Why mic a bass cab?

[JimmyM]

The modern approach to recording is to commit to nothing when recording.

Sounds like it, too But you find pockets of folks these days who get that commitment to tape makes for better and less sterile music.

 

[brianrost]

I've never recorded by miking an amp, always DI. I've never been unhappy with the sound either.

Horses for courses. Mike it if you want to.

 

[fishdreams]

The best recorded bass tone I have ever heard & seen happen on a recording session (I was co-producing, not playing) was Ken Filiano's German double bass into an Acoustic Image pumped through an Ampeg 8x10 miked with a bass drum mike if I remember correctly.

If I am in a bind (no time to setup, room acoustics suck, limited number of available tracks, the amp around happens to be cardboard sounding Markbass combo) I usually take the DI just to be safe. But if I have the time, with a good cab on hand, recording by myself, and a room with nice acoustics, I use DI, 1 mike on cab and 1 mike in the space. The miked cab is the main source for the tone. My go-to mike cab is an old Stedman N-90, which is large diaphram dynamic mic that fattens the sound a bit without coloring what comes out of the cab. In the mix it's is panned slightly with the DI, which adds definition, while the room mike is turned up just a little just so you hardly notice it, for beefing up and adding a bit room resonance. Big tone without compression or eq-ing.

 

[dmac1961]

Because it works much better than micing the head!

 

[Joebarnes]

When I run my AKG P2 in front of my SVT/Fridge, I really have to do very little in terms of EQ at the mixing stage and the bass sits nicely in the mix. DI? I'm spending a crapload of time getting things to fit. I understand it takes some more effort to mic, and you need to isolate the cab, etc. but in the long run, I sound like "me" through the mic and like dookie through the DI. Not sure why just because its a bass, you wouldn't want to sound like "you".

 

[Pdaddy1978]

The first 2 times I recorded, we used a portable 8 track. First in a warehouse, then in my backyard studio. It was all very old-school and entirely analog and the bass amp was miked and isolated. The results were garage-alicious. The 3rd time we went into a " proper " studio. All digital . The engineer plugged me straight into the board. It was clean and clear and could be modeled and manipulated anyway I liked, but he could tell I wasn't really happy so he had me set up my amp and split the signal and put derect and miked on separate channels. We mixed the two together to varying degrees song by song...it sounded like.........me. The only way to fly.

 

[Ric5]

Why mic a bass cab?

Simple ... to get the character and tone of the head and cab

 

[tfer]

Nobody ever says "let's just DI the guitar. Who cares about the Marshall amp and 4X12" cabinet?"

Why bassists are so willing to just plug into a box that eliminates the amp and cabinet magic always surprises me.

I carefully chose my amps and cabinets as an extension of my bass' sound and I won't give that up easily!

 

[corinpills]

Tfer hits it right on the head: bands spend hours getting drum sounds in the studio, put a ton of effort into really capturing the guitar sound and then, when it comes to bass, merely getting signal at a reasonable level is good enough. Bass is almost than an afterthought for many engineers.