KVR Audio

mao · Post by **mao** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:13 am

I need your professional help on recording a real bass into cubase.

The problem is that listening to the bass through the mixer it sounds absolutely punching and solid (I'm using a Status Stealth all graphite bass...) but when recorded into an audio track, well it simply loose punch and... sounds flat and without life. To give you an idea before recording i have a "tump tump tump" sound but after recording I have a
"mum mum mum" sound.

It's not a volume problem... I tried compressing it with some vst compressor, and ok something change but the clear pure sound of the graphite bass is gone.

I'm using behringer mixer with the output going into a Terratec EWS88MT audio card... and I have not problem with vst generating heartquake bass sounds or recording voices.

So any suggestion... ? Probably I need a very good hw compressor before going into the mixer... or I don't know..

Oh I tried the bassPOD from line6 and ...ehm... sold in less than a month...

Thanx in advance...

Moritz Morpheus MkIII · Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:36 am

hey there,

getting a DI-box might be a good start on getting a better sound when recording directly into your soundcard..
for example:
http://images.google.at/imgres?imgurl=h ... D%26sa%3DG

I don´t know if you wanna invest money or not but if yes I would consider a dedicated unit with a preamp(+instrument/Hi-Z input) and a compressor.

another possibility would be a DI box plus a hardware compressor. the dbx 160a http://www.zzounds.com/item--DBX160A
..is a compressor/limiter that works very nice with recording bass, also guitars, rhodes..but not for vocals..should be quite cheap these days.

if I had the money right now, I would get this:
http://www.summitaudio.com/images/bigge ... -big-1.jpg

hope this helps!

mao · Post by **mao** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:09 am

Thanx for suggestion...

Let me see my pocket money...

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 11:20 am

If you are on a budget, this has worked quite well for me in the past.

Kim Lajoie · Post by **Kim Lajoie** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 11:55 am

mao wrote:The problem is that listening to the bass through the mixer it sounds absolutely punching and solid (I'm using a Status Stealth all graphite bass...) but when recorded into an audio track, well it simply loose punch and... sounds flat and without life. To give you an idea before recording i have a "tump tump tump" sound but after recording I have a
"mum mum mum" sound.

So hang on, when auditioning through your (cabinet, mic, preamp or DI, and) mixer, it sounds great, but the exact same material sounds noticeably different after being recorded? You're definitely doing something wrong. More gear will not (automatically) solve your problem. You need to work out WHERE your sound is getting munged. Are your mixer outputs to your computer at the wrong level? Is your soundcard doing some signal processing before passing the audio to software? Is your recording software doing something funny? If you're doing everything right, the recorded sound should be virtually indistinguishable from the original. Or you've got golden ears and a mastering room.

Try monitoring through your soundcard and software, and comparing that to the sound when monitoring straight from your mixer. Try using a different (simpler) recording software setup. Read, no - STUDY the manuals for ALL your gear.

Forever,

Kim.

chimmy · Post by **chimmy** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:47 pm

Could also be where you are taking your send from in the mixer. If you are using the mixer EQ and monitoring to get the exact sound you want you have to make sure you are routing out of the mixer post EQ.

If you are using the inserts as outs to the audio card then you are going before the mixer EQ section. Same if you have the 2442FX-Pro and are using direct outs from each channel.

Depending on which mixer you have, check and see if you have a pre/post switch for your aux sends and use the send as output to the audio card, post EQ. Or if you have one of the mixers with subroups I'm pretty sure they output post EQ.

Also, if you have one of the FX Berringer mixers, you already have a compressor built in the mixer. FX# 71, 72 & 73 give you three different compressor settings. If you use this you'll want to use the FX send to the input of your audio card.

Hope this helps......chimmy

Beardedone · Post by **Beardedone** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:23 pm

Check out the Applied Microphone Technologies condensor pickup. It is is very well thought of in the bass player community Jazz and classical.

