Lets talk about recording bass guitar!

Bass guitar & amp:

  • Nash PB-57
  • Fender Rumble 40 (used for practice, not recording)

Recording bass guitar for the EP was very straight forward. All of the bass tracks were recorded direct with any processing done in the box. I would run my bass through my RNDI, into my Apollo unit, mild compression via an 1176 plugin in the UA Console, and then into Logic. The RNDI has a Thru port that I would use to send my bass through a pedal and then back into another input on the Apollo. The pedal I ended up using on the EP was a Fuzzrocious Cat Tail. I have a 2-in-1 box I commissioned 5 or 6 years ago that I call “Ram the Rat Tail” (I bought it before they renamed the Rat Tail). It’s a Cat Tail w/ feedback mod along with a Ram the Manparts in one enclosure. On the EP, I just used the Rat side and I would set it for a somewhat mild overdrive/growl.

For recording takes, I used the same approach as I did for guitar: record until I had 2-3 solid takes back to back. One of those takes would make up a vast majority (if not all) of the finished track and I’d mix in small parts from the other two tracks if there was something interesting on them.

After that, the DI track was not really messed with. The signal that went through my pedal chain was then sent through Line 6 Native to get a bass amp sound. I used the Ampeg B-15NF model through a 4x10 Ampeg HLF cab. Other than the Drive setting on the amp, I didn’t adjust anything from song to song. After the Line6 insert, I would insert a UAD 1176LN for some mild compression. I would start with one of the presets and adjust that until I liked how it sounded.

This sort of gets into the mixing portion, but the DI track and the “amp” were then combined to make up the final bass tone. After setting their volumes individually, I would send them both to a master bass fader so that I could control the overall volume in one place. If I used any EQ on the bass, I would do it on that master channel.

That’s really it. You can hit me up at chris at overnighthikes.net or on Instagram if you have any questions!

Cheers