Tube DI vs. Mic'd Cab: What Am I Missing?

[musicmansf]

Wow, lots of great replies here! Will try and get to everyone's advice individually, but just wanted to say it's probably not a phase issue (muting tracks for A vs. B comparison and the wave peaks are lined up ).

 

[musicmansf]

If I had to guess, your signal includes a lot of high end content that the cabinet and mic are filtering out. When you adjust either to be the same volume, the DI will sound thinner. DIs almost always sound better with some kind of cabinet emulation going on, in order to tighten up and mellow the sound, which is how I use mine...

I use a DI cab sim pedal which just includes simple filters for taking out high end+low end and adjusting the mid content.

Yes, I think that's what's going on with the pick attack filter sweep. I took the RFE out of the mix, and it definitely helps quell the peak-y stuff, but the Ray is naturally bright on it's own (even with dead strings) so there's still a bit of that going on.

CabSim with the DI definitely is great for headphone rehearsal and tracking (although Apple's new M-series chips broke my DAW's IR loader!), so between that and re-amping, perhaps that's what's going on behind the scenes in production.

 

[musicmansf]

Bypass the RFE and record the bass through the DI. Does it still sound thin and peaky? A Stingray bass? How do you have your tone controls set?

Bypassing the RFE definitely helps knock down 80% of the peaks (but kills the filter attack vibe I'd like to capture). Tone controls on the Stingray are treble (neutral), mids (a bit scooped, nothing crazy), bass (a bit bumped for girth, but not boomy). My strings are also super dead so that's probably contributing to the blunt peaks vs. fresh zing.

 

[musicmansf]

A few things could be happening.... Your bass is EQ'ed at the preamp stage to be bright with some midrange content missing, which the DI will communicate very clearly. Without any sort of compression involved, and especially with a pick, 'peaks' are going to be a lot more noticeable. Your amp is likely 'smoothing out' some of those upper end artifacts and perhaps adding some midrange heft back in.... then there's also the EQ curve of the mic to consider.

A Stingray going through a quality tube DI should not sound 'thin and peaky' as a general rule, but 'Rays tend to be bright.

A final thing to consider is phase issues.... it's possible the DI is out of phase with the mic signal and causing something to be thinned out as a result.

Try eliminating the Broughton RFE and just going straight in to the DI with the bass preamp 'flat' - eliminate extraneous things and just pare it down to the bass, DI, and amp and start investigating again from there. EQ the amp to sound the way you want it, grab that tone, and then you'll also have the direct flat EQ to mess with in post.

Bolded for bingo. I didn't think about the individual pedals adding compression before hitting the amp.

I'll try and recreate some of the filters in my DAW with the DI totally dry. I didn't get that far last night, but I did track in that order towards the end of the session.

 

[NKBassman]

Bypassing the RFE definitely helps knock down 80% of the peaks (but kills the filter attack vibe I'd like to capture). Tone controls on the Stingray are treble (neutral), mids (a bit scooped, nothing crazy), bass (a bit bumped for girth, but not boomy). My strings are also super dead so that's probably contributing to the blunt peaks vs. fresh zing.

You should be able to add that vibe back in after its recorded. IMO, that should be a mix decision anyway, not a tracking decision.

 

[musicmansf]

A DI'd bass shouldn't sound thin&peaky.

However...

Certain effects, particularly dirt, may sound very thin and nasty through a DI because the DI will not roll off highs the way a speaker does. The solution to this is to either roll off highs using an eq OR use a speaker sim on the DI signal OR use a clean DI signal and combine it with a dirty amp/cab signal.

Be aware that even a clean DI signal can make the overall tone extremely weak/hollow/thin when combined with a mic'ed cab if the DI and amp signals are out of phase. If you combine mic'ed amp+DI, make sure you know how to deal with phase issues.

But a clean DI signal soloed should definitely not be thin&peaky unless the DI box (or other parts of the signal chain) is either faulty or used incorrectly.

Phase was corrected as far as I could tell and no dirt or effects were upstream of the DI. A cabsim absolutely eliminates the issue.

 

[musicmansf]

It’s really surprising how much just the amp and speaker shape the sound. When I had a helix, with headphones, it was crazy to hear some of the effect paths with and without the speaker emulation on. Distortion sounds awful. A RAT pedal into an SVT without the cab (virtual) and then with the cab are so vastly different. Your signal path, picked stingray into a pick attack filter and then DI, I expect it would be exactly as you described it.

