After researching the best ways to record bass, I came to the conclusion that it would be best to record the bass directly into the mixing desk and through a mic. This is because it will give the bass guitar the low end and note definition of recording through a DI, but the body that comes from recording the amp with a mic. The best mic to use is a dynamic mic because they are better at recording loud volumes than condenser or ribbon microphones. A suggested microphone to use for recording bass is a kick drum mic as they are good at picking up low frequencies. Again, I will see what microphones are available at college to use for this. As for the placement of the mic on the amp, generally, for recording bass it is one foot away from the speaker which gives a solid tone with lots of body and nice note definition. Having the mic pointed at the centre of the cone gives a more aggressive sound (which is what we are after), whereas pointing it to the edge of the cone will give a softer sound. I will experiment with all these factors once in the studio to find the best sounding one. (research collected from (http://www.practical-music-production.com/recording-bass-guitar.html)
When researching this topic further, I found that to record both directly and through a mic, I will need to plug the bass into a DI box, plug the DI box into an amp, and the DI box into the interface. the method of recording with a mic will not change. However, with the DI and mic channel, the microphone channel will be a fraction of a second behind the DI channel, this is a natural occurrence. To solve this, I will simply need to play both channels on logic, and send the DI channel through a digital delay, advised to have it around 2ms until the sound snaps into focus. (research collected from http://www.musictech.net/2015/09/how-to-record-bass-guitar/)
After looking at the circumstances at college and the time that we have available, I will most likely only be able to get the chance to record through a DI as I will have to record the bass and drums at the same time in the same room. This is the best option to take to avoid bleed on a bass mic from the drum kit.
BASS TONES
For our first song ‘Colossus’ Our bassist, Cain Watson, would like to have a bass tone with enough gain and low end to have it sounding fat and distorted, but not so much that you lose the ability to hear the note that the bass is playing. This will be quite a challenge as within the mix there is only so much sonic space in the song so it will be difficult to have a big guitar sound and a big bass sound. A way to do this is to have a fuzz pedal in front of the bass. This ensures that the bass won’t overload and damaged the amp with a lot of gain, but rather just add fuzz to the signal. This will also allow us to boost the low end of the signal to get a fatter sound and also boost the mids to get more note definition whilst keeping our ideal tone. The most popular bass fuzz pedal is the Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff Pi. I will see if I can source one of these pedals to experiment with the bass tone. The amp that we have at college is ideal for getting the bass tone that we want as it has a very tweakable EQ section and allows us to record without the use of a DI box.