So, normally when I play, I’m plugged into my Focusrite DAI and using headphones. The direct monitor is on, and it’s plugged into my PC so that I can play music on the PC and hear it over the DAI. This works out well.
HOWEVER.
The straight tone that I’m getting has no… character. It’s straight off the pickups with no warmth or ability to EQ or alter the tone other than the tone control on the bass itself. So, here’s my question: what’s the best way to alter the tone so that I can bring in some warmth and character when I play? I’m not talking about for recording, just practicing and playing songs and the like. Is it as simple as an EQ pedal or something like my Zoom right before the DAI? Or is it a route-it-through-some-kind-of-EQ-software-on-the-PC thing?
There should be some sort of EQ built into your DAW to play around with. I don’t know the Zoom all that well (the B1four that I had briefly did) but most multi effects have some amp sims and EQs built in which should color your tone as well. With those, you should be able to alter the sound even more through settings of the amps. I’d throw that in between your bass and DAI and play around.
It sounds like @JustTim is not using a DAW (but, yes, that would be an option).
The Zoom should be of help (or any similar multi-effects box).
EQ’ing alone is, however, not gonna get what you desire, and you probably need at least a bit of “grit” or “color”, which you can get from a variety of pre-amps. So, not sure what the Zoom contains in details, but otherwise, if you put a pre-amp pedal (or one of the modeling pedals) between your bass and your DAI/headphones, that should do the trick.
(Sorry for replying to @faydout - this is all intended for @JustTim, obviously )
No worries m8. I just assumed that if he was using a DAI, that there’d be a computer and DAW in the mix. I’d definitely play around with the Zoom. If you’re want ing to spend some dough, the preamps with DI are the way to go imo.
To simplify things for me, if that’s what you were getting at, could I also use that when I am recording in the DAW? Or is that kinda… frowned upon, with the idea being that I should do that sort of stuff in the DAW itself?
Yes, AFAIK, this MXR preamp is a versatile allround pre-amp. It’s great in helping you dial in a rock tone, or a slap tone or a motown tone. But, I don’t think it adds a lot character beyond that.
I am sure others have alternative suggestions in a similar price range
People complain about it being made of plastic, but unless you’re extensively touring and your gear WILL get banged up, plastic is fine. I’m extremely happy with it so far and it’s arguably my best bass related purchase.
No, I don’t think it’s frowned upon, but I would only do it, if your DAW doesn’t offer you any sufficient tone shaping options (or you don’t have the “right” plug-ins). The caveat with shaping the tone before going into the DAW is that you then can’t “undo” any of that in the DAW. In other words, you can much easier model the tone in the DAW if the input is as clean as it gets. If it’s already very gritty, it’s very hard to make it cleaner again.
A preamp seems to be the easiest solution to color your tone. One of the cheapest would be the Behringer V-Tone Bass BDI21. It’s quite popular on the forum. You can find different ones depending on your budget
Yep, absolutely. That’s how I roll. I prefer the physical devices with knobs and buttons (analog / digital multi effect pedals) over DAW plug ins. It’s purely personal preference. Whichever appeals more to your workflow is the correct answer imo.
Depends on the workflow you want. I find it way more convenient to do everything in the DAW with high quality plugins and DAW builtins. Others like to have physical pedals.
Later down the road, for recording actual songs, one thing I would recommend if you record effected is to also get a dry bass track too, as it’s a lot easier to use to fix things up later if you need to.
For me, I always record dry with flat settings (tone knob wide open/EQ at noon on the bass) and do all the sound sculpting in software. Makes it much easier to make it work in a mix later; if you record with effects you’re kind of stuck. YMMV though, this is just my workflow.
Would this be recording your bass track twice, then? Once through the effects, and once not? Or is there some way (depending on your gear, i would assume) that you can record both at the same time to make sure that they match up exactly?
Seems to me that having to record twice really means you’re probably recording more than that - or at least punching in a bunch of stuff that doesn’t line up.
This is simple round trip latency; some is a fact of life, but playing with audio sampling rate and buffer sizes in the DAW USB configuration can take it down to manageable and often unnoticeable levels.
Many DAWs ship with ridiculously high values here too, adding considerable latency; notably Ableton.
Both! This is why I consider a monitor blend knob on the audio interface to be a required feature. Mix in some of the direct monitoring for immediate feedback while playing, and also the usb out from the computer for the effected signal (plus the rest of the song in the DAW).
Yes, many ways; you can split out a dry track early in the pedal chain by a few methods; a preamp with DI, a splitter pedal, etc. Then just run both the affected and dry signals into two different inputs on the audio interface.
I do this a lot anyway. I generally never try to lay down the entire instrument track in one take (this would be a very inefficient workflow). It’s worked out that way a few times but I generally never try for it.
Instead I will do many takes, usually split by song section, and mix and match. For all instruments, not just bass.
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