A good experiment would be to throw some different IRs (basically EQs that replicate the sound of a miced cab) on your DI sound and compare.

Oh yeah, dirt through a DI is horrendous. I have a ShiftLine CabSim that puts everything in harmony when tracking without an amp, I just have to correct my DAW IR-loader situation (Apple silicon chip problems).

 

[musicmansf]

Is this Demeter the one with the Bi-Amp option and you are connected to the Hi output of the Bi-Amp output section? Probably explains the thin and peaky sound

It's just the mono direct box. I usually use the boost switch when using a cabsim or headphones because it gets more lively that way, but it was definitely accentuating the RFE peaks without the cabsim downstream.

 

[musicmansf]

You should be able to add that vibe back in after its recorded. IMO, that should be a mix decision anyway, not a tracking decision.

Sounds like this was my first mistake!

 

[Deleted member 271037]

Wow, lots of great replies here! Will try and get to everyone's advice individually, but just wanted to say it's probably not a phase issue (muting tracks for A vs. B comparison and the wave peaks are lined up ).

Time alignment does not rule out phase/comb filtering issues. But as long as it doesn't sound thinner or more "hollow" with amp+DI than either track soloed it's probably fine.

 

[silky smoove]

Time alignment does not rule out phase/comb filtering issues.

Correct. Phase is both time and frequency dependent.

 

[NKBassman]

Sounds like this was my first mistake!

I think your best approach would be to move the Broughton RFE to after the DI to keep the DI as clean as possible, and then do whatever you want to do to get the amp/mic track sounding exactly the way you want it. Then EQ, mix, manipulate and blend to taste in the DAW. Ideally the mic track should be almost there by the time it hits the computer, and you can manipulate the DI track with all sorts of plugins to fill in any blanks.

 

[JimmyM]

Love a miced cab, love effects, hated DIs, clean/dirty blends, and tweeter frequencies. Unfortunately the mic went over poorly with occasional sound techs, and one even resorted to subterfuge while I was at dinner because he was incompetent.

I finally decided that it’s a DI world and worked on making my DI sound as good as a mic on a cab. Bought a Reddi and high and low pass filters to imitate a cab, made sure that my signal with all my effects was relatively flat response so techs didn’t complain, and since then I haven’t had any problems.

That worked for me, might not be the thing for you, but I figured I’d mention it in case it gives you an idea or two.

 

[N. Kentucky Bass]

Answering the OP's question: There can be quite a difference depending on use case.

Last week I finished a tracking project where the producer wanted a double bass feel for an original bossa nova. Oops -- just sold the double bass! So I shoved a piece of microfiber sponge under the strings on a P-bass with TJ Jazz flats, plucked close to the end of the fingerboard, and tracked it two ways, both starting with a Noble tube-based preamp/DI.

1. Noble XLR out --> FocusRite Scarlett 8i6 --> PC DAW
2. Same Noble 1/4" jack out --> Phil Jones PB-300 powered bass cabinet --> Telefunken M61 omnidirectional SD condenser microphone placed 2 feet in front of grill --> FocusRite Scarlette 8i6 --> PC DAW

Keep in mind the signal for both tracks used the Noble tube preamp so you would think there'd be quite a bit of similarity in recordings. Not so! My theory was by micing the sound source exactly how I mic'd my double bass, the recorded sound would also pick up the same bit of room air. I played this in my sound treated studio. Obviously, a P-bass does not sound identical to a double bass, but for purposes of this project, it was close enough to do a great job! The DI'd track also sounded great, but more immediate like an electric bass (as it was!). I was delighted to discover yet another use for the P-bass!

 

[Boneless]

I am assuming you are aligning the DI track to the mic track (since the latter will be slightly delayed). If not, just pick a transient and then align the second to the first one at maximum zoom. (You might be able to do this live too, if the venue provides a mixer with channel delay capabilities; realistically, you're looking at something like 0.05ms). Now you can use both together with few surprises. (The delay between the two is not that significant, and on bass it might be overkill, so you might get away with not doing this, which is why not many do it live, but it doesn't hurt to do so regardless, especially in the studio where it might count more).

