What bass for home recording?

[Mobius]

I am a guitarist who is into songwritting, and needs a cheap 4 string bass for some home recording. My bdget is $600++. But I have narrowed down to a Yamaha RBX 170 which has passive pu ( one J pu and one offset), and another one will be the RBX374 which has 2 active humbuckers. My style is pop rock/alternative/blues.

I have borrowed a friend's tgm bass (passive pu, same pu config as the RBX170) for recording before bt it sounds too weedy, tried eqing it but it was still weedy... and there is alot of noise when recorded (DIed into mixer then into soundcard), even though it sounds ok through an amp.

..Just wanna know if a pasive pu bass is good enough for my style, and whether passive pu are more prone to noise or the tgm bass is just lousy.

and also if an active pu bass can stand out in the mix better and not weedy sounding...

Thanks for reading this long post, and hope that someone can enlighten me on this. Thnks!!

 

[exin]

Well ... for a budget of 600 plus you can actually find a good 2nd hand bass to work with along those lines. If you're lucky you can find a good MIM Fender P or J bass floating around on the classfieds, luckier a MIJ bass for that price.

Actually any kind of bass will work fine, but if you want to play safe just get either a P or J bass, doesn't have to be a Fender.

For home recording your soundcard must be able to support the digital interface and input. If you want professional sounding stuff get a soundcard that can support 24bit/96khz recording options. Creative line of soundcards are suited for that.

After which you need a software to do that.

The noise that comes from your bass most probably will be due to improper shielding and exposure to your computer monitor screen, try moving further away from your monitor screen when you record.

Passive or active is really a personal choice. Active basses has more tonal versatility compared to passive basses.

But i think a passive bass may just work for you as well.

It's really up to you to choose.

 

[blueprintstudios]

hmm I'm almost not in the "Gear - Music Instrument" forum, but i saw this on the main SOFT page. as far as I've recorded.. i think tgm kinda sucks. of course, the tgm instruments belongs to kids who're like 17 so i guess it's understandable. what I can suggest is, what I used to do, use a Boss D.I. 100 (it's a DI Box + acts as a signal splitter)

# = track/channel recording

#1 Bass --> DI Box's (parellel out) ---> bass amp --> mic --> mixer/soundcard. [Amp tone which sounds warmer/life-like, likely this is gonna make it sound full-ish in the mix.]

#2 Bass --> DI Box's (XLR DI out) ---> mixer/soundcard [DI sound which sounds clear likely this is gonna cut through more in the mix.]

tweak these 2 sound's level/eq etc as you like. so you get the best of both.

I sold off my boss DI to a guy working at Guitar77. so you gotta look around for others which has "parellel out" or the same Boss DI100 model.

the idea of mixing is, regardless of how weak the tone (trust me i've recorded instruments held together by army black tape) is, it will cut through but see how you mix thats all. if your guitars/drums/vocals are drowning out the bass's. then you gotta bring them down or EQ cut down until the bass can be heard.

mixing tip wise based on my experience is, if someone (or yourself) says "the bass is too soft". it doesn't mean jack up the bass and cause the overall mix to clip/distort. and it doesn't mean bring down everything else just so the bass can cut through and then you get the complaint of "the mix became too soft/weak". then this is where EQing down comes in. and not just EQ down -5db of whatever hz on the guitars/drums/vocals big time. but doing a balance of both, EQing lets say -2.5db of whatever hz on the others, then +2.5db on the bass (so 2.5+2.5 = 5 right?). try to read up more on mixing websites talking about EQ/compression etc. it'll help. if you're like me, don't catch theory much, just catch the main idea of what they're talking about and put it to hands on practise.

lastly finding that X point where 1) doesn't clip overall mix 2) doesn't make the overall mix sound weak 3) everything can be heard clearly/pleasantly. 4) it doesn't only sound good on your side, it has to sound good in the car stereo,cheap earphones,pc speakers, stereo cd player, or even as a handphone ringtone.
Use your favourite kickass US/UK recording as reference.

p.s : whatever I said about mixing is like i said, is nothing of proper theory but common logic, so it may sounds like bullshit to some mixing engineers here. who cares. it's works for me and it works for the client and it works for the mix.

hope this helps, cheers.

80¢ worth.

 

[Mobius]

Thanks exin! In terms of tonal versatility for active pu on bass, what do you mean? the only experience i have with active pu, are guitar active pu, which just adds more gain. For bass active pu, it does the same or more?

Thanks for the very useful input blueprint! Will try it out.

Any more inputs from the others? Thanks

 

[blueprintstudios]

do post your recording if possible for us to check it out heheh.

 

[exin]

Mobius,

Active basses, depending on what kind of active basses you meet with, usually have an onboard EQ to allow you to shape your tone. Depending also on the bass preamp itself, you may find a simple 1-band bass boost, to a 5 band EQ with high/low mid cut/boost knobs, but of course the most common ones you'll find around are those 2-band or 3-band EQ preamps on bass with a bass/treble cut/boost or a bass/mid/treble cut/boost.

With such knobs you can actually do constructive EQ-ing to your tone to get it to, like what blueprintstudios said, cut through the mix and sound life-like in your overall recording.

It's actually a personal preference, i've been working with active basses for a while but i'm still a fan of passive basses. I'm actually okay with both for recording, it's not the bass that makes the music in the sense that it doesn't make your music better or worse, it just gives it a different feel to it, of course that means a proper, workable, decent bass you're using, not some cheapo beginner's bass.

I think you've gotta understand audio basics before you start doing home recording. The recording process takes understanding to make sure the signal from your instrument comes clean into the digital format. Try googling "how to do home recording" or "recording tips" and i'm sure you'll find alot of articles/websites teaching you and give you really helpful tips in doing home recording.

All the best Mobius.

hope i managed to answer your bass question.

haha ...

 

[Z3r0_G]

active basses usually also have a more modern tone to it. moe output and less signal-to-noise ratio. it's a 'cleaner' sound.

i do my recordings through a line6 toneport ux1 and i must say that the included efx are fantastic. i've heard that it actually sounds better than the pods. i've never used a pod before so i don't know. the sound recording quality is also fantastic. when i finish doing up my recording i'll be sure to post it up!

 

[exin]

technically that's true .. but i think you've to ask yourself what kind of tone you're looking for ..

i think if you're confused after reading so much .. stick to passive basses .. hahaha .. i think if you start looking for active basses the choices may jumble up your choices even more .. =)