Recording at Home

[77FenderJazz]

When I am recording I want flexibility later so run A) a DI straight from my bass, B) into effects, into amp into another DI, and C) mic on the cab.
Usually in the mix it ends up being 60% from B, 30% from C and 10% from A.
The affected DI is usually the tone I want but the mic makes it feel more “live”, and the clean DI fills (or rounds) it out.
I also have had a couple of occasions that in the end that didn’t sit right, so we took the clean DI and were able to re-amp it.
Options.

 

[wjcstp]

If you can, I'd recommend trying to track your bass along with the drums. It shouldn't take much more studio time to set up a bass (as compared to setting up and micing drums), and you may end up with tighter rhythm tracks. That's how we recorded last year and we were very happy with both the sound and performance we got. The guitars and singer played along too, but those were only scratch tracks that were re-done later.

In short, do whatever will give you the best performance, a lot of tonal things can get fixed/tweaked in the mix.

 

[brianrost]

Send a clean direct signal and mike the amp on separate tracks.

Lots of people just use amp sims in the computer these days.

 

[singlemalt]

I’m not clear on the scenario. Are you expected to record these tracks at your own place, on your own gear? All on your own?

Or is everybody, including the engineer meeting to hang and record at the guitarist’s home? Cheaper than renting studio time, but still a viable working space. And the engineer is on the clock.

If it’s the latter, I’d expect that the group and engineer has done some set up to make the work space work. And they have already gotten good results with this process.

You should be able to send any number of tracks to the DAW with each pass. Clean, distortion, fx, all direct and isolated.

As for a miked cab, since this is metal, I’d think they would have to set up some kind of containment for very loud guitar amps. Or the neighbors are going to bitch…
You could use that and send yet another copy of the track.

I’d spend my prep time getting the bass lines super tight and played how you want them. More rehearsal, less gear worries.

Then, go over, bring all your gear, and let the engineer get what he needs in as few takes as possible. Have some fun.

 

[Freekmagnet]

I've been dabbling with home recording, and I'm going to agree with the folks who have suggested sending a clean tone and the Darkglass tone. I would take it a step further and be open to the idea of throwing out the effected tone altogether.

One thing I've learned as a bass player engineering tracks is that how your bass sounds in a mix is relative to everything else in the overall mix. Unless you're planning on mixing every song the same, it doesn't make sense to be "committed to your tone" and just going with one sound expecting it to work in every circumstance. There is not necessarily "one size fits all" bass sound, and TBH there are far more options for being creative with your bass tone in the studio then just running your bass through a pedal.

In my recordings, I'm always using one of several basses, and every song doesn't have the same instrumentation. As a result, sometimes I use a virtual FET compressor, sometimes I use an virtual optical compressor. Sometimes I add saturation, or I just saturate the highs, or I don't add saturation at all. Sometimes I have run the bass through a virtual amp, sometimes I don't.

 

[TheArchitect]

I've been dabbling with home recording, and I'm going to agree with the folks who have suggested sending a clean tone and the Darkglass tone. I would take it a step further and be open to the idea of throwing out the effected tone altogether.

One thing I've learned as a bass player engineering tracks is that how your bass sounds in a mix is relative to everything else in the overall mix. Unless you're planning on mixing every song the same, it doesn't make sense to be "committed to your tone" and just going with one sound expecting it to work in every circumstance. There is not necessarily "one size fits all" bass sound, and TBH there are far more options for being creative with your bass tone in the studio then just running your bass through a pedal.

In my recordings, I'm always using one of several basses, and every song doesn't have the same instrumentation. As a result, sometimes I use a virtual FET compressor, sometimes I use an virtual optical compressor. Sometimes I add saturation, or I just saturate the highs, or I don't add saturation at all. Sometimes I have run the bass through a virtual amp, sometimes I don't.

No one said you should be "committed to your tone" as if its a single overarching thing. We are saying you should commit to a tone for that track and record it. There is a world of difference. If you don't know what that is, you are not ready to record

If your going to defer everything to the engineer, why not have them play it for you too? Where are you going to draw the line? You make yourself unnecessary to the process if you are just going to defer all decisions to someone else

 

[Freekmagnet]

No one said you should be "committed to your tone" as if its a single overarching thing. We are saying you should commit to a tone for that track and record it. There is a world of difference. If you don't know what that is, you are not ready to record

If your going to defer everything to the engineer, why not have them play it for you too? Where are you going to draw the line? You make yourself unnecessary to the process if you are just going to defer all decisions to someone else

The approach for getting a good live bass sound and a good recorded bass sound are two different things. If you're used to using one pedal (presumably to get some saturation) in a live setting that's great. But, what if that tone doesn't serve the mix of the song and the bass gets buried, or doesn't cut, or has no overall presence when recorded? You're not going to know that until you actually record it and play it back with drums, guitars, vocals, glockenspiel, or whatever. There are infinite ways to get any tone you can possibly imagine in the studio, provided the engineer has a clean bass track to work with.

It's not about deferring everything to the engineer. It building a bass sound that works great within the context of the overall mix. An experienced engineer will know how to make the bass sound great in the studio, and doing that is a lot easier with a clean bass sound.

 

[TheArchitect]

The approach for getting a good live bass sound and a good recorded bass sound are two different things. If you're used to using one pedal (presumably to get some saturation) in a live setting that's great. But, what if that tone doesn't serve the mix of the song and the bass gets buried, or doesn't cut, or has no overall presence when recorded? You're not going to know that until you actually record it and play it back with drums, guitars, vocals, glockenspiel, or whatever. There are infinite ways to get any tone you can possibly imagine in the studio, provided the engineer has a clean bass track to work with.

It's not about deferring everything to the engineer. It building a bass sound that works great within the context of the overall mix. An experienced engineer will know how to make the bass sound great in the studio, and doing that is a lot easier with a clean bass sound.

1 - Did not say anything about live

2 - "There are infinite ways to get any tone you can possibly imagine in the studio" - That is a fallacy but even it were true it would cost because it would take a lot of time.. On the tight budget here, they are not going to pursue such things.

3 - "But, what if..... " The engineer is interested in efficiency and getting paid. If you are expecting them to do something magical with your sound, you are going to be disappointed. They will do the same thing to your bass that they do to everyone else's which is as little as possible because its efficient. They are not not getting paid to create your sound, sell your music or create some ground breaking recording. That's what you are supposed to be doing. If you want something other than baseline its on you to make that happen. If you insist on being cautious and vanilla, you will get exactly that back

4 - You can say its not about deferring to the engineer all you want and justify it however you will. The fact remains, its what you are doing no matter how you try to word play it. Its your choice but have no illusion what the end result will be.

 

[joebingo]

amazing how animated people can get about another band's low budget recording session