Thanks for being cool about it Glenn! I realized most DIYers = SM57 + Vintage 30 in an oversized cab (or a Kemper derivative of that setup) + DI bass + EZdrummer. So it’s easy to fall into that trap. You are helping the community get out of cookie cutter metal land by preaching real drums etc. I wanted my channel to do the same for guitar, by utilizing multiple mic types/speaker types/rooms etc. Plus doing the same thing with bass takes it further away from cookie cutter land. I think your original bass DI/distortion technique can still be used a lot for impact because it DOES sound heavy. It can take songs over the edge for a savage ending/drop etc. That technique is legit. Just perhaps not for an entire album where that nasty distortion can grate on the ears. Again...Thanks for being open minded with the response. I’ve been a sub for years. Bought the t-shirt, put the “bass player c**t” sticker on my guitar and waved it proudly in my bass playing brothers face. Cheers!
I saw your original video actually and noticed that Glenn had commented on it. I've since tried your technique by plugging straight into my Blackstar (oversize 2x12 V30 cab) and I think that sounds great too. I won't do it all the time as a lot of my bass sound is clean, but when I want it a bit heavier I definitely will.
JDODify Very cool. You can treat it just like any other sound. You can add dirt, pedals, 4 x HM-2 pedals in a row etc. Well, maybe not the last one. Never the last one...
LOL - I actually used to have a HM-2 and loved it (in the mid 90s)... when I used the pedal about 15 years later I thought it was so shit that it must be broken. I actually donated it to the CS Guitars TH-cam channel - he's done a few videos using it - I realised that it wasn't broken, its supposed to sound that shit.
No doubt it sounds better but I remember a friend telling me that plugging a bass guitar into a guitar amp can do serious damage to the amp (and speakers) something about overloading them..?
This is why I love Glenn. It's so rare to find someone who can truly accept constructive criticism. It's the most intelligent people who adjust their positions/beliefs/actions based on new evidence, rather than cling to dogma or "That's the way we've always done it." Awesome video.
Brian Miller Magic plus if people applied that to their political persectives, the whole world would be way less fucked, so you're right it's an AMAZINGLY admirable virtue to have IMO
Good criticism? True, but i do think it’s a obligation for sound enginners to have that kind of mindset, most of them have it, and those who don’t, don’t make it. Cause, You have to assume your clients aren’t idiots (even if most of them are... singer/drummer/bassist), some of them actually care about facts, and will verify what to tell them to be true, not cause they’re idiots, but because they wanna be able to trust your knowledge on stuff, which is kind of normal when you record a project with one specific SI for the first time...
This comes full circle, because the Fender Bassman was originally designed as a bass amp, and guitarists started using it shortly thereafter. The first Marshall amps just so happen to be modeled after the Bassman.
What's that? You had an open mind and you grew as a musician? That's why I love this channel. You give people shit when they deserve it, but when you're wrong you own it and advance.
Seriously though, great video Glenn. Mudvayne had some of the heaviest mixes I have ever heard in metal. This was due to the bassist being an absolute monster on his instrument and he became the foundation for the entire band. Preach it to all the drooling bass players!
As a bassist, when I record, I use both the d.i. box and the amp. Separate channels, and I blend the two different tones together for a real thunderous thick tone/ sound. Hope this is useful for you Glenn. Rock on!!!
It's not just the air, there's also the saturation you get from the tubes. I used a JCM 800 to record the bass for our album, because it has a similar preamp circuit as Ampeg SVT (but a very different poweramp), and it worked.
Agreed, that would be even better. These clips here when compared mostly sounded better on the ones where he reamps it through his REV. But the ones that were reamped had too much presence in the mix imo altough their bite was welcoming. And so it seems the best option is to just do both!
The thing is, I feel like too many bass amps nowadays have gone in the high-fi direction. I think what we need is a widespread revival of the all-tube bass amp and have the whole idea of high-fidelity thrown out the window. I built my own bass amp by modifying a guitar amp kit to have better low-end response. The result? I never want to go back to solid state.
