Best way to record bass

[skullfxr]

I am selling my bass amp, no use for it. I want to still be able to record. What is the best option? Sans amp? Go from bass to interface with modeling? I have never used anything modeling so I would need recommendations.

So here is the difference.

Sansamp - can go to the board if I had to gig or if I started another band.

Modeling - cheaper. Can't use bass live.

Whatcha think?

 

[Juggernaut]

I'd go both.... use either for recording, and you still have the Sansamp for live if needed.

 

[skullfxr]

What plug-ins would you recommend?

 

[stratjacket]

For recording, I go directly in. Record the raw bass. Then I add any effects during mix.

 

[Jack Luminous]

For recording, I go directly in. Record the raw bass. Then I add any effects during mix.

you still need some kind of DI.

 

[skullfxr]

I have have two two channel radial engineering DI's and an active radial engineering re-amper.

 

[gibson5413]

I think this sounds great!

https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/guit ... 3-pro.html

 

[nigelpkay]

I recently got the Neural DSP darkglass plug-in and I think it sounds amazing.
I’m a guitarist, so I don’t know much about recording bass, eq required etc... but I just plug straight in with this and get a fantastic sound that sits extremely well in a mix without a lot of tweaking hassle to worry about.

 

[kingpinMS3]

I use a few different plugins.

Darkglass
TSE BOD
Pod Farm 2

I run each on their own channel, blend to taste, then compress the everloving fuck out of it.

 

[Jack Luminous]

I have have two two channel radial engineering DI's and an active radial engineering re-amper.

Then you're set. No need for fancy plugins in my experience. Just some parametric eq and any warming up/dist basic plug will do.

 

[dstroud]

i love the sansamp plugin on bass. all kinds of cool tone shaping and distortion. put an 1176 plugin after the sansamp and its magical. u can make the bass sit anywhere in a mix

 

[PatF]

There are so many options. The best way is to try as many as you can. I gave my bass amp away to a good friend that deserved it a few weeks ago and I miss it already. You can get by with just a plain D.I. tone, but a lot of the recordings nowadays blend clean and dirty mic'ed amp and D.I. tones. The BEST could be a combination of all 3. Nice preamps and outboard or pedal compressors, plugins, and mic'ed amp(s).

For pedals the Sansamp is the standard. The Darkglass pedals are worth looking into. Even an old POD X3 is a really good bass preamp. You could even plug the Radial D.I. direct to the P.A. if the transients aren't too crazy. There is a really cool compressor pedal called the Cali76.

For free plugins check out Sonic Anomoly, AdHd, Ignite Amps, TSE, and Poulin. I would also get Two Notes Wall of Sound and buy a few cabinets for around 8 bucks each. Get an SVT and a B15 and blend them with some guitar cabs. Or you could use an IR loader like NadIR and buy some 3rd party IR's.

All of the popular guitar plugin packages for guitar have cool bass stuff built in. The guitar amps can sound good with bass too. Check out the demo versions for Bias FX and Bias Amp, Helix Native, Overloud TH-U, Kazrog Thermionic, and IK SVX 1 and 2.
Your guitar amps like the Fenders or the JTM45 could be cool for bass with the right cab and mic.

Sorry for the long winded post. Trying to be helpful.

 

[romanianreaper]

I'm interested too. I definitely do not like the bass options in my Axe-Fx II. I'm not sure why but just can't gel with them. Just doesn't sound right.

I've been looking at the MXR M80. About $70 cheaper than the Sansamp. Will say though, that I dig the Sansamp stuff too.

 

[maddnotez]

The older, bigger sansamp is really awesome man. Idk much about Bass but I have used a few plugins and a Sansamp. Sansamp was much better to me.

 

[GregM]

I've been recording my bass direct into my interface and then using Two Notes Wall of Sound. You can use their EQ, cab sims, gain, etc and come up with your own, and there are a bunch of bass presets (which can also be tweaked).

 

[JMP2203]

i like my bass driver 2.0 better than the original and the VT bass di - but i want the Lee signature

anyway with bass tones i think pickups are one of the most important things, i like emg single coils just like on guitar

 

[stratjacket]

I have have two two channel radial engineering DI's and an active radial engineering re-amper.

What audio interface do you have for your PC/Mac for recording?

 

[apophis]

recently bought a darkglass b7k v2....highly recommended

 

[rickenbacker198]

a DI recorded bass is standard practice.
Your radial DI is perfect.

A tip for getting a good solid low end, after recording the DI bass,
Duplicate the track.
You now have 2 bass tracks.

First is low track, low pass it at 200 hz. Use this as the low end of the bass. Don’t use any distortion on this track. A compressor is usually great here.

Second track is your character track , high pass it at around 200hz now use whatever you want to add grit or presence. I like the standard distortion plugin included in Cubase. You can also widen it, add harmonics etc. And it won’t mess with the low end.

 

[thisguy]

I might be stating the obvious but one of the most important factors to getting a good recorded bass sound is having a bass that sounds good! LOL