recording upright bass --

[Jae.Thomas]

im going to be recording upright bass next week for an entire weekend.

i want to know a couple of things from peoples experience:

what kind of room?

(i have an acoustically treated studio, or i could go to a concert hall, i would rather do it dry)

what mics?

I was thinking of using my shure 52 or RE20 along with a condensor possibly.

position?

[griz lee]

hi Jason

If the traditional techniques don't work for you, an alternative may be to use something small on a mount that hangs of ths strings - position it just behind the bridge. Your bass player may well have one already. My choice in an ideal world would be a dpa4060 for this application - expensive, but could be possible to rent really cheaply as tv/theatre people as they get used all the time in those industries.

This might help if you've got the wrong room for the music concerned (always a problem for me).

good luck! In general, if the room is quiet and sounds nice, then i'd personally pick an omni over a cardioid (yeah, i know goes against everything others have ever told me) for the simple reason that you don't get cranky bass roll off problems and no proximity effect which makes things sound too boomy at the top and not enough lower down when you use a cardioid.

[Shredder]

Originally Posted by Shredder

...From another post..
* the upright is perfect - these are not the easiest to mic. Typically I will use two mics for this - a large diaphragm mic about 12" from the plucking hand and a smaller condenser mic under the bridge.

A suggestion of course..

[Justin]

From the few times I've played with em, a small dead room is gonna be your best bet..

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by Justin

From the few times I've played with em, a small dead room is gonna be your best bet..

thank goodness. Thats exactly what i have

i wish i could make a sample library out of it, but i wouldnt know how.

i plan on doing drums, however.

[martygras]

Jason, I haven't recorded upright except a few times for bluegrass which might not apply to your scenario.
I've used a small diaphram condenser near the bridge. I also added a boundary mic on the floor in front for body and room tone.

[scottdru]

There are so many different ways to mic a bass fiddle, depending on the room. If the room sounds relatively good, you may get a very nice recording using something like a single U-87 (or similar type mic) placed 3 feet or so in front (and just off to the side) of the bass. But you may also do well with two mics, each placed to pick up different parts of the overall sound of the bass. Perhaps a large diameter condenser and a small diameter condensor. The RE20 is also definitely worth trying if you have one on hand.

If the bassist has a pickup installed on the bass, you might want to record that direct as well -- sometimes it helps to add just a tiny bit of the pickup track in (usually with some fairly extensive EQ) along with the mic feed, especially if you need a bit of extra attack. It's better if you don't have to use that, but it can be nice to have just in case. You can also reamp the pickup track, or run it through an amp sim if needs be, if you need a bit of extra grunt.

Here's some reading for you that will offer some insight and some additional ideas to try:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct0...srecording.asp

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr9...recstrings.htm

The second linked article is more related to recording bowed instruments, but there's still some great info in there (e.g., regarding the polar radiation of the instruments, harmonic content, etc.) that can be helpful in focusing your mic placement efforts.

[scottdru]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

i wish i could make a sample library out of it, but i wouldnt know how.

To get the most realistic multi-sampled bass instrument (plucked), record the bassist playing plucked notes chromatically from lowest notes all the way up the neck, at a number of different velocity levels (the more different levels the better, but I'd recommend at least 3 or velocity 4 levels).

Best to let each not ring as long as possible before moving on to the next note.

Would also be good to get some incidental sounds like muffled strings, double stops, glissandos, slaps (Slam Stewart style, etc.), finger noises, etc.

Then chop it all up and map it to a sampler.

If you've got some time, a willing bass player and a decent sounding room, you could probably get something pretty useful!

If you get some good recorded stuff for a sample set and you need some help, I'd be happy to help you put together a multi-sampled bass instrument -- perhaps mapped for one of the freeware samplers or something. I've been wanting to do this myself, but hadn't yet had the time and opportunity.

[manning1]

if i remember c-ducer mics are good for upright.
look here under instruments>>bass section.
http://www.c-ducer.com/

[Jim Roseberry]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

im going to be recording upright bass next week for an entire weekend.

i want to know a couple of things from peoples experience:

what kind of room?


what mics?

I was thinking of using my shure 52 or RE20 along with a condensor possibly.

position?

Unless you're recording a whole ensemble (string quartet), I'd go with the dead room approach. If you have a C414, that would work very well.
You'd capture a lot of detail... the transients would sound a bit more articulate than a typical LDC (U87)... and you'd capture a bottom end that's more full sounding than if you used a SDC.

The RE20 would get the bottom, but you'll need a fair amount of preamp gain (which will raise the noise-floor).


Jim Roseberry
www.studiocat.com
jim@studiocat.com

[robg]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

i wish i could make a sample library out of it, but i wouldnt know how.

Ditto what scottdru said.

It's really not hard, just VERY time consuming & tedious.

Make sure you're consistent in your recording methodology and document each sample to avoid "What happened to velo layer 4 on this note? Oh yeah, we started to only to 3 layers for a while" type mistakes.

[Petimar]

http://www.3daudioinc.com/3db/showthread.php?t=8125

A LOT of good info in this thread. Look at page 4 of this thread for pic links.

I have found a lot of luck recording with an AEA R84 as shown in the pics on this thread. I am very partial to ribbons however.