the bare minimum! recording bass direct into a tascam DP. amp sim? DI? preamp? help

It all depends on what your goals are. Or what your objective is. If you say, just for fun, and want a simple solution. Just plug your bass directly into your recorder, or mic your amp. This will give you decent audio for fun, and demos.
Today's modern digital recording gear is really easy to use, and is very user friendly. Thus, simple and fun can be done. For minimal dollars. That tascam is about as easy as it gets to record a track. And that's really all you need.

However, if you want to get deeper into digital audio recording, you'll need to read a lot and look at a lot of tutorials on how to record on whatever device or gear you plan to work with.

Since you have the basics of recording down, and are asking about audio sound quality or different tones in audio, you'll benefit from learning how EQ and digital FX impacts your sound. Your current gear can produce high quality digital audio. The difference between your final outcome is dependent on how well you can set up the recording (DI or mic, or both, and how you mix the tracks with FX as you record. That's the reality, it's based on how well you can operate your gear. There is no simple fix or any pure formula that works for everyone. Developing that ear to produce great sounding audio takes a lot of trial and error, and logical thinking.

The benefits of using a interface and DAW is huge compared to a portable recorder: with a DAW you can make huge changes to EQ, FX, and multi layer tracks with various EQ and FX. You can also use automation and time stretch the tempo without changing pitch. You can also mix various track in a non destructive way, and overdub them anytime. And the biggest difference is all this can be done after you've recorded the tracks. Also, depending on the interface the headroom is huge, so volume levels while recording is not an issue, as you can boost volumes by large amounts without distortion or clipping.

So, to sum this all up, you have the gear to record great digital audio. To do it, you'll need to learn and experiment more with it to get a better sound if you're not happy with what you're getting. And if you want more ability to edit/mix, and develop your audio tracks with ease, you can get into the world of DAW and interface recording. But it all boils down to how good you can work with your gear, and how well you've developed your ear to make the adjustments in the mix to get a good sounding recording.

And, if you recorded digital tracks in the WAV format, you can pull them into any modern DAW, and do all the post recording mixing, and editing you wish. If your tracks were recorded well, they can be mixed to a great sounding audio track. And if you're not getting the results you seek, you'll need to look at the many tutorials on how to EQ and mix. Again, the only way to get great results or better results than what you have, is trial and error with EQ and mixing.

Good luck with your recording.

 

I use the Tascam DP-008 all the time. It's a fine tool for basic tracking of ideas on a budget. If I want a lot of pre-amp eq and presence, the Sansamp Bass Driver DI works great. For effects, a ZoomG1X does the trick. This last go-around, I tracked by plugging a passive bass straight into the unit which works just fine, especially if you want to catch lots of feel directly from the fingers.

 

I'd highly recommend the @Dsmnoisemaker OmniCabSim

 

I use a Zoom B1on at times:-

Bass>>.ZoomB1on>>>Tascam DP-008EX. No problem whatsoever , just tweak levels etc.

On the Tascam you can turn a mono signal ( from bass playing into say, Input A) into a stereo paired track of A by "assigning" tracks.

You also set "gain" level for whatever you plug into the selected input.

I have passive basses. They all work on the Tascam, straight in, no pre-amp required.

When you make a "master track" for final mixdown on the Tascam you can select levels that increase "sound pressure ' also as well as "normalize".

If you are uploading a song to computer you need to make a "stereo master" track which will reside in the FAT partition of the Tascam.

The time it takes for the Tascam to prep a song for this is the length of the song.

I've read on reviews where some people had trouble doing this. But in reality it's really easy.

The Tascam is the funnest easiest little mixer/recorder I've ever used.

The instructions are easy to learn but need to be followed closely and accurately.

The instructions are quite user friendly compared to some other rigs I have.

Like my Motif...it's now about 14 years in and I still can't figure out how to record a vocal on it...even though the chips for doing that have been installed all that time...


(btw....anybody reading this..if you are thinking of buying the Tascam DP-008EX, make sure to buy the a/c adaptor as well. I only seem to get about an hour and a half if I use batteries.)