Playing and Recording the Bass Guitar
Last Wednesday Bobby loaned me his bass guitar and amp for the week, so I could try out a new instrument. So, I stayed up pretty late Wednesday night familiarizing myself with the bass.Bobby tunes his bass down a step from the normal tuning, and I didn't feel like retuning, so my first experience with a bass guitar was not exactly a typical one.
First lesson learned: always be prepared to deaden the strings after you play them - letting a bass note resonate after a chord change is very bad news.
Anyway, I've also tried a bit of recording with the bass - at first I tried putting my condenser mic in front of the amplifier, and playing the guitar without a pick. That seemed to work okay, except that Bobby's amp produces a significant amount of hiss, and the overall sound in the recording was a bit muddy.
So, then I tried piping the guitar directly into the computer, rather than micing the amp. At the same time I also switched from fingering to using a pick. The result was much nicer for what I wanted - it gave a bit more attack to each note, which helped decrease the overall muddiness of the sound. Plus, of course, the hissing was gone.
Then came the equalizing. The bass is, as I expected, a bear to fit into a mix. It's amazing how quickly the low frequencies can fill and overwhelm the mix. The frequencies that create the overall boominess of the sound, making the sound of control, are around the 200hz range, so I quickly moved those down.
It's interesting to see how, even though the notes of a bass are very deep, it is some of the mid and upper range frequencies that help bring it alive. I boosted around 1khz and 6khz, and that helped keep the bass instrument in the mix without overwhelming it.
Still have some work to do, though, as my mix occasionally distorts some in cheap speakers.
Anyway, I've posted a couple things I recorded using the bass. Both of these recordings have two guitars, a bass guitar, two violins, and a couple vocal parts. If you visit the pages and click the title links, you can download and listen. Let me warn you, though...these are entire songs, rather than short clips, so if you're on dialup you'll be waiting awhile for them to load!
I Want
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Posted On Oct 11, 2006 at 9:40 AM
On Oct 12, 2006 Mr. T wrote: Quote:
| Bobby tunes his bass down a step from the normal tuning, and I didn't feel like retuning, so my first experience with a bass guitar was not exactly a typical one. |
So was that good or bad for the neighbors???
Doug Replied: Pretty much doesn't matter, since I'm plugging the thing directly into the system, so the only person who hears it is the guy with the headphones on - me!
On Nov 7, 2006 Laura wrote: *thinks Doug should update again soon!*
Doug Replied: yes, this is true. i'm such a slacker.
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