That said, a bass cabinet is far from a hifi device (actually all speakers, even "audiophile-grade" general purpose hifi speakers introduce far more distortion than any preamp or amp does). It contributes a lot to your final tone, and by mic'ing the woofer, you are also picking up the high-mid range of the woofer (decidedly NOT linear) and the treble rolloff after that. A DI tone, even a "DI with mojo" is going to sound comparatively clean/sterile (depending on your view). A general rule of thumb is, use the DI for focus, clean articulation, extreme low end and upper treble, and use the cab for midrange (100-4000kHz) character and low-end colour. I usually mix them (after aligning them) something like 60/40, prioritising the DI or the cabinet according to the song. Also, you could mix cabinet and DI with a lowpass on the former and a highpass on the latter, both set at a fairly high frequency (4000-5000Hz). It works sometimes, if you are only interested in the clean treble the DI provides.

 

[J Wilson]

Straight through to the DI, then effects through the cab. No way a Stingray through a Demeter tube DI should sound thin. I've never seen a setup with effects inline to the DI, regardless of what brand it was. What you skip, as already pointed out, is eveything else the cab mic is picking up.

 

[JimmyM]

Straight through to the DI, then effects through the cab. No way a Stingray through a Demeter tube DI should sound thin. I've never seen a setup with effects inline to the DI, regardless of what brand it was. What you skip, as already pointed out, is eveything else the cab mic is picking up.

Really? Never? Well howdy then! Darn right they go through my DI. Why? Because if I don’t, they don’t go through the PA most of the time. I’m by far not the only one, either, especially with so many ampless rigs these days.

 

[NKBassman]

Really? Never? Well howdy then! Darn right they go through my DI. Why? Because if I don’t, they don’t go through the PA most of the time. I’m by far not the only one, either, especially with so many ampless rigs these days.

For live usage, my DI is 100% post all my effects 100% of the time. I'll warn the sound guy ahead of time if there's going to be suboctave or fuzz, but he's getting it all.

 

[MDBass]

I'm usually posting in other parts of TB, but I thought this would be the best place to ask:

Why does my Demeter Tube DI box sound thin and peak-y compared to a simple Sennheiser dynamic mic on a low volume cab?

Granted, I'm at the *very* beginning of an engineer's understanding, but to my ear, it's actively worse to include the DI (I also played around with some Compression and EQ plugins, but I'm also not using a ProTools-level DAW).

Signal path:

Stingray (picked) -> Broughton RFE (to mimic a Wal filter-based pick attack) -> Demeter DI. The dirt and rest of effects come after this and go into my amp, so the DI is getting clean with some EQ shaping before hitting the interface.

The downstream amp is also Demeter, which gets rave responses from sound guys for the on-board DI (basically the same topography of the direct box, just without EQ options).

I know producers say they take both DI and cab tracks for mixing, but it seems like the cab has way more weight and character

“The dirt and effects go after the DI”: you’ve unintentionally answered your own question, at least in part.

Trying to directly compare signals when they aren’t being fed the same information doesn’t really serve a purpose.

There are a lot of reasons to record a dry DI when tracking guitars and bass:

For reamping if the original printed tone doesn’t end up fitting the mix well.

For editing ease, since the transients are actually visible on the DI but won’t be at all on a heavily distorted amp track.

For blending with the amp track: either to add additional attack by hyping the transients with compression, additional low end weight by low passing a creating a brick walled sub track, filling out the midrange of an overly scooped bass amp track by band pass filtering and saturating, etc.

When blending, just make sure to phase align the DI signal with the amp: the amp track will be slightly behind the DI, and that phase discrepancy can totally gut the low end punch and overall coherency of the combined sounds.

I’d recommend moving the RFE after the DI as well: there’s zero benefit to hard printing those filters onto a dry DI when you can easily replicate and manipulate them in your DAW.

Also: every DAW on the market is “Pro Tools level” these days, so don’t worry about that at all.

Have fun!

 

[musicmansf]

Love a miced cab, love effects, hated DIs, clean/dirty blends, and tweeter frequencies. Unfortunately the mic went over poorly with occasional sound techs, and one even resorted to subterfuge while I was at dinner because he was incompetent.

I finally decided that it’s a DI world and worked on making my DI sound as good as a mic on a cab. Bought a Reddi and high and low pass filters to imitate a cab, made sure that my signal with all my effects was relatively flat response so techs didn’t complain, and since then I haven’t had any problems.

That worked for me, might not be the thing for you, but I figured I’d mention it in case it gives you an idea or two.

That was originally my plan of attack when I got tired of lugging a cab through the labyrinth of my apartment common areas (with studio tracking as a bonus). I got super close for headphone rehearsals! Still up in the air if ampless for a metal/prog gig and unknown engineer will be successful, but the tools out there now are fantastic.