Thank goodness I'm not a stupid bass player. I'm just tired of seeing bass amps that emphasize watts and powerful EQ's over good sounds. Lemmy only needed two 100 watt heads that had relatively useless EQ's on them, and he had a fantastic tone.
all tube bass amps are HEAVY and have to be the size of a refrigerator just to put out a measly 300 watts! they sound great in the studio but there is more cons to the tube power amp section than going solid state. Also there are lots of benefits for solid state power section in live music. The vast majority of music recorded the bass player is usually using an ampeg all tube head but it's starting to fall out of fashion as people experiment more.
I think you can get the vintage sound out of any decent bass amp but bass players have to be flexible and bass amps are a serious investment. I think the "hi-fi" is just a way to add flexibility to the amp because bass players will expect to use that one amp to play all kinds of music where a guitar player will get different amps to get different sounds. You can always plug in 70s P bass leave the dials at 12 o'clock and just rock out
I disagree. With certain tube circuit topologies, you get some sounds that are very hard to achieve with solid state devices. It's pretty much impossible to get vintage tones out of modern solid-state bass amps, since the warmth of vintage tones is the opposite of the extreme clarity offered by modern amps. Sure, you can hit the overdrive on a modern amp, but I feel like that usually just puts some fizz in with the clean sound, which doesn't really do the same thing as the vintage warmth. Also, not all bass tube amps are really heavy. The Ampeg SVT is more of an outlier than an average when it comes to weight.
Hi Glenn, you may not read this comment. nevertheless I wanted to tell you how I appreciate how you take other people comments with an open mind, put it to test and recognise that you can improve. This gives me some hope in human kind! So many after 20 years of experience and so many channel followers would have just ignored this little channel. So keep on the good work, I hope amping bass in guitar cabs won't damage speakers (there are urban legends about it).
I legitimately do this when I want to play Doom metal. I pulled out the electronics from an Acoustic B-100, put a direct cable lead into the speaker, put my Egnater 20w tube on it and ran reverb through the FX loop and put a fuzz pedal in front of the amp it and sounded incredible and HEAVY.
Yup. Discovered this years ago. As a dual set-up mentioned in previous comments, I used an SVT rig for the "standard" bass tones with splitting the signal into a Marshall DSL half stack. Nowadays, since I don't play live (or have a vehicle large enough to haul around a massive rig), I record a Bass Driver direct track and through a Mesa combo plugged into a miked single 15 cab. Blend as desired in the mixer. Works for a lot more than metal.
If you're using a guitar amp for bass, it's a good idea to still use bass cabinet. Guitar amps don't really amplify the boomy low end frequencies anyway, so at low volumes it shouldn't be an issue, but if you play in a band and you crank it up to jam session volume you'll shred guitar speakers easily
You know...call me crazy, but I actually preferred the bass pedal for the distortion tones. The guitar amp sounded better for the clean tone, it also has more low end, and when soloed, it sounds way better than the pedal. BUT, in the mix (where it actually matters) the top end sounded way better and blended in way better with the guitars on the pedal. And, although it didn't have as much low end, the low end was cleaner. Seemed a bit muddy on the guitar amp by comparisson. Probably because it's a guitar amp and not a bass amp. Yea, it's a matter of taste, but for me I liked the pedal better Because it sounded better and blended better in the mix, and the low end was cleaner. Just my opinion.
If you don’t know, in the Metal Pioneer band, Black Sabbath, the bassist Geezer Butler used a Guitar Amp in the early days, the same that the guitarist Tony Iommi used, a Laney Supergroup, but they are really, really too Bass in the sound, so Tony Iommi used with a Treble Booster to get a better Distortion with more Treble, and Geezer Butler conect only the Bass in the amp, that’s why Geezer Butler’s Tone is very distorted and, for me, the best sounding Bass in the history of Metal
That guitar amp sounded 1000x better. Jesus christ it was so damn noticable lol. That is the kind of bass tone I like to listen too. Also,this whole video was an insanely wholesome response to Circle of Tone. After being on the internet for so long I expected something extremely flammable. I was dead wrong. Wow. haha :D
I actually saw this video when it came out and was wondering if you'd notice it. Mad respect for giving this a proper shootout, I was impressed by the results in the original video myself, and I'm glad that you were too.
edu jorquera - I'm almost certain he does, too. But I'm rather certain he's about to start using the Darkglass stuff on recordings for the new Toska album
edu jorquera I have a B7k, it's sick. I combined it with a DI and reamp the DI with an amp Sim and Ampeg IR with allot of bottom. Sounds huge and still has bite.
