Double Bass Recording with 2 Mics - Room Sound Ect.

[bass1000]

Hi guys I'm a newbie DB-er so i skimmed the newbie threads but didn't see much on this. I was recording a few tracks today, and i used a Shure beta 57 pointed at the sound hole, and the mic was about level with the bridge. I got a suprisingly good sound running into a Focusrite trackmaster then recording into my DAW setup. it was warm and fat, but lacked any type of room sound or string sound. It was almost as the signal was muffled.

Would i be ahead to use another mic further up the board, say right where i pluck? I just want to add a small amount of room sound or top end or something. Or do i move the 57 around. What has worked for you guys ?

Thanks

 

[Pete]

Recording DB is really pretty difficult, depends on the bass too. It's good you have a good preamp to use in that will help the sound a lot. I prefer a decent large diaphram mic like an AT4033/4050 positioned similar to where you had it maybe 1-2 feet back. I've used a second small diaphram (ug, my spelling sux) positioned at head height coming down at a 45deg angle down the neck. It's really for color than anything, basically it's good to be creative with positioning. If you want more room sound use a mic with a wider pattern and step back a bit from the mic.

I just did a jazz recording yesterday using an AT3035 a foot from the G string F hole and a Samson C02 around the neck/body joint. I'm still playing with the mixed sound (multi-tracked, I'd NEVER 2 track the whole band using this cuz I don't know how it would sound), mostly using the 3035 for most of the tone and the C02 for top end, eh, I gotta play with it but over all the 3035 did well, plenty of bleed from the drums but that's ok, I don't want a totally dead tone, just capture enough bass. I didn't use the K&K pickup at all since I was limited to 8ch of recording at one time (01V w/ MY8AT -> ADAT lightpipe -> M Audio Optical card using Vegas 5).

Try a condenser next.

 

[moles]

If you want to try a two mic setup, a good rule of thumb is to place the farthest of the two 3x the distance that the closest is from the bass. Not a rule, but a good place to start to lessen the chances of bad phase problems.
Where you are trying to mic right now might be close to a good spot. Generally, pointing right at the f hole ain't great. There is a lot of woof coming out of there that you don't want to hear, as it sounds like you're finding. I get some pretty good sounds out of mine right in front of the bridge, about a foot away. (I've tried this with a few mics). If that's not cutting it on its own, you could try adding a small diaphragm condenser at the upper bout pointing toward the fingerboard.

 

[Jake deVilliers]

The classic configuration is a small diaphragm condenser ~12" off the upper top on the passenger side and a large diaphragm ~36" in front of the bridge - big, fat and articulate.

 

[M Ramsey]

We've had good results with 2 mics, both large condenser Chinese made cheapies. These have been done a couple different ways.

One setup was both about 1.5 feet back in front of each f hole.

Another was a large condenser 1 foot in front of the bridge and then another small diaphragm condenser coming stright down about head high to the bassist, pointing down the finger board, toward the top of the bridge.

I've also had good results with my RCA 77DX about a foot off and between the top of the treble f hole and the point where my hand was pulling stings.

I've alsways said it's the poor upright bassist who has to lug the furniture to the gig and have multiple options for getting his sound delivered to the house. Nearly the same thing happens in a recording situation. Lots of options to get the bass sound captured "just right."

 

[Marc Piane]

I try to capture a sound that I can place in the mix somewhere. What I mean by that is in order for each instrument to stand out it need to have its own place in the eq and stereo spectrum. Since bass is a mostly in an omnidirectional frequency range any sort of panning won't help much. So we are left with the eq part.

So how does this effect mic selection? What I try to make sure I get are the pieces of the sound that are going to really provide me with usable information based on the recording situation at hand. A small diaphram condenser up high is going to be useless if there are other instruments that a mic of that type is going to favor are within 'hearing' range.

Also try to really isolate what your ears are hearing and capture that.

From a practical standpoint though what I try to capture the most is the mids. Lows just end up giving us mud. With mids we just need to separate it somehow from the bd which in jazz is often in a similar frequency range and we do want to two to work together. We also want to hear them individually.

Phase cancellation is an overrated topic when it comes to mic placement IMO. There are SO many factors that lead to phase problems. Just place the mics and if you are not getting what you want then move them. THere is no right way. Trail and error is the only answer.

I think capturing the sound of a DB is fairly easy if it is the only instrument. It gets tricky when we put in an ensemble.

IME, IMO, IMHO, YMMV