There are many ways to skin a….bass. Or recording bass guitar, for that matter…
For the many of us who record at home, the smartest and easiest way is recording direct. And it can sound great without too much work. What I tend to do is record a good clean sound that I can manipulate later. Let’s face it, very few can crank an Ampeg with 8 10-inch speakers at home. 😉
SIGNAL CHAIN
What I really recommend is recording through the best DI and/or preamp you can get. A Neve-style preamp is especially great for bass recording. The transformers really add weight to the bass, which will come in very handy when it comes time to mixing. If that isn’t an option, I can wholeheartedly recommend the Radial JDI passive direct box. I’ve had one for a few years now and it absolutely loves bass guitar. The Jensen transformer in that DI adds a certain something that you just don’t get through the preamps on the cheaper audio interfaces. Built like a brick as well.
Also worth mentioning that a DI isn’t a DI, unlike many would have you believe. If what you have is a cheap crappy Behringer DI/mixer or similar, don’t use it on such an important part of the mix. Just don’t. Unless you’re going for a grainy, lo fi sort of thing of course.
Lately my go to chain has been my old Yamaha bass through the JDI which is then fed into a Phoenix DRS1 preamp – the JDI is a passive DI, so you need to add gain with a good preamp after it. The Phoenix is a really good preamp that can do very clean as well as Neve-like colouration if you push it. Very versatile.
You can hear the result in this video:
Of course, if you do have a good amp you can use, that’s great.
Neve-style preamp and the mic of your choice (I still recommend you capture a DI track along with it though). Personally I love the Sennheiser MD421 on bass cabs, but there are plenty of other options as well. Popular ones are the Electrovoice RE-20, the Audio Technica ATM25, as well as various typical kick drum mics. Large diaphragm condensers can work great as well – worked very well for Sir Paul. 😉
As for the bass itself, you can never go wrong with a P-bass or Jazz bass. There’s a reason why they’re used in pretty much every genre out there. Just make sure the strings aren’t 10 years old, and the instrument is set up well.
PROCESSING
Once recorded there are a whole lot of options when it comes to what you can do about it. A popular thing to do is duplicating the track and running one of them through amp modelling plugins – or even better, reamp through an actual amp and capturing that with a mic. Even fairly small guitar amps can be great for this. One thing I and many do with that is add a bit of overdrive for some character, which you can then blend in with the original track. The overdrive will usually help the bass sit nicely in the mix and poke through, especially on smaller listening devices. Works great, even on very clean non-rock type mixes.
After that, creativity rules.
Some EQ and compression is obviously needed, but there loads of other things you can do as well. On the right song, some modulation can be really nice. Delays as well. Have fun with it!
As for plugins, some I very often use on bass are Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig 5, Vandal (included with Samplitude Pro X3), Waves MV2, Rbass, CLA-2A and the Klanghelm IVGI. Tape simulation is also really good on bass. Really recommend experimenting with various different stuff.
Bass doesn’t have to be boring. 🙂