Don't run it too loud. Also, reamping through a guitar amp is usually done to get the shaped higher frequencies from the bass. The lower end can come through a DI, you mix them later. Most guitar amps will cut the lowest of frequencies long before the speaker.
As people have said, studio volumes are pretty safe for that kind of set up. Get much louder than that, and yeah, the cone movement that the low end causes is going to start wreaking havoc with the speaker. Which is why getting a dedicated bass rig is a good idea if you're wanting to play live.
Bass player here. I tend to use both. And thank you for finally noticing this. Only using direct signals makes it all sound generic no matter how precise and easy it is. Reamping the DI for multiple alternatives in mixing with the guitars is also a great option.
The first bass cabinets originally used the exact same speakers as guitar cabs, there were just more speakers added to handle more watts. 4x12" cabinets were never meant to be used for guitars
It's nice to see someone on youtube actually responding to constructive criticism in a constructive way! This has inspired me to do a little shootout between a sansamp, a Neve 1088, a bass head and a guitar head which I fourtunately have access to at uni
Hey Glenn, I enjoyed this. I had a similar result a few years ago. I was working on a pretty good thrash track, but it just wasn't delivering the kind of energy I knew was in there. I ended up duplicating the bass track and sending one copy to a distorted guitar amp. Matched phase, and Bingo! The DI gave me clean lows and the amp track did the rest with some gnarly mids - thrash achieved. Now I just record DI and guitar amped bass tracks standard practice, whether I end up using both tracks or not.
Slanted cabs are better for rehearsing since the top speakers don't just blow sound into your knees. The angle lets the sound travel up to your ears, you'll have significantly more high end this way, thus being able to hear the guitar or bass better. Straight cabs are better for recording since you don't have to adjust the mic stand like crazy to get the mic to sit dead center on the speaker. You just put it in front of it at a 90° angle.
Back in the day, the top speakers acted as monitors pointed at the guitarist's ears and the bottom speakers went toward the audience. Now with headphones and inner ear monitors, there is really no reason for slant cabs.
sadbuttrue319 I thought that if he would push the amp a little harder It would sound better, it just seemed that the amp wasn't driven for that pushed bass sound, in my ears anyway
Tomer Avira like circle of tone commented up top, it does sound "heavy". the only problem is when it's an entire album, everyone does it and it gets distorted to hell and back on a second track. There's nothing wrong with it but it sounds really sterile and in metal, that shouldn't be a sound you always go for
Cmon, really ? Are you listening through crappy headphones ? For me the difference is night&day, the real tube amp just have way more low-end, where the sansamp is doing so poorly. I mean, it's so important, it's the spine of your track.
Back in the 90's I played bass in a band and my rig was a Marshall VS100 head and a Peavey 1x15 cab and it sounded deadly. I can remember playing at least a few shows where people were pretty impressed with my tone. One thing to keep in mind though when using a guitar cab for bass, you have to be VERY careful about your volume because those speakers weren't designed to handle bass frequencies and there's a good chance of damaging them if the volume is up too high.
Elias Simon works great for sludge, Doom or vintage tones. I used a guitar Head with a 15 in h Jensen speaker for this bass tone: th-cam.com/video/bDsm3O8oMqw/w-d-xo.html
So much respect for this video. Here's what makes difference between typical vloger and true professionalist one who makes video about his job... Not only able to take criticism, but use it to learn and progress
I thought playing bass through a guitar amp wasn't good for the amp? Is there any credibility to that, or was notion that's it's not good to PERFORM (at volume) with a tube amp?
I'm pretty sure it has loads more to do with the cabs / speakers, rather than the amp. The amp doesn't care what signal goes through it, it just does its job and steers electrons where they're supposed to go. Guitar speakers, on the other hand, with their (comparatively) small-diameter voice-coils (1.5-2inch) and low cone travel (a few mm at best), are made to shape the tone of (distorted) guitars, where you don't have much low-end. Bass speakers, on the other hand, with their 3-4inch diameter voice coils and more available excursion, *are* built to take hundreds of watts at low frequencies without burning up or ripping themselves to shreds.
