Quick question about recording bass...

[Rex Rocker]

Not really a production question... just curious what y'all do like...

Which pickup do you usually use for recording? I mean as far as position... bridge? neck? both? And... why?

Thanks!

 

[StefTD]

I use a Stingray-no HH or HS version so just the "normal" Stingray pickup at the normal position.
I really dig the sound.
But all in all, it really depends on what I am playing.
For smoother jazzy stuff I have the treble pot on 0.5/1 or lower to get no "clicky" sound.
For funky stuff, everything is on 10
When I am recording my fretless it depends on the style even more.
Sometimes I want to get a more "upright bass" style sound, so I use the neck single coil,
treble at almost 0 and play most of the time with my thumb (just sounds way more "uprighty" not
sure why-my girl did it like that one time and it sounded cool-even if she isn't able to play one chord on a guitar)
For some "Jaco" style lines-I love my bridge single coil with treble at 0.5/1 or lower.
And if I want to sound like Primus, I use both pickups with all controls on 10.

 

[53Crëw]

I use both pickups (PJ style setup). It gives a fuller sound. The P neck pickup by itself lacks bite. The J bridge pickup by itself has bite but lacks fullness. Together they give the best sound.

 

[Shredfiend]

I use an SR500 these days. I usually blend them 50/50.

 

[Airborne]

Most of the time I use both pickups. Everything turned to 10.

 

[JBroll]

Bridge pickup through RAT, blended with a straight neck sound if I need more low end.

Jeff

 

[Ermz]

Mixture of both. Bass seems to be an instrument that gains some benefit from both positions.

 

[Yhanthlei]

Bridge pickup through RAT, blended with a straight neck sound if I need more low end.

Jeff

Does that mean you have some sort of seperate output for the PU's?
Or do you double track?
Or did I get you completely wrong?

 

[JBroll]

The current bass doesn't need such shenanigans; previous basses just had two outputs or a stereo jack with one pickup's hot going to tip and the other going to ring.

Jeff

 

[MetalJonesy]

if the guitar has 2 pups, i tend to whack the vol on the bridge on right up, then bring the volume of the neck pup up until i get a nice blend of twang from the bridge pup, and warmth/bass from the neck pup

 

[Lasse Lammert]

with my ESP Bass usually just the J in the bridge position....I've actually soldered it directly to the jack cause I was fed up with people fucking up the EQ settings on the bass after every take

 

[poidaobi]

with my ESP Bass usually just the J in the bridge position....I've actually soldered it directly to the jack cause I was fed up with people fucking up the EQ settings on the bass after every take

awesome.

 

[DanLights]

I have a Strinberg Clb-25, it has two Strinberg stock Soapbar Pups, I normally use only the neck pickup with treble max cause I like the sound of it better, more attitude. The bridge pup on my bass seems to make it a bit more deep bassy but loses presence.

Normally I leave treble on max on passives, cause lowering is simply cutting it and it kinda loses part of a bass's unique sound when doing so, to my ears. But some basses are very trebly, like an Ibanez Gsr-100 I used to own and recently recorded a band who's bassist had one also, maxing the treble was extremely clicky sounding, keeping it somewhere at 65/70% is what we wanted cause we were aiming for a death metal sound, so we did a trebly bass, but maxing it was too much

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Both.

I prefer a JJ pickup arrangement. Preferably a J standard american fender.

 

[Metaltastic]

For basses with passive knobs, don't you guys think it would be best to have at least one on max, and then raise the other until you like it? (which one is which is up to you of course). Just because of the nature of passive pots, in that you're only cutting with a variable resistor, so there's some tone suck the lower you have it. Obviously with active controls this is moot!

 

[Rex Rocker]

Thank you all for the replies.

The only bass with separate outputs that I know of is the Billy Sheehan one, but that one doesn't have a bridge pickup. Also wondering what kind of bass is this, JBroll.

Marcus, I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean blending with two volume knobs? Both my LTD's only have one volume knob, but they have a Balance knob to do that kind of stuff. I don't really think it's very sensitive, tho, so I either leave it in the middle position, neck, or bridge. Two volumes would've been better, I think.

Slipkyes, I have the GSR200 as well lying somewhere around here. At least with my own basses, I've always felt the neck pickup gets clicky sounding. Honestly, can't really try it out ATM. It's been ages since I've picked up any of my basses.

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah, your ESP probably has active electronics if it has a blend knob, whereas the standard J-Bass config. is all passive, one knob for neck volume, one for bridge, and one tone (AKA high-cut), in which case what I was saying above is it seems like (theoretically speaking) at least one of the volume knobs should be maxed for a strong, full sounding signal

 

[Razorjack]

Leave your ESP on the bridge pickup I'd say, thats from my experience at least - just make sure you've got a beefy enough bottom end to reinforce the kick and guitars - I hear way too many bass tones that are lacking in the frequencies the bass is there to produce.

I always recommend recording bass completely clean, it forces the player to be much more conscious of their playing and technique and affords a much more solid performance and tone overall.

 

[BrettT]

I generally do about 75% bridge, 25% neck for metal stuff...this is on a Fender Deluxe Jazz Bass (active). Less metal=more neck, normally.

 

[JBroll]

The only bass with separate outputs that I know of is the Billy Sheehan one, but that one doesn't have a bridge pickup. Also wondering what kind of bass is this, JBroll.

My current bass is a Brice HXB-406. I didn't know of any production models with separate outputs, so thanks for the heads-up on Sheehan's model, but I rarely leave instruments to manufactured specs. The current bass, in fact, is the only instrument I own that hasn't somehow been modified in some bizarre way, which I think says quite a bit about its quality - if *I* can't think of something batty and nonsensical to 'improve' an instrument, it has to be pretty good.

The bass modified with two outputs was a Fender knockoff - I mounted a second 'shallow' Strat-style output jack on the pickguard itself for the neck after yanking out all of the electronics and hacking out some room, and wired the bridge straight to the 'usual' output jack.

Razorjack, I certainly prefer practicing clean most of the time and monitoring takes clean in all situations, but at the same time a little time spent with very high gain shows little noises and accidental messes really well - just like with a guitar, where learning how to mute strings with the gain dimed *guarantees* either desperation and abandon or solid muting.

Jeff