Recording electric upright bass

[MoonBassAlpha]

My friend has a Stagg eub and was asking what sort of eq and/or  effects can be applied to  make it sound more like an acoustic double bass. He uses Reaper and their plugins, but  doesn't have any 3rd party ones.

I used to use a very short reverb on fretless bass, but it wasn't all that convincing, and don't have an eub to try anything on at home. 

Any experience doing this is more than welcome,  cheers. 

[NickD]

I've been playing around with this all year. I think all my composition challenge entries have been done on the NSWav (except for one awful attempt at recording the proper DB... that still needs work). Both down in the rehearsal room and recording (Cubase Elements 10 in my case), I've played with the Helix, using 3 Sigma DB IRs and the Fishman Platinum Pro. These work well through an amp in the rehearsal room, but for recording I've not found anything that works as well (to my ear) as straight into the Hi Z input of the interface, with a heavy mute (Ninomute), and the tone rolled most of the way off. After that I'll usually compress it a touch with the Cubase plugins, then leave it alone. Obviously the whole track will get a touch of delay/reverb at the end, but that's applied across the board.

[MoonBassAlpha]

@NickD thanks for your input. I  suspect the NS has a better basic sound (transducer etc) to start with. The hi-z input thing might be worth checking,  although the buffered output of the Stagg preamp shouldn't need it, it may still sound better. 

[Beedster]

See how it sounds in the final mix before you do anything, amazing how the style of play can define the recorded instrument as an upright as opposed to electric bass often more than FX. 

[NickD]

5 minutes ago, MoonBassAlpha said:

@NickD thanks for your input. I  suspect the NS has a better basic sound (transducer etc) to start with. The hi-z input thing might be worth checking,  although the buffered output of the Stagg preamp shouldn't need it, it may still sound better. 

 

Of course, I'd not considered that the Stagg is active.

For me the mute was the game changer. Stupidly expensive for what it is, but it really enhances the thump, and kills the mwah.

 

8 minutes ago, Beedster said:

See how it sounds in the final mix before you do anything, amazing how the style of play can define the recorded instrument as an upright as opposed to electric bass often more than FX. 

 

Definitely this!

It doesn't really matter how it sounds in isolation. If he's writing in a particular style, he needs to finish some mixes, then look for what he thinks is missing.

[WinterMute]

The musical context is going to matter, you'd not want Lee Rocker's tone on a Ron Carter session I suspect...

 

Most (but by no means all) jazz is recorded ensemble, and the room plays an important part in the sound of such sessions. I find getting the best room reverb signature you can for the track and adding it (sparingly) to each instrument can create the illusion of an ensemble playing in a common space. YMMV.