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:24 pm

when you record are you approaching 0 db? if yer levels are too low, the bass will sound dull and lifeless...

el davo · Post by **el davo** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:43 pm

Are you recording an amped bass or direct in? I have always recorded bass direct in without compression/limiting. Bass->mixer/preamp->direct out (bypassing eq etc)->soundcard in. Use 24bit/44KHz and dial in the mixer/preamp amplification to make sure you're using as much as possible of the soundcards dynamic range without clipping. then treat with eq and ample compression.

when you're recording, do you also hear the direct sound from the bassist playing as well? perhaps that is increasing the sense of transient content..

Funkybot · Post by **Funkybot** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:10 pm

Sounds like something is up in how you're running out of the mixer, but nothing will help faster than a good Bass DI box like the Sansamp Bass Driver. After that it's only the bass and the player that will make or break a recording. For instance, I have a Squier P-Bass and that I just replaced the pick-ups in, and noticed an immediate improvement in at the time. A few months later I'm still not happy with the sound, and after recording with the same settings on a nice American P-Bass I realized it was probably more the bass itself than the pickups. Now I need to get my own P-Bass.

Also remember that a good recorded bass sound and a good solo bass sound are two different things. This is why most engineers swear by P-Basses, they mix so damn well. Things like Active electriconics can actually be a bad thing when recording as they generally want to take up the whole frequency range. So another question could be, does your bass sound different in the mix? Or does it sound different from the solo'd bass sound?

God I hate recording bass. If done right it's great, but the tiniest little flaw (or wrong choice) when recording can ruin a mix.

Har · Post by **Har** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:33 pm

I'll second the SansAmp Bass Driver DI as well. You can get a much better overall tone from the bass using a DI box like this, instead of just plugging directly into the board which can leave things rather flat and lifeless-sounding. I use it on my fretted and fretless basses as well as the bass half of my Chapman Stick and it adds a lot of that "weight" that you wouldn't otherwise get by just plugging straight into the board.

For my live rig I've also recently started using an old Fostex 3070 comp/limiter as well. Definitely not the best compressor out there, but for bass, for some reason it does a great job of smoothing out levels between strings (so there's no more "dead zones" depending on where you're playing on the neck) and providing a nice, smooth sustain increase as well.

ugo · Post by **ugo** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:29 pm

if you get a di box, you might want to consider running tests between going direct into your sound card vs. running through the behringer. i found that running my basses through my behringer sucked the life out of them.

-ugo

mao · Post by **mao** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:55 pm

woa !

a lot of help here...

I run my bass through the mixer then from it to the soundcard because of a bit of latency. I hear in the main monitor the direct playing (so no latency) but a separate output of the mixer (ctrl room) goes into the sound card.

During the weekend I'll try all your "no-cost" suggestion... and then... I'll put my eyes on that SansAmp DI.

Thanks again to everybody...

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 5:09 pm

i've only been recording bass for a year.. direct-in thru one of those art tube pres that are common as dirt for like five cents. does okay by me. bum one off your neighbor.

Markleford · Post by **Markleford** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 5:35 pm

Sheesh, it's like you people aren't listening. Here is the crux of his problem again:

mao wrote:I run my bass through the mixer then from it to the soundcard because of a bit of latency. I hear in the main monitor the direct playing (so no latency) but a separate output of the mixer (ctrl room) goes into the sound card.

So the problem is most likely in routing and levels, *not* in lack of equipment!

I have a similar setup: my outboard rig gets plugged into my Mackie 1202 and routed to my stereo for immediate no-latency monitoring. Then I plug the Effect Loop output into the soundcard. When I want to record audio through the card, I raise the level of the Effect Send knob on the appropriate track until I get a decent level in SONAR. Mind you, I do *not* have Input Monitoring in SONAR, so I don't hear the delayed signal with latency from the soundcard.

Sounds to me like mao is sending levels that are too hot for the soundcard's input, and that the soundcard itself has some level compensation/compression safeguards that will duck (reduce/attenuate) the signal until it the volume falls beneath the safe threshold once again. As such, it's messing with the attack and envelope of the bass just as a compressor with extreme settings might.

So yes, mao, try the no-cost suggestion first. All a DI box will do is reduce the level of output to what the soundcard might consider safe. If you can instead either reduce the level of the send from the mixer *or* reduce the recording/input level in the soundcard's control panel settings, you should be able to do the same thing for free.

- m

Help on recording a real bass...