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[quote name='Rimskidog' post='1182749' date='Mar 30 2011, 09:44 PM']It really depends what part of the Market you are aiming at. If you don't try to pretend you are something you are not you can do a lot itb with a decent interface and a range of mics. You'll have to price accordingly though. Main thing you need wherever you are aiming is chops.[/quote] +1 I've had amazing results with some very very limited gear, doing mainly mobile recordings: ie going to a decent rehearsal studio and turning that into a live room for an afternoon, and mixing entirely ITB. Of course I wouldn't charge anything like what Rimskidog can, but then I havent invested anything like what he has either, and wouldn't be stupid enough to say I'm competing with him directly at all. Totally different area of recording, doesnt mean I can't get a great result, but I think its fair to say my workflow (and therefore the band's workflow) is severely restricted by my available kit.

An SM57 is a great work horse mic, and wont break the bank, but it wont capture very deep bass either. They work prticularly well in conjunction with a DI send for anything below 150Hz IMO. Now that may be fine, but the engineer may not want to or have two channels available for bass (we are talking significant mucking about to get the phase right with a mic & DI, but it sounds incredible). The best mic I've heard on bassy stuff (thats toppy too, and has a lot of important mid range information) is a Heil PR40, which will set you back around £400 unfortunately. One thing to steer well clear of is kick drum mics on bass cabs, they are designed to scoop the mids pretty radically, and you really dont want that on bass! ANd dont go spending more for cables than you would for OBBM's from this very site, he uses quality parts and knows how to solder properly, great value kit.

When you gigging near Brighton again mate? Want to see you strut your funky stuff live, but cant easily get very far at the mo... Cant help thinking you'd look like this dude live:- Which is no bad thing!

[quote name='cheddatom' post='1180891' date='Mar 29 2011, 03:22 PM']Heh ^ a totally different opinion. Personally, I played with compressors on the computer for a long time, just messing with the controls. I had a vague idea of what each one did, and I used them to squish and maybe make things louder. None of that experience could replace actually sitting down at uni and reading good detailed descriptions of what a compressor does, and why/when you would want to use it. Obviously, everyone's different [/quote] OK I should have pointed out that you need to be sat there with some detailed desciptions of what the controls are doing too. Good point! But I stand by the fact that you can read descriptions and manuals all day, until you actually play with one for real you cant work out how to use it. The intellectual knowledge of the parameters and their functions doesnt explain how the ear/brain perceive the results.

[quote name='Wil' post='1180865' date='Mar 29 2011, 03:06 PM']Cool, thanks! Despite reading your very informative posts on compressors before, they do still baffle me a bit. I probably just need to get a decent one and play with it to better understand the controls.[/quote] Absolutely! The ONLY way to get your head around what they do, and how they sound is to get one with all the parameters available to you, and good metering. It needn't be expensive either, an Alesis rack mount will set you back just a few quid. It isnt the greatest or most noise free compressor by any means, but it will allow you to learn what compression does. Make up some leads and put it between your CD player and amp in the hifi and then play different music and just fiddle with it, solo bass recordings, percussion stuff, anything just learn to hear the compression coming in, learn what the controls do, and what they soudn like. It would take maybe a couple of hours of playing around to really get to grips with it completely. Then put your bass through it and continue to play, this time deliberately sculpting different envelopes out of your normal bass. If it doesnt work out then sell it on.

[quote name='Wil' post='1180843' date='Mar 29 2011, 02:49 PM']Looks sweet. I could probably use a decent compressor. Wonder how "squishy" it sounds.[/quote] Well if it behaves correctly then that entirely depends on how you set those controls. Assuming you can effectively set the threshold (the only missing control) with the input level (not always true) then if you want some real [i][b][size=1]SQUISH[/size][/b][/i] try this:- input level: high (not overloading though) - this is effectively setting the threhold lower (at a guess!) ratio: 8:1 attack: 12 noon release: 9 O'clock output: set to match the level of the unaffected bass. Then playing with the attack will allow you to get the right amount of squish, you've got to get it right, too short and you will lose the attack too long and you wont hear as obvious a squish...

ticks a LOT of boxes on my "Is it going to be a truly useable tool" list, just missing input and output meters....

I like green That looks like mid 70's Hulk green - awesome!

