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Recording Demos Before Going Into The Studio- Need Preamp

Bluesman88

Bluesman88

Nov 15, 2016
105
90
38
Philadelphia
#1
Ok wonderful folks of talkbass I need some help! My band is going into the studio to record an album early this year. To help get prepared and maximize our studio budget we're DIYing demos of all the songs before we go into the studio. We did one session using 2 interfaces lightpiped together for like 25 inputs into an Ipad with garage band and it worked shockingly well! I sent the bass in using my mxr studio compression pedal to control my level and make sure I had enough gain. It was simple enough to get the bass sounding great in the mix after recording but it didn't sound great in the monitors going direct (too bright, too much finger noise).

So I want to either get something cheap and cheerful just for this process like an ART tube DI or get something nice I'll use for live playing as well like a tech 21 vt bass di. What do you think has the most utility?

Here is a live show we did in case your curious about our sound:
https://archive.org/details/SR2018-04-20.sbd.aif

Thanks for your help TB!!
 
#2
"Cheap" is relative. What's your budget?

I don't have personal experience with ART's stuff, but there are many fans here. The Tech21 stuff is also great – I use a VT-RM rack unit on occasion for recording and live. I've also obtained great results with some of the older Line 6 Bass POD units, which are plentiful on the preowned market.

FYI, there's a current discussion of rack-mounted preamps here.

Good luck with your search.
 
#3
Bluesman88 said:
It was simple enough to get the bass sounding great in the mix after recording but it didn't sound great in the monitors going direct (too bright, too much finger noise).
Click to expand...

well, garageband should have bass amp simulations, try it first.

if the only problem is `too bright', this is solvable just with EQ or diming the tone knob when recording.
 
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#4
garp said:
"Cheap" is relative. What's your budget?

I don't have personal experience with ART's stuff, but there are many fans here. The Tech21 stuff is also great – I use a VT-RM rack unit on occasion for recording and live. I've also obtained great results with some of the older Line 6 Bass POD units, which are plentiful on the preowned market.

FYI, there's a current discussion of rack-mounted preamps here.

Good luck with your search.
Click to expand...
Cheap would be less than $100. I wouldn't be afraid to spend more money if there's some real utility to be had live. An old line 6 bass pod is a great idea. Easy to try out a bunch of sounds and certainly high enough quality for demos. I'll also start looking out for rack gear- I've noticed some good deals on neat old rack stuff.
 
#5
Aloe said:
well, garageband should have bass amp simulations, try it first.

if the only problem is `too bright', this is solvable just with EQ or diming the tone knob when recording.
Click to expand...
Garage band was able to make it sound pretty darn good. I tend to be on the side of too bright when recording since it seems easy to dial out the high end later but seems hard to add it back in. Maybe I need to focus more on learning my parts than on an extraneous piece of gear lol. I'm really wanting to get something with an HPF to try out but the cost of entry seems a little steep and hard to get a hold of.
 
#7
Bluesman88 said:
Cheap would be less than $100. I wouldn't be afraid to spend more money if there's some real utility to be had live. An old line 6 bass pod is a great idea. Easy to try out a bunch of sounds and certainly high enough quality for demos. I'll also start looking out for rack gear- I've noticed some good deals on neat old rack stuff.
Click to expand...
The nice thing about the Bass PODs – IMHO – is that while they were designed to be the "Swiss Army Knife"-equivalent of effects and amp modeling, they also function as perfectly good preamps/DI tools. To that point, before I bought my first POD, I was plugging directly into the mic preamp on an older Mackie mixer, and then routing that signal into my audio recorder.
 
#8
Behringer Ultragain and Art MP both work great. $50ish.

Honestly tho, if you have a digital interface working that’s all you need. Don’t bother with an additional preamp at this stage. I just a few days ago finished all of the scratch tracks for an LP using nothing but and an iPad, a 2 channel Behringer interface and some Alesis midi drums. Worked absolutely flawlessly.
 

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