Best sounding 'thing' to record bass?

rze99 · October 2019

I use an inexpensive PODX3. The "Ampeg" sound on there is superb.

monquixote · October 2019

The Tech21 VT pedal sounds really good and is very easy to use.

guitarfishbay · October 2019

Jonathanthomas83 said:

guitarfishbay said:

You don’t have to run the DG pedals/plug-ins very distorted unless you want to. The Vintage sounds good for a bit of a warmth

Ok, so I didn't realise there was a Vintage mode on Darkglass...found it! That mode is right up my street! Exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

@guitarfishbay Next question. Is it pointless paying for the pedal (the Vintage Ultra) if I can get the plugin for £99? What's your experience of the actual pedals, do they bring a better sonic quality to the table that makes it worth it? I'm not opposed to buying a pedal, but if there isn't a massive difference between the pedal and plugin, I may not have to bother.

And last question. As this is just a preamp and speaker sim, am I missing out on something by not having a power amp of some kind (emulation or otherwise) in the mix? (This is why a pedal into the power amp sim on my Two Notes CAB M would be great) Or am I missing something obvious?

Many thanks.

I have owned both the B7KU and the Vintage Ultra (both V1s, so no onboard cab loading).

The Vintage Ultra is my favourite bass Pre and I still own that, it works well with any bass I’ve ever tried it with. The B7KU I had didn’t sound as good as my B3K (which it was supposed to replace) and honestly I preferred the plugin’s model of the B7KU to my actual unit. I sold my B7KU.

With regards to the Vintage Ultra vs the plugin I do think the pedal does sound a little nicer, just seems to be a little tighter while still being nice and warm, but there’s not loads in it for me when you consider the practical advantages of having a totally plugin chain.

Generally I just go RNDI - plugins for recording. If you want a power amp sim run the Darkglass plugin into a tube bass amp sim, I like the stuff in Ampeg SVX2 or Helix Native. A lot of the time I just stick an Ownhammer Ampeg IR on to the Darkglass and skip the amp though.

Neural have another bass plugin called Parallax which is aimed at the split way of processing bass, compressed clean lows and distorted highs. It’s supposedly based on the concept of the Darkglass X7 but without the limitations they had to place on it in the analogue world. It’s worth a demo, I didn’t end up buying that one but I think @WiresDreamDisasters likes it a lot.

ICBM · October 2019

Or use your Rectifier on the clean channel... that should sound good.

The risk to a guitar amp from bass is almost exclusively to the speakers, so if you're using a load box then there's really none.

Jonathanthomas83 · October 2019

@guitarfishbay that's great advice. Thank you. I am using it with my Dingwall Combustion and the plugin sounds great to be fair. Though I am intrigued by the pedal so may invest.

I tried the Parallax, it's good.

@ICBM, that's cool. It makes sense too. Thank you. I tried it last night and sounds huge, more bassy that anything I've tried so far. I need to tweak though because there's not as much headroom as I would like.

WiresDreamDisasters · October 2019

Parallax is very good for distortion, alongside a more traditional sounding track like a Sansamp or something else. There's a lot you can do with bass, and much of it for me depends on the cab or IR's you're putting it through. Ownhammer have some great bass cab IR libraries.

There is a free Sansamp plugin here: https://www.tseaudio.com/software/tseBOD

I also own the NeuralDSP Darkglass B7KU and the Vintage Ultra. I really like both of them.

Jonathanthomas83 · October 2019

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Parallax is very good for distortion, alongside a more traditional sounding track like a Sansamp or something else. There's a lot you can do with bass, and much of it for me depends on the cab or IR's you're putting it through. Ownhammer have some great bass cab IR libraries.

There is a free Sansamp plugin here: https://www.tseaudio.com/software/tseBOD

I also own the NeuralDSP Darkglass B7KU and the Vintage Ultra. I really like both of them.

Thanks Drew, I'm thinking that the Darkglass plugin would be good. But before I do that, I need to check out that free Sansamp plugin, thank you for the link!

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Best sounding 'thing' to record bass?

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