IMPOSTERvideo the worst thing that could happen is it'll sound bad, back in the day bassists just plugged into amps like marshall plexis, if amp from the 60s can take it, a modern amp certainly can
IMPOSTERvideo you definitely can. It won’t do anything to the amp. Just make sure you play through speakers that can handle the low end and not fart out. I’ve played for years through tube guitar amps through bass cabs and it’s been fine. At ridiculous volumes btw.
It's the speakers that don't like bass frequencies, not the amp. Bass requires a lot more movement of the speakers to get the low frequency reproduction. Speakers like the vintage 30 don't do well with that amount of movement if you crank them up. Keep the volume down and they'll be fine. Speakers intended for bass guitar are built to move more. Different tool for a different job.
One of my favorite live bass setups was a blend of a di with a blue ball (the blue phantom powered one). With good eq the two complimented each other for a very round and robust bass that could both cut through the mix or blend in depending on the song. This was in a cover band setup so the ability to change gears was necessary to compliment the material being performed. A lot of the time you could just adjust the faders to achieve the desired effect without messing with the eq much.
I think the missing pieces for many bass player’s rigs (whether live or studio) are power amp tubes. Most modern day tube amps advertise themselves as having tubes but usually the tubes are only in the preamp section of the amp. While these sound nice and give your tone a valued warmth, power amp tubes really need to be present to produce “heavy” distorted tones. The main issue that I run across pushing power amp tubes with bass is that the amp has to be reallllllly loud so I run an attenuator to reign in the volume. Then couple that with a sansamp and you’re golden.
IMO, the pedal sounds better. In general I prefer solid state amps for bass, cuz of much smoother and clearer low end. I do, however, like the distorted as fuck tone that Jo from Bolt Thrower achieved on the Realm Of Chaos by plugging her bass straight into a JCM800.
As someone who both plays bass and uses 2 guitar amps to head my cabinet I can vouch. I can get all the bass sound you'd expect but also get more articulate responses and definitely a more complex tone that will sit in a mix and have that little edge most guys can't get from a traditional bass set up. Thanks and keep the vids coming!
This reminded me, back in the day, I used to play keyboard bass in a hard rock band after we threw our bass player out. I ran a Minimoog into an SVT with a JBL single scoop cab. Holy hell, what a sound! The ground literally would shake!
Lol ye. Seems that svt tone and live driven bass has been forgotten. Even though its actively being used. Rex Brown anyone??? Maybe its cause mainly guitarists watch this channel. And tech 21 VT bass, c'mon. Drive the fuck outta that amp and keep the bottom end thicc af.
That's what I'm doing right now! I have accidentally plugged my bass into Blackstar HT40 combo on rehearsal and was amazed by tone on OD channel! Can't quit it!
I found your comment about capturing real speakers moving air to resonate. I really, really dig it when a record has that feeling like you have some bass and guitar stacks right in front of you and they're not just "loud" but they are shifting air around you. Listen to the song in our blood by yob as an example.
Nice! I watched the Circle of Tone video that you're talking about. I'm glad you took it as well as you did. It is good to see that you're willing to take the time to reassess how we do things. Awesome!
You are exemplary of how everyone in the industry should conduct themselves. You know damn well what you are doing but keep an open mind and that's why you are and will remain on the cutting edge . I would take you over road runner records 10 times out of 10 my friend. I wish you had a channel promoting the band's that you record so to make it easy to stay up to date on your work sir.
Glenn, you hair is looking good, my brother in still rocking the long hair. I'm 36 and still proudly rocking it since I was like 8 (only 1 short, short hair period where I once shaved my head while planting trees in a Nova Scotia forest). I feel so petty to suggest this to someone I have a such huge amount of respect for, but brother, if you got a trim, your hair would look and feel sooo much better. It would look wayyyy thickers (not that thickness is a problem for you), and you'd be able to brush or comb it without any snarls or snags in your comb! Believe me, I often go without trims, but once I do it, it feels SOOO much better.
