Recording bass tracks remotely - minimalist setup?

[kesslari]

I am getting involved in a musical collaboration with folks who are quite far away.
I know that today it's quite easy to send tracks back and forth.
Without getting ProTools or Cakewalk or shelling out for a studio, what is a good minimalist setup with which I can record a track on other my Mac or Zoom H2 (while playing/listening to the other tracks)?

I know I need an audio interface like Focusrite. I've got a preamp.
I don't know what software I need. Can I use Audacity? What else do I need?

Until recently I could simply use a friend's well equipped studio, but a severe illness (his) makes that impossible now.

Thanks for your input.

 

[old spice]

For simplicity I think you should use the program they are using.

 

[Leo Smith]

Recently I did an experiment with this kind of remote recording. I used Audacity. The tune was a pretty simple blues thing. The engineer send me an MP3 of a rough mix that included a count-off and a click track in the silent parts. Putting that into Audacity, I recorded bass onto another track. When I was happy with the performance, I exported only the bass track as a WAV and sent it back to the engineer. (He uses ProTools, BTW.)

So, that worked for me in a pinch. I wasn't using effects and the part wasn't difficult. With bass, preamp, compressor, and DI, I was just focused on making a great sound with a hot enough level that didn't overload the audio interface or the computer.

I think if it were a more complex situation, you may want to use the same program that your collaborators are using.

 

[kesslari]

Leo, I suspect that your solution will work for this, and it's what I imagined *might* work.

Thanks.

 

[Leo Smith]

Glad to help you out!

Give it a try. My gear isn't fancy at all - in fact, I just used to the same gear I use for live shows. BassBone and an Aguilar TLC compressor, into an MAudio USB interface. I took a lot of time to reduce noise as much as possible, after discovering that sitting by the computer introduced a lot of noise into the signal. Just had to move around and move away from the computer to get that under control.

 

[scottfeldstein]

I used to use Garageband and a $50 mixer to record bass parts. They'd send me partial tracks, I'd import them into GB and record myself playing along. Then I'd soundcloud the uncompressed file back to them.