When recording distorted bass.....

madbutcher

madbutcher

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May 23, 2005
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Do you usually approach it similar to distorted guitar (besides the obvious low tone difference)?

The last time I recorded some I ended up liking a 57 on a 10" of the bass rig the best. Didn't like the DI sound at all. I was thinking this time of trying out the "one on axis and one off axis" style on the 10" speaker with a combo 57/421. Then probably throwing a condenser on the 15" speaker of the bass rig.

Any tips for getting a nice powerful distorted bass tone? The rig I will be recording is a Ampeg B5R (with a crown power amp) into a 4x10 cab and a 1x15. Be cool to get almost a "Lemmy" sounding bass......
 
I've always been a fan of an RE20 on the 4X10 and a condenser (u87,u89,u47fet) on the 15. The big thing I've found with bass, is to put a little air in between the speakers and the mics. Yes, more problems with phase with the DI, but it will sound better.
 
Not sure on the recording (I have no choice but to DI my bass), but to get a decent tone you have to be really really gentle with the gain. It should be almost like a kinda bluesy overdrive. The more gain you add, the less bass-like the sound. I normally put the bass on the bass all the way up and the treble somewhere in the middle, then on the pedal I put the bass low and the treble high. If you distort the low-end too much, things get really messy and your bass drum will get swallowed up too.

If you can, try recording a clean DI signal, and a distorted amp/mic signal, then mix the two to taste - that's generally how I do it, except I have DI both tracks. If you can record both at the same time, all the better.

As for Lemmy, I've got afeeling he runs his bass through guitar amps as well as bass amps - presumably doing what I do but using guitar amps for distorting the high end and bass amps for the cleaner low-end part of the sound.

Steve
 
Lemmy uses guitar amps for shure, don't know whic models, it seems a 70's model Plexi I think.

by%20Claudio%20Ferreira,%20Rio%203.jpg



On the far left you see his amp! (the one with "hammer" sign)

Maurizio
 
I've just gone through some old recordings with crunchy bass, and something's occured to me. I don't know if it's just a placebo or what, but I use a guitar distortion pedal rather than a bass one - to my mind, the mid. and high dials on a guitar pedal will affect a higher range than a bass distortion pedal. All the bass pedals I've tried are way too bassy and just turn everything to shit, but even a cheap nasty guitar pedal can work if you just make sure the gain is low enough.

Steve
 
speaking of distorted bass, on my grindcore band's latest recordings (as you can hear on http://www.myspace.com/traitorgrind) i recorded also the bass though being a guitarist.
my "axe" was a cheap ibanez soundgear or a cort or... well... anyway, nothing outstanding. it was plugged into my engl powerball's input (channel 3), then from the amp's send into an hartke ha 500 bass head, then from the balanced xlr out into the soundcard (terratec phase 88)
i somehow managed to obtain a very nice disorted sound, not muddy at all and quite powerful (probably cause i EQ'ed the bass from a mid-range loving guitarist point of view...)
it's a shame that the bass resulted a little overpowered by drums and guitar in the mix (oh, BTW, what do you think about the songs/productions?), you can hear it on the song "genocide of the voiceless", where the bass often plays alone with drums and no guitar or vocals.
 
Believe it or not, the D112 kicks a lot of ass on a bass cab. 57's just don't cut it for me on the bass. The SansAmp d/i has good distortion on it.
 
madbutcher said:
Yea, when I've seen him a couple times he was using ENGL heads...... I know I'm not going to get that exact tone from using a Ampeg B5R.......
Click to expand...

No Phil Campbell uses Engl savage 120 live and marshall plexi and JCM 800 and Line6 Vetta combo etc etc a lot of amps on stage for motorhead.
anyway they kick our asses really hard, seen them many times and they're really the best live band in this world.

Maurizio
 
A good idea for distorted bass is to record a clean DI track as well to hold down the extreme low end so that you can keep it nice and clear. When you mic the amp you can cut some of the low end out of it as the "growl" from a distorted bass won't sound real good down too low. Most of the definition of that will be in the midrange.
 
The best distored bass sound I've gotten required three tracks and a split signal:

The signal went into a splitter that sent the signal to a Sans Amp Bass Driver and a Amped SVT with a RAT pedal in front of it. The RAT was set for full on distortion and the SVT went through a 4x10 and a 1x15.

Channel 1 - Clean Bass DI through the Sans Amp
Channel 2 - 4x10 with an SM-57 off axis through a Neve 1272
Channel 3 - 1x15 with a D-112 on axis through a Neve 1272

I mixed it at about 60% #1, 30% #2 and 10% #3. By keeping most of the distortion off the low end, it still gave the bass some girth, but still had the bite of the distorted top end.
 
I've obtained decent results running a bass direct through a RAT distortion pedal as well as direct through a mesa rectifier recording guitar preamp. the mesa is pretty handy for this since I can get that mesa tone without having to mic anything (no power tubes in the preamp :D). [actually it sounds like shit direct for guitars, but decent direct for bass].

distortion is also a handy way to flatten out those dynamics so you get less variance in the low frequencies :D
 
I've read that John Myung uses a Triaxis for his tones, and he tends to go back and forth between clean and distorted.

On the Cannibal Corpse dvd that came with "The Wretched Spawn", Alex Webster was going off on the fact that he thinks distortion flattens dynamics, especially since he plays with his fingers and would rather have what he's playing be heard better than just a filler sound. He thinks it's more suitable for pick playing, and since he uses his fingers, he doesn't use distortion. I guess it would depend on your situation, but maybe having distorted bass isn't always the answer. I like it perfectly fine, but the situation would have to determine the use of it.
 
i like it that way:

-i mic the basscab -10' speaker, sm 57
-record di as well

in the daw:
-high cut the di track at max.80 hz - compress the hell out of it!
-copy the miced track and process it with amplitube, cut the lows
-mix it all together with the original miced track - compressed and eqed

all through one bus with an extra eq and a limiter and you have total control over everything!:)
 
Executioner213 said:
On the Cannibal Corpse dvd that came with "The Wretched Spawn", Alex Webster was going off on the fact that he thinks distortion flattens dynamics, especially since he plays with his fingers and would rather have what he's playing be heard better than just a filler sound. He thinks it's more suitable for pick playing, and since he uses his fingers, he doesn't use distortion.
Click to expand...

There's not much in the way of dynamics in death metal regardless. Even if his bass is buried in the mix, you still hear what he's playing because he writes most of the songs.

Check out "Anesthesia" on Kill 'Em All for bass distortion played with fingers.
 
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