedal
• MXR Bass Preamp M81
• Ampeg SCRDI Bass DI Preamp
• Gallien-Krueger Preamp Plex Pedal
• Behringer V-Tone Bass Driver
• Kokko Booster Guitar Pedal

 

[Papuzzo]

My advice would be to add some saturation to the dry recording. This will add harmonics and give some compression at the same time. I use Saturn, but I know there are many really good free saturation plugins, such as the one from Klanghelm. Another thing that helps is to have some console emulation that can also bring up the gain to the sweetspot of the saturation plugin. For more drastic stuff, you can keep one track of the clean sound and and another dirtied up and use parallel compression to blend that track with the clean.

 

[JdoubleH]

Apologies in advance... this is going to be long winded, but I think it's worth sharing, if for nothing else some really good VST recommendations (both free and paid).

The biggest discovery for me in recording bass is the sound I want to hear when I am recording is often drastically different from what sounds best in the mix. I'm really not that into distorted bass, but some of the best sounding bass I've mixed sounds dirty as all heck solo'd, but warm, full and right where it's supposed to be in the mix.

For this reason, I generally record direct into my interface (Motu M4), sometimes through a compressor pedal (MXR M87, 4:1 ratio, other settings depending on the bass, tone objective and interface input metering). I then add effects and tweak as I playback to suit the project. The recommendations here for saturation and compression IMO are spot on. I don't always like playing through compression, but mixing with it is a revelation.

As for free bass specific VSTs, I've had good luck with the free SoftAmp PSA which afaik is modeled on the Sansamp PSA-1 in Pro Tools (and the only officialy sanctioned Sansamp VST which is only for Pro Tools). In addition to nice saturation and tone shaping, the SoftAmp PSA features a noise gate and sort of compression ("Squeezo") too. There's also a really good free Sansamp BOD pedal clone, the TSE Audio BOD v3.

For free compression, Tin Brook Tales' TLS 1295 LEA is based on an emulation of the fabled Teletronix LA-2A compressor.

Softube's free Saturation Knob is highly recommended by a number of engineers. You'll need an ilock account to activate it (free download and account setup for the Windows / Mac version, $ for a USB dongle you can use if your DAW is not connected to the internet).
edit: If you're not using iLok for anything else, it's not very fun. Many hoops to jump through to get it setup, authorized, and linked to your softube acocunt before you can even download the software.

I use a number of not-free plugins from Waves, Brainworx / Plugin Alliance and others that work pretty well for bass too. The Waves CLA 76 compressors are well regarded UA 1176 emulations. Their SSL E-Channel is a great channel strip emulation with lots of EQ control, comp, etc. One of the best things about many of the Waves plugins are the presets from well known engineers and producers. They're often not only useful, but really educational, and a great starting point for tweaking your own presets. Their L1 Ultramaximizer is pretty amazing as well for bass (and drums, bus mastering, etc). I believe all of these can be had for around $29 each right now with the code CREATE40 (they're usually running some sort of promotion).

The Brainworx / Plugin Alliance Ampeg amp vsts are really fantastic. I've got the SVT-VR Classic and the B15-N. They're not cheap full-price, but I believe you can demo them to see if they'll work for you (The SVT-VR CL was free earlier this year, and the rest were on sale in August). Plugin Allinace also has a few fantastic free plugins I like on bass. The SPL Free Ranger is a super simple graphic EQ with some very cool presets, including a Rock Bass one which I often really dig.The Brainworx bx_cleansweep V2 is a really slick HPF/LPF. The Brainworx bx_subfilter is a lite version of their bx_subsynth. It works REALLY well if you use it on your kick too, and set the "tight punch" center frequencies at least 20hz apart (so say 60hz for the kick, 80hz for the bass). You'll get more punch and heft in the mix without adding mud.

 

[Obese Chess]

The Focusrite interfaces, in my experiences, do not have very good preamps. Guitars and vocals sound okay through them but I was never satisfied with the tone running a bass directly into them. A direct box or preamp of some sort, such as those recommended by @hbarcat above, will liven things up before it gets to the interface.

 

[ddnidd1]

Also if you are going DI only, you can try adding the slightest hint of reverb to simulate the ambience in a room. The actual reverb is almost unnoticeable. With that approach you avoid having the bass track totally dry and unnaturally in your face.

 

[JKos]

The Focusrite interfaces, in my experiences, do not have very good preamps.

This seems to be a recurring theme that needs to be repeated whenever someone says they have a Focusrite.

 

[silky smoove]

The comments about Focusrite preamps should be clarified a bit: There is nothing wrong with these preamps. They're completely linear at all gain stages and provide zero color as you would expect with a transformer'less preamp without any tone shaping built into the circuit. They provide adequate gain for most home studio tasks and are sufficiently low noise until they're absolutely cranked which is typically solved quite easily by gain staging differently ahead of the preamp. What they won't provide is any color, mojo, vibe, saturation, etc. If you feed them a signal that sounds the way you want it to sound, they will simply pass that signal to the converters with a great deal of accuracy. What they won't do is magically make your signal sound better/different if what you provide them is not what you wanted in the first place. This is true of most preamps without transformers or built-in tone shaping sections and is sometimes precisely what's needed (i.e. the tone going in is awesome, so don't mess with it.).

 

[Obese Chess]

That is an important distinction!

 

[ThudThudThud]

Something like this? TSE Audio - Software

 

[JKos]

The comments about Focusrite preamps should be clarified a bit: There is nothing wrong with these preamps.

Keep in mind you deal with the big stuff. There are a lot of comments here in TB about the Focusrite DI inputs in the smaller units just being less than stellar.

 

[silky smoove]

Keep in mind you deal with the big stuff. There are a lot of comments here in TB about the Focusrite DI inputs in the smaller units just being less than stellar.

Last time I checked, the entire Scarlett line used the same preamps. Those are the only Focusrite preamps I have experience with and my comments above hold true for those. The Clarett line might nicer but I'll bet the differences, with the 'air' feature disengaged, are almost entirely in the amount of available gain on tap. They're fine and not appreciably different to the preamps built into many interfaces or even standalone 8-channel preamps with no transformers, provided you like the signal going in and don't need any magic from a preamp stage.

 

[Obese Chess]

Keep in mind you deal with the big stuff. There are a lot of comments here in TB about the Focusrite DI inputs in the smaller units just being less than stellar.

IME the bigger problem with the smaller units is that Focusrite's support for them on Windows computers is very subpar and most people have to fiddle with aftermarket/third-party drivers to keep them functional about six months after purchase and even then you run into all sorts of problems with sampling rates, latency, gain, etc as a result. Silky is correct that they are very transparent, which is good when you're recording, say, vocals, but the sound of a bass guitar plugged directly into one isn't as pleasing to many peoples' ears. So, it's true, they aren't "bad," but by the same token running a bass directly into one rarely sounds "good."

 

[silky smoove]

but the sound of a bass guitar plugged directly into one isn't as pleasing to many peoples' ears

Exactly. It’s an issue of expectations. I think a lot of people plug into these and expect the same kind of vibe they get from plugging into an amp, and then are disappointed when the device does its job perfectly. Heck, I can plug into my TT-73 and absolutely saturate the transformer and it still won’t sound like an amp!

 

[Basslice]

Well, I am a bit of a Focusrite Fanboy. I think their pre-amps sound fantastic when recording bass directly.

Here is a piece of a track where I have a Fender Jazz going right into the Focusrite. There is some post compression. Sounds great to me. I have actually been preferring this tone to running the bass through an amp plugin. What do you hear that does not sound good? I am really wondering...