Any tips on recording bass?

[eye]

I use my computer to record stuff, and while the guitar sound fine through the headphone jack, my bass sounds like crap. I've been trying to ignore it and go without a bass, but I just finished a death metal song, and it sounds very thin without one. Any ideas?

 

[Lethe78]

If you have a processor, see if there is a really "fat" acoustic sound. I did this for my demo, because I didn't have a bass, and noone ever knew that it wasn't a bass at all until I told them. Seriously.

 

[TekChef]

go get what is called a "DI" (direct input) box for bass..it will give you a good bass sound. this is used quite often in pro recording studios.
Bass is one of the hardest things to get right when recording rock..

 

[xenophobe]

Yes, a direct box would be best...

The best sound I've gotten from bass is generally plugged directly into a board, or from my preamp output on my head. Either one sounds great, though you do need to do some tweaking... I would assume you're recording direct to your computer, so this wouldn't matter much.

Look into the SansAmp line of direct boxes, many people seem quite happy with them...

 

[FrostGiant]

Also, compression. Most of the time you will need at least a little compression on you bass for it to sound decent. And yes, a DI box or something helps a lot. Many people use the Sansamp but I went for the Bass POD and am very happy with it.

 

[eye]

Yeah, I finally got a compressor, and it seems to help. At least it boosts the volume to a reasonable level, so I managed recorded the bass part to that death metal song today.