Okay, that one puzzles me.
Why would you need a DAI to do that? I would think you would plug the bass straight into the amp, and then use the DAI to convert the mic output to digital…?
But hey, I’m stupid. Can anyone enlighten me? 
Also: I just learnt you’re German. I suppose you’re familiar with Thomann?
Nope, from Cologne so I usually go to guitar center (= Beyers music center) or music store.
Ofc I know OF Thomann, but wasn’t there. Also the shops are closed due to corona.
As far as I got it most of the people recording bass for youtube and stuff like that do the hybrid solution. You actually record both - the DI output and the Amp output and put them over each other. Seems to be the best sound.
So you get DAI sound from input 1 and recorded mic sound from input 2.
Scott from Scotts Bass Lessons and a guy from a video from Reverb said so and the demos also sound like it when they compare it in the videos.
You could also just apply an amp and cab sim to the recorded sound through the DAI and skip the miking and probably get a similar effect. It certainly wouldn’t sound flat. There’s lots of amp/cab VSTs out there, some good free ones too. Of course this requires a DAW that works with them (i.e. not Audacity.)
Ah, the days where I had a music shoppe I could just hop into close by…
I’ve done quite a bit of shopping at Thomann, but exclusively online.
Ah, that makes sense.
Example of just applying an amp/cab sim in the DAW, here’s a track I recorded of me working on Hysteria a while back, just the clean bass and my drum machine for tempo:
here’s the clean bass track with an amp and cab sim applied in Reaper (Ignite Amps SHB-1 and NadIR IR sim, respectively):
Sounds like it came through a slightly overdriving tube amp and cab, with the advantage of not having to deal with noise on the mic.
Good cab sims let you position the virtual mic in different places as well, for different effects.
Hah, thanks. Probably actually a little overdone (on purpose for this example). For reals I would probably dial the amp presence back a bit.
Thanks for that example. It’s good to know one can achieve good sound like that, but what the DAI outputs is still rather flat.
So I will mention that option but still describe the DAI output as flat in the summary is how I want to go about it.
Still - especially with example. Good stuff. Thank you.
I’m on my way home from the guitar center in cologne and the guy was immediately like “oooooh that needs a setup”. Happy I went there but the guy knowledgeable in recording hardware is sick unfortunately.
For this one I would say actually the cheapest option is just taking the bass directly to a Line In on a sound card via a 1/4" to 1/8" cable. This works on PC, though on Mac it can be tricky since the only audio in on most macs is the Mic In on the TRRS headphone jack, and it’s more tricky cable-wise to get OSX to recognize the input. Still possible though.
Really? I will try that out immediately. Oh no… My bass is at the shop. How does that work with a non-active bass? I’m confused about that. Sorry.
But I am still intrigued by that cable and what kind of quality it delivers.
Ableton lite was included with my Zoom U-22. I installed it, but it is damn complicated and difficult to learn. I can’t imagine any need for midi at this time, so I’m okay with Audacity.
Active (preamp, passive pickup) and passive basses output similar line levels, so it should work fine 
Active pickup basses are hotter but still in the same range.
Sound quality is not so good with this method in my experience, but it works.
@howard
thanks. I’ll try it out and put both cable options in the “broke af” category.
Well I have use for midi outside of bass so learning a DAW that already supports it instead of doing it twice might be an option.
So far Reaper sounds nicest to me, having a large enough feature set, but an easy enough interface. At least that’s the impression I get from opinions of others.
I happen to like Reaper a lot. MIDI support is good, and it supports virtual instruments, amps and effects well. It comes with tons of stuff out of the box, very customizable as well. Plus it’s inexpensive.
Not quite as easy as GarageBand/Logic but it has tons of high quality tutorial videos out there. This guy makes a ton:
Well if you want to try getting bass signal to your computer on a budget with some decent results one of the single input instrument cables to USB will probably solve the problem. The interface and goodies can come later.
I’m using a 2010 Mac laptop But it seems to recognize almost any input. Out of curiosity a few months ago I used the Rocksmith cable from my PS4 to plug in. I think it’s called a real tone cable. You might find one used for $20. I think new they are like $35. It worked surprisingly well. Some of the other usb/instrument cables might do the trick too.
aufweiderhoren? I think?
I took a peek at Reaper last year when I first got my Zoom U-22. At the time, it seemed too complicated for what I was trying to do, so I moved on to the much simpler Audacity. However, since Reaper is so well loved by people whose opinion I respect (@howard and @terb), I’m going to try to learn how to use it.
Cool! For just recording I think you will find it pretty similar.
Laurent pointed me at it months ago and I am so glad he did.
Check out the videos by Kenny Gioia like I linked above, the guy has obsessively tutorialed every feature in the app.
I just subscribed to his channel and will obsess about learning Reaper so I’ll be up to speed by the time my U-24 gets here. GC says it will ship May 22. Meanwhile, I’ll continue with my U-22.
Auf Wiederhören = Hear you later (works in German, doesn’t in English)
Auf Wiedersehen = See you later (works in both)
Thanks for the input. Could it be that an “active audio cable” is the same as an “A/D converter cable” I mentioned? Sounds like it does the same.