I watched the video in different devices just to be able to give the most unbiased opinion. My first impression was "Where is the low end in the guitar amp track? This sounds like crap" After taking a break and drink some coffe I watched the video in a different computer than mine with different speakers and I can hear the huge difference so, I was wrong : Guitar amp sounds better in the mix and I need better speakers. I didn't cared about too much recording bass because in 20 years of playing bass the rule of thumb I found almost everywhere was : "Don't worry ,I'll plug the bass in a DI" so when you're young and unexperienced you take the enginner's word as sacred. I just figured that was the right way to do it. Nobody's fault. It always has been done that way and everybody did it. In all that time only two producers told me to use a bass amp and captured the bass amp sound.
I plugged my bass into a Blue Voodoo 60 when I was in a pinch one time, and holy hell! There's DEFINITELY a place for using a guitar tube amp for bass from time to time.
Really interesting! As a home recordist, I use a Vox amp modeller for all my tones. Used to just DI the bass with no pedals & it sounded OK... ish. Then I got a Zoom bass pedal which was a little bit better sounding. One day the Zoom died on me & I had a bass part to record so out of desperation I plugged into the Vox using a Soldano model, and suddenly my bass sounded thunderous compared to how it had sounded before. So it seems that even using a guitar amp simulation is better than at least some bass pedals out there :-)
Glenn, good for you for always being open-minded. This technique definitely works. I actually work the other way round, than most engineers. I use no DI in the mix. I record it, but never use it in the end. Instead, I combine a regular bass amp (Eden Nemesis, 2X10 & 1X15 & twitter), with a guitar amp (Laney gh100l, Marshall MF400). The guitar amp really gives me some very useful high mids for a saturated, edgy, modern sound. Sometimes I use the guitar amp with minimal gain and cranked master, to get the 6L6's warm, other times I crank the preamp to create distortion and add it to the clean sound of the bass amp. Either way, the combo works great. And I don't even have V30's, which I would prefer for this application. My guitar cab has 4 K100's, but still does the job. Cheers from Greece and sorry for my English.
I tried this a year ago with my Orange Micro Terror just for fun and was very impressed how awesome it sounded. I used a 1x12 with a Jensen Mod 12-50 as Jensen states it is safe to use with bass.
Glenn! I think this video is fantastic. By the way, this is the reason that I record an old fender bassman for my bass tracks, because it has a guitar and bass channel. Because of this, there are actually a couple of cool things you can do, like jumpering the channels together, using the guitar channel for high end frequencies (engaging the bright switch, taking out all of the bass and adding in all of the treble) and the bass channel to do all of the low end. If you have a good cab, by crom's balls it is surprising! Even for metal, the Fender amp on bass kicks some serious ass. If you ever happen upon one, I highly recommend it.
A couple of friends and I just finished tracking for a local hard rock band we actually ended up using an ART Pro MPA I modded with JJ tubes as our bass rig for the session, and it really gave it more grit and a more even sounding tone. I'd definitely like to experiment with running that pre into a power amp and a cab just to hear the tones you could get out of it, probably mic it up with a Beta 52 and a 421 to give it that thick low end with some high end growl.
I usually use a Trace Elliot V-Type tube bass head into an Ampeg 8X10 cab, but have gotten some amazing results running the bass through a ‘68 Fender Vibro Champ loaded with a Weber 8”!
absolutely can be done with solid results. i'd have thrown a 421 on the cab, cranked the mids and blasted it with the distressor, but i get why you went this way. i'd also make a point to blend in a low passed DI, bus them together and wreck them both with compression.
I’m glad that you made this video. As a bass player who spent his hard earned money on an Ampeg SVT CL I can tell you the difference is night and day. My band recorded a demo and I went direct. It sounded okay but when we re-recorded I insisted on using my SVT. The tone had so much more color and presence and the overall mix sounded way better.(also Robert Trujillo blends a mesa boogie with his SVT. I really want to get a guitar head to add even more to the sound)
I was playing one of my basses through my Marshall DSL100H and it sounded fantastic. Not super bassy, but Lemmy-tone for