O
odominguez
Guest
To begin with, let’s first say that recording a bass guitar is not that much of a tricky process. There are some different approaches to doing this from different sources. But all of them are part of two main approaches, which are: (1)recording it directly to the MTR (Multi Track Recorder) or (2) using an amplifier to also record the sound of the instrument coming out of the amplifier and get the sound of that particular piece of equipment.
There are many things that people don’t take into account when recording their bass tracks. But we will cover everything. So the first thing we need to cover is to make sure that our bass guitar is well set up, since this will influence how the instrument will sound like within the final mix, and the best way to get the best sound recorded is to know what you are looking for in the final mix.
When I say “well set up”, I’m mostly referring to the intonation. The intonation of your bass determines if the natural harmonics of the instrument will be in tune or not, and it is very important that this part of the set up is done correctly in order to make our bass tracks fit in with the other instruments, or it will sound somewhat out of tune, even if when you tune the open strings, your electronic tuner says that your bass guitar is in tune. If you don’t know how to fix the intonation of your bass your own, take your instrument to a professional repair shop or look up online how to do it. There are several articles covering this on the Warwick Bass online forums at www.warwick.de/forum that you can read in order to learn how to fix the intonation of your bass in case this is needed.
Now let’s get down to business, so let’s start with the basics. Before we cover the EQ’s and the compressors we need to get a good level to the MTR (which can be analog or digital, depending on what you have or what you prefer). The standard school of thought on this is to get the input signal at the 0dB in analog terms. In the digital world though, there is nothing after 0dB, so it’s best to try and imitate that. I try to record my bass tracks at -3 dB to leave some headroom for peaks and strong notes.
The other important thing to mention in this part of the article is to use a good preamp. The preamplifier is what makes the conversion of your instrument signal to a line level signal that is loud enough for you to get a good sound. This is one of the most important pieces of equipment when recording your bass. Many people use the peamp built-in in their amplifiers and other people decide to use high end studio equipment for this process.
In my case I normally use a Warwick X-TREME 10.1 amplifier and take a direct signal out of the DI Out balanced output on the back and go to an AVALON VT-737sp and then use an Apogee AD-16X to do the conversion from analog to digital to be able to work in the Pro Tools system.
The process explained above is the one I use when recording ONLY the direct signal of the bass without using the sound of amplifier cabinets to blend them in with the direct signal, which we will cover in the next article.
There are many things that people don’t take into account when recording their bass tracks. But we will cover everything. So the first thing we need to cover is to make sure that our bass guitar is well set up, since this will influence how the instrument will sound like within the final mix, and the best way to get the best sound recorded is to know what you are looking for in the final mix.
When I say “well set up”, I’m mostly referring to the intonation. The intonation of your bass determines if the natural harmonics of the instrument will be in tune or not, and it is very important that this part of the set up is done correctly in order to make our bass tracks fit in with the other instruments, or it will sound somewhat out of tune, even if when you tune the open strings, your electronic tuner says that your bass guitar is in tune. If you don’t know how to fix the intonation of your bass your own, take your instrument to a professional repair shop or look up online how to do it. There are several articles covering this on the Warwick Bass online forums at www.warwick.de/forum that you can read in order to learn how to fix the intonation of your bass in case this is needed.
Now let’s get down to business, so let’s start with the basics. Before we cover the EQ’s and the compressors we need to get a good level to the MTR (which can be analog or digital, depending on what you have or what you prefer). The standard school of thought on this is to get the input signal at the 0dB in analog terms. In the digital world though, there is nothing after 0dB, so it’s best to try and imitate that. I try to record my bass tracks at -3 dB to leave some headroom for peaks and strong notes.
The other important thing to mention in this part of the article is to use a good preamp. The preamplifier is what makes the conversion of your instrument signal to a line level signal that is loud enough for you to get a good sound. This is one of the most important pieces of equipment when recording your bass. Many people use the peamp built-in in their amplifiers and other people decide to use high end studio equipment for this process.
In my case I normally use a Warwick X-TREME 10.1 amplifier and take a direct signal out of the DI Out balanced output on the back and go to an AVALON VT-737sp and then use an Apogee AD-16X to do the conversion from analog to digital to be able to work in the Pro Tools system.
The process explained above is the one I use when recording ONLY the direct signal of the bass without using the sound of amplifier cabinets to blend them in with the direct signal, which we will cover in the next article.
