Recording a Bass Guitar

In class, we recently recorded a bass guitar but this time we wanted our bassist to be in the control room with us so it would be easier to talk with him, rather than having to use talk-back and headphones. To do this, we utilised the tie lines on the input box that are in each of the live rooms to use both a DI Box and an amp while our bassist wasn't even in the same room.

We used an AKG D112 Dynamic microphone to record the bass amplifier, and placed it roughly 6 to 8 inches away from the main driver, pointing towards the center. This microphone is usually are go-to microphone when it comes to recording bass sounds, simply because that is what it was made for. The D112 has a very large diaphragm, which allows it to pick up lower frequencies with larger wavelengths better than a smaller microphone. It also has a very good frequency response that boosts bass frequencies between 20Hz and 200Hz.

In addition to the D112 recording the sound of the amp, we used a DI Box to pick up the pure sound of the guitar itself. To do this, we plugged the guitar into the patch bay/jack field in the studio where our bassist was, and used the tie-lines to plug a DI box into the same chain as the amp, so the signal would be recorded by the DI Box as well as coming through the amp for the microphone to record.

Using both the microphone and the DI Box lets us record two different sounding recordings which we can then mix together later on.