Love that feeling after wiring in a console when you fire it up and it all just works.... Of course I equally hate that feeling after you finish wiring up a console and it inexplicably all just doesn't work

[quote name='ShergoldSnickers' post='1179625' date='Mar 28 2011, 03:32 PM']The perfect reply really. Not only what to do, but why you are doing it, and all presented in easy steps. Excellent.[/quote] ta - making me blush now

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1179783' date='Mar 28 2011, 05:39 PM']thanks for that advice, it makes good sense thinking about it. can i ask a related question on the mic'ing issue ? i have a Barefaced t-midget which i love the 'bite' of. the tweeter is located centrally, i.e. in front of the centre of the 12" cone. where's best to place a mic in this instance. or should i just experiment ? edit - i.e. i would need to balance the tweeter brightness with the more bitey mid-range output of the cone...maybe turn the tweeter right down ? [/quote] Its always a case of experimenting, the sweet spot and angle are dependant on the cab, mic, room and volume. One point to note though is that a DI will provide all the frequencies that the tweeter does, and if you are looking for those you probably arent using a lot of distortion. If you are and like the sound of distortion with the tweeter up then you may find you dont need to mic at all. Usually though IME you dont really want a lot of tweeter in a mic'ed overdriven bass sound (I know of one notable exception to this, that I have recorded, and they want plenty of ultrafizz to mix into the top end of the guitar and synths - worked great for them, but highly unusual). Rememer that volume is related to distance with the inverse square law, in other words if you move the mic twice as far away from a source the signal is 4 times quieter. I nthe case of the midget if you mic closer to the edge of the 12" cone pointing at the center (as a starting point) you would get significantly less tweeter due to the inverse square law and the likely diminished ability of the tweeter toradiate sound almost at 90 degrees to its transducer. MOve the mic in to the center of the cab to add more tweeter top end. Balancing this lot with the DI will take patience, but the result should still be excellent.

[quote name='paulwillson' post='1179748' date='Mar 28 2011, 05:05 PM']thanks alot, perfect reply, will try a dynamic mic and try micing up the cab and using a signal from the DI too. cheers for the fast response. For the record the compression was going before the amp and the overdrive already.[/quote] DONT compress before the amp/overdrive, the dynamics come from the overdrive getting hit harder and grinding more. If you compress first you will lose that dynamic, and you will be compressing more. Compress afterwards, at mix down. Honest it will sound better...

[quote name='chris_b' post='1179294' date='Mar 28 2011, 11:40 AM']That doesn't answer the question.[/quote] No it doesnt, I was being facetious! Alex hits it squarely on the head. Another point is that with certain port designs it is possible to tune the phase of the signal as much as the frequency, thus taking into account the position of the port relative to the front of the cab. Certainly thats required in transmission line speakers, where the 'port' is most of the speaker in fact...

[quote name='sk8' post='1175736' date='Mar 25 2011, 12:32 PM']one of mine is used to cover up for bad technique - my compressor[/quote] Such a double edged sword for that though! Any covering up of dynamic peculiarites it may give you (depending on settings) it will more than pay you back with by exposing every wrong note, fumble, string noise and cock up in more detail than without it. IME compressors make you have to play better (and cleaner) all round, they certainly dont cover up bad playing!

[quote name='algmusic' post='1179303' date='Mar 28 2011, 11:42 AM']Technically, you're wrong.. your amp, which I am a BIG fan of, is really bass monitor. Unless you play in band that has no PA or you play where there is no PA, you amp is really only for you.. MXR or Sansamp and VERY GOOD monitoring will work a treat.. That said, I still rather a little amp behind me.. but the FOH is always hearing your DI I played a big festival and their glorious SWR 6x10 rig, that was supplied, stopped working just before the show.. my trusty sansamp saved the day and sounded miles better..[/quote] Well more often than not when I get to play out my amp is all the bass anyone hears, rarely need the PA to have the bass in it - but then I'm playing in pubs and ickle venues with not the biggest FOH. Teh PA we use could easily handle it for FOH, but very very few portable monitors can do bass justice IME, and I cant justify IEMs

[quote name='lemmywinks' post='1179253' date='Mar 28 2011, 11:02 AM']As long as you have decent monitoring then it's an ideal situation. Nothing to carry! If your monitors are just for vocals then you won't be able to hear yourself. Amps aren't actually needed nowadays, we just like 'em![/quote] Sacriledge! Blasphemy!! Be gone foul spirit!!!!!

[quote name='chris_b' post='1179212' date='Mar 28 2011, 10:23 AM']So if a bass note has to rely on radiation surely it'll take longer to get around to the front where the audience is and be "out of phase" with the rest of the note, which came out of the front of the cab?[/quote] All sound relies upon radiation from a source....

Low frequencis radiate more evenl;y from their source, the lower the frequency the more even that is. Bass frequncies radiate evenly in all directions regardless of where the ports are, ALL bass cabs can make use of this by placing the cab with in a couple of feet of the back wall (ideally right back against it) in a venue. By the same token if you take that back wall away ALL bass cabs suffer from a corresponding 3dB drop in bass going forwards to the audience. With careful placement in the right room you can make tiny amps do incredible things, Plux did a gig with a pretty loud drummer with a Nemesis D8 practice amp once, by placing it on the floor in the corner of the room, which had a curved underside to a balcony above it, I think we got a bout 7dB of additional free volume from all the 'free' energy being bounced towards the audience - the amp was pushed to its limit, but outperformed anything you would expect it to by a huge margin.

If you DI a high gain signal you'll find a massive amount of high frequency fizzy nastiness. If you listen to a cab's paper cones they cant get up that high and so act as a nice filter removing the poop. Fact is you're getting more gain because you are hitting harder, however compressing the signal (and I do love my comrpession) before the gain stage will just remove that expressiveness so I wouldnt recommend it before the amp. Instead get a cheap decent dynamic mic (Senn E835 is defintely up to the task) and mic the cab. Set up your DI, mic the cab as follows:- 1. mic 1" from the cone angled at 45 degrees to the axis of the cone pointing at the center of the cone. 2. Set recording levels for the mic and the DI signa.l 3. Group the two signals to one channel so you can monitor the combined level 4. play an open string and move the mic slowly back and forth watching the level on the group, when it is at its highest the two signals are in phase. 5. Check the mic'ed signal sounds good, but only worry about the top end, if it doesnt capture the big bottom dont worry, its the grind you are interested in. When mixing take these two signals, filter them and group them together. When filtering you want a low pass filter on the DI set to around 150 Hz and a High pass filter on the mic set to the same frequency. Dont be afraid to eq the seperate channels a little. You can apply compression to the bottom end (DI channel) to keep it super tight and consistent as the top end provides all the dynamics, the overdrive circuit will compress the top end a little anyway. Treat the combined signal as a single sound, applying overall eq and compression as necessary to sit it in the mix right. Sit back and bask in the glory of your perfectly tracked and mix bass part. Yes its a little more work, but it provides a lot more control, and a massively improved final result.

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='1175997' date='Mar 25 2011, 02:57 PM'] [/quote] Very very nice indeed!

I'll second the dont use a drum mic call above - its a bad idea, they tend to suck mids for a start, since you have to eq that mid back into the bass. I would also put a huge +1 on the Heil PR40, it is a sublime mic, designed for broadcast vocal, very good frequency plot, goes a lot higher and deeper than most dynamics do. Strangely it does in fact make a great kick mic too, you eq your own mid cut into it rather than relying on a built in one. In this case it can be ok to use the same mic for a bass cab and a kick since the frequency response of this mic is so much flatter than a kick mic. Oh and if you record vocals it sounds lovely on a pretty wide range of voices, and no one but no one is going to overload this mic with their voice... Ive also got pretty good results (mixed with a DI) with a 57, 58, Senn e835, and particularly good results with a [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug03/articles/blueball.htm"]blueball[/url]

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Its a tool for an albeit highly subjective job. I need a tool I can rely on, that does what it should do well. Since I got my rig I have had absolutely no GAS for more. Then again since I got my 5 string I've only really had GAS for a similar fretless bass. Though having no spare funds at all has meant its been pretty much quelled for the forseeable...

[quote name='MuckedUpFunkies' post='1172388' date='Mar 22 2011, 06:13 PM']I still think spare volume is needed. Its not the amps problem, its the guitarist using it =L[/quote] No you misunderstand, a guitarist will have enough spare volume in a pub with a 112 or 212 easily for rock or blues. Spare volume is all well and good, but I guarantee that a guitarist is like Bad Spidey, give him great power and he will ignore the responsibility that goes with it....

[quote name='MuckedUpFunkies' post='1172371' date='Mar 22 2011, 05:55 PM']I completely disagree. Spare Volume is a MUST have for me even in the smallest venue. Never know when you may need to fiddle! =L[/quote] Errr, I was referring to the aforementioned Marshal 4x12 guitarist's half stack. This is a device known for causing large scale damage to the hearing of anyone unlucky enough to be within 20 yards. It is definitely overkill for a pub, though not for a [b]large[/b] stage in a very big venue, where you will find them being used to look good, rather than sound great. Not talking about bass rigs, where you need to move a lot more air (again with the fletcher munsen curves). A half stack bass rig will be needed in a big pub if you have no PA support for it. A 112 50watt guitar combo will actually do perfectly well in even a large pub, I've had the pleasure of working in a band that used a Cornford 12 watt 112 combo and those are easily loud enough for a blues band in a pub. Better yet if you need more guitar you can mic it and put a bit in the FOH, the guitarist will still hear himself and you actually have some control over the FOH sound.