Let's narrow the subject down and deal with electric bass guitar, as recording an upright bass (acoustic bass) is, generally, an entirely different concept.

Bass electrics

The electric bass is made to be plugged into a bass guitar amplifier by the way of a lead which has a ¼ inch jack plug on either end. This is universal and you can go anywhere in the world and you'll find this. The cable has one inner conductor and is surrounded by a shield or "drain", an earth. The system is what is known as a High Impedance system and is unbalanced.

Impedance?

I don't want to get into the impedance topic hear in terms of math, or audio electronics, so lets just assume the following:

High impedance is noisy High impedance cable runs have a finite length

Balanced cables

Balanced cables utilise two inner conductors and a "screen", which as well as shielding the cable also acts as the earth. This system is what a microphone uses when you have a 3 pin XLR connector on both ends. To cut a long story short for the sake of "Tricks and Tips" take it from me the way forward are balanced cable runs because:

Balanced cables can have extremely long cable runs Balanced cables are low impedance; which means less noise!

Back to bass

D.I.

DI means direct injection. This is a fancy term for plugging the bass directly into a mixing console. To do this we use things called DI boxes, which are great items of kit. A standard DI box has numerous connections on it including jack and XLR. Now essentially what a DI box will do is convert the high impedance unbalanced line (guitar lead) into a low impedance balanced line (mic lead).

You what??

Don't get confused, it means you can now use a microphone cable and have an extremely long cable run all the way to the mixer. For example you can't use a standard guitar lead and expect to get a healthy signal through the desk. For one there will be an impedance mismatch, and for two the signal will be noisy as hell. Get a D.I. box.

Without a D.I. you could not send the signal from a bass guitar or keyboard (any electric instrument) that is on stage, all the way to the mixing console at the back of the stadium. The studio is the same just not quite as far.

Balance the signal and lower the impedance and you'll get a workable sound. This is easy as you simply plug the bass into the DI box and the DI box, with a microphone lead, into the desk.

What about using a microphone?

I do that too, we all do.

BUT why not D.I. and mic?

The D.I. signal will give you the very clean sound of the instrument. So the signal is just the pure sound of the bass. Sometimes this is a great tone to work with in the mix. It's usually a very tight and crisp sound, depending of course on the player's technique.

Using a mic on the other hand will give you the player's sound according to what she hears through the amp. Naturally in most cases you will want to use a lot of this sound because after all that is the "sound" of the bassist when he plays with his band. But if you use DI along with a mic you'll have two different bass sounds to play with.

Balance them

You'll be able to experiment with the two channels that you have for the bass. Sometimes I'll e.q. the two channels differently, concentrating on using the DI sound for the upper mid and high frequencies or use some channel splitters and create some bizarre panning effects. More of this type of chat in my "Studio Recording Engineer" programme.

Microphones and placement

Tricky this one but generally many engineers use large diaphragm mics for bass sounds. The electro voice re20 is a good one as can be the sennhesier 541 and akg D112. It sound obvious but you need to think about the frequency response of the microphone. If you use an SM58 to "mic-up" the amplifier you just wont get all the rich low-end tonality that is needed for a cool sound.

Placement is subjective and there is no right way or wrong way but to use your ears. You want to be in the control room listening to the bass player play the bass while your "runner" (Santa's little helper") moves the mic in front of the amp to find the "sweet spot". In fact use that technique for all your mic techniques; just moving a mic a couple of inches will radically change the sound you get.

Get thinking laterally.

One cool technique I'll share with here is that if you have enough space and room you can use three channels for the bass. Here it is:

1.DI 2.Microphone facing into the speaker and really close (almost touching) 3.A microphone close to where the bass players picking fingers are.

Now for this to work well it is best if you can get the bass player in a different room from where his amp is. So he is in a quiet space with headphones on listening to the mix and playing along. But the mic you use close the where he picks the strings will give you just the acoustic sound of the bass and can sound excellent blended in the mix. Use a capacitor mic for this.
_________________
Recording Studio Suntans

we use a digitech from the new series GX? but the one for bassplayers.. it has only 2 footstamps? *my english sucks*

bass==> digitech==> computer..

you can get funksounds to type0negativelike distortionsounds with a lot of punch!!

it's just great:)

are ya a player as well as recording engineer?
_________________
Recording Studio Suntans

I try to:) but not a professional player..I play in this deathmetal band (www.lostchapter.ch) and in this industrialband (www.blazingsun.ch)

why do ya mean?

do ya play too in a band?

I've played bass and guitar in many bands as well as engineering. I was just curious cause sometimes the two mind-sets are very different.

At least that's what I've found.
_________________
Recording Studio Suntans

that's true, and well, i only record things, that I personally would play/hear.. this focus is on deathmetal, blackmetal and some industrial.. while I listen also to triphop and ambient electro, I never had the chance to record something like that..

well, the approach is a very diffrent.. if you record some undergroundbands you are a producer, ingeneer, mixing and mastering ingeneer in one person.. and thats for true, is way too much..

so, I've a friend who is also interested in recording but very amateur.. but I give him the mixed material to hear, and he tries to master it.. and that works well.. because he is fresh on the material and has an other approach to the recording..

well that's it.. my english is not so good, so I don't get the point..

You do fine, we understand.

That's a good options also bringing in other "ears", you can get some great results sharing the experience.
_________________
Recording Studio Suntans

yeah, and that's why I give up mastering myself.. it's not because I have no distressor or avalon @home, or my room is not for good.. it's because someone else should hear your recordings.. that's it.. and if you forget mastering you can really focus on recording, mixing.. and that's great! keeps your head free..(uhhm, well, should I make some more bass.. well i can correct it in the masteringprozess.. stuff like that..)


what kind of recordings you do?

ive got the handicap, that I dont have separated recordingroom from the sessionroom, but we work on it (we plan a wall:) )

Yes good stuff, i work on lots of different types of recording from classical to punk. When I get in the zone, I hear frequencies and not pitch, or I hear the spectrum and not the notes, it's a different thing.

When I play the instrument however, I'm in the zone as a musician and I like to complain about not enough foldback, hehe.

- yeah don't we all just hate that!
_________________
Recording Studio Suntans