Bass and baritone recording help please

[LupineSound]

Hello, I am new to home recording and am beginning my first DIY session tomorrow with my band. I have a very limited mic selection and was wondering would you all would recommend using in these scenarios.

The bass player tunes to standard E. He plays a V4 out of Carvin 4x10. He's got a slighty dirty sound.

The baritone player (me ) is tuned to A and playing through a Dual Rectifier.

Here's what I got for mic's:

SM57
Beta58
Audix D6
AKG D112
Oktava MK-012-01
(2) MXL 990
(2) MXL 991

So far I've tried the D6 mixed with a little bit of the SM57 to capture some of the fuzz on the bass. It sounded ok.

I've tried using just the SM57 on the baritone but it was missing a lot of the beef.

In both cases I just put the mic 1cm in front of the speker. I briefly tried off-axis position, but it just seemed to make it sound worse.

Also, if I may, I've noticed a lot of you talking about "watch the phase" when doubling guitar tracks. What does that mean? I know that when you mix up the red and black on speaker cables it makes it out of phase and sounds quieter. How does that happen with multi-tracking.

I'm plugging the mics straight into a Digi 002R, if that matters.

Thanks!!!

[kslight]

I am personally not big on multiple mics on the same guitar part, usually sounds weird to me or phasey. Though I almost always double (as in truly perform the track twice, not copy paste). For your application and limited mic selection I would focus on getting one mic to sound good rather than struggle with two out of phase mics.

The D112 is my go to bass guitar cab mic...I prefer it over the D6 for cab use. It also is decent on guitar cab if you want more beef...I would start there. But since you only have one... I would put the D112 on bass, and an LDC (one of your MXLs?) on guitar.


I also would put the mics farther back, I always shoot for at least a few inches, not butted right up to the grill.


I play bass VI as my primary guitar (which is tuned like a guitar one octave down like a bass, but I often play in baritone range) and the mics I use (depending on song) are the Sennheiser E906, Shure KSM44, and Akg D112 on a 59 Bassman RI.

[EasyGo]

Don't give up on the 57 for the baritone guitar. It is probably the best mic for the job. Echoing kslight's suggestion, I'd encourage you to move the mic back from the speaker (and to double the part by rerecording it again as an overdub). Don't be afraid to tinker with moving the mic around on the speaker cab until you find a good spot.

[jgimbel]

The D112 is maybe my favorite bass mic too. Despite the fact that it has such a strange freq response in the mix I usually find it to really be a great fit - good low end and high end clarity with some low mids that would normally overlap guitar removed. I'd say the SM57 on baritone too. I don't use my SM57 on guitar since getting my SM7 (I think the SM57 sounds like the midrange chunk of an SM7's sound), but I'd use the SM57 on guitar definitely if I had the SM7 in use on something else. I usually put amp mics at least an inch back from the amp, roughly halfway between the center of the cone and edge of the speaker, often more toward the edge though and angled in a bit toward the center.

And yeah I think generally when people say watch the phase when recording amps they mean if you have two mics on one amp, which I've rarely found necessary anyway, so in your case I'd avoid it.

I tried my MXL990 on guitar cab once forever ago (it hasn't come out of the mic cabinet in a long time), and the only thing I like the 991 on is under snare, where it sounds fantastic. Never liked either of them on amps.

[dfuruta]

Try the oktava on the guitar amp. I don't have an oktava, but I use an AT4051 (another sdc) all the time on guitar with good results. I'm not generally happy with the sound if the mic is really close to the speaker?I think 6" or further away tends to sound better, when possible. If I'm recording a cab with multiple speakers and bleed isn't an issue, I like the put the mic a foot or two back and try to pick up the sound from the whole cab, not just one speaker.

If you're doubling, you might have better results if you try different tone settings/guitars/amps for each pass. I've found this to be the case for my own stuff.

Good luck! If you have the time, it'll definitely be educational to try as many different mics and placements as you can.

[LupineSound]

Thanks for all the replies! I'll let you know how I make out.