Bass cab mic ideas

AntonHunter

What do people like on bass cabinets? And anyone using just a microphone for bass guitar? I know DI is the standard, so just wondering if anyone does it differently. 

victorludorum

You could go full Geoff Emerick and turn a bass amp into a mic, Revolver style!

AntonHunter

victorludorum said:

You could go full Geoff Emerick and turn a bass amp into a mic, Revolver style!

I question the portability, but bet it sounds great yeah!

Winny_Pooh

EV RE-20 or Shure SM7B

guyinlyon

AntonHunter said:

What do people like on bass cabinets? And anyone using just a microphone for bass guitar? I know DI is the standard, so just wondering if anyone does it differently. 

I have good results with a Sennheiser E906 but I've heard that an Audix D6 is good.

MartinB

The last couple of times recording electric bass with my band, we took both a DI and mic signal, and just used an SM57, since the idea is that the DI fills in the low end depth, the mic is there to capture the interesting mids off the speaker. 

AntonHunter

guyinlyon said:

AntonHunter said:

What do people like on bass cabinets? And anyone using just a microphone for bass guitar? I know DI is the standard, so just wondering if anyone does it differently. 

I have good results with a Sennheiser E906 but I've heard that an Audix D6 is good.

Aha, I have an e906, I might try that! Are you blending it with DI and using the mic for some mids as people are suggesting here?

AntonHunter

Winny_Pooh said:

EV RE-20 or Shure SM7B

Yeah, I'm always keeping an eye out for a decent RE-20 price, good call.

PhilKing

I use an AKG D112 on stage but have a Warm Audio WA-47jr that I use in my studio.

Cirrus

Re20, fet-47, at40-series

Danny1969

The only mic we had in our collection at the studio that did a decent job on bass cabs was a Beta 52, so that got used a lot. I did a lot of bands that liked the Kyuss  / QOTSA bass sound and we used a couple of Ampeg bass cabs and that mic to get something close to that. 

I always took a DI as well which could be blended in or reamped back out in the live room. 

octatonic

Beyer M88 is my go to.

RE20, SM7, Fet47 get used too.
You can overthink this.
Most things will be fine- and I mostly use the DI signal and just use the amp channel for some grit.

Stuckfast

My new year's resolution is to stop being lazy and record bass through an amp, not just DI. Might dig out some mics to compare and see what works. 

AntonHunter

octatonic said:

Beyer M88 is my go to.

RE20, SM7, Fet47 get used too.
You can overthink this.
Most things will be fine- and I mostly use the DI signal and just use the amp channel for some grit.

I've got sn M88 too, but it's my first choice kick mic, so it's usually busy (I mostly record things live). Maybe I need another kick mic instead...

Stuckfast

Earthworks DM6 is the absolute nuts on bass drum. I've stopped using my M88 there because the DM6 is just miles better.

Macca_25387

I’ve been using a Sennheiser Md421 with good results. About 8” back from the speaker. 

https://youtu.be/05_slliHCp8?si=MPzWKpyDpfJTmL7L

This was the last result. 

mike257

Live, I tend to lean on a DI for the low end, and blend with a mic for a bit of grit and character from the amp. I'll usually use anything that would normally work well on a guitar amp. 

I see a lot of people using kick drum mics, but lots of them have a bit of an exaggerated sonic character to steer towards a punchy kick sound (Audix D6, I'm looking at you!) and I don't often want to emphasize the same areas in the bass guitar as they'll clash.  You'll still get plenty of useable low end out of the usual suspects you'd stick on a guitar cab if you do want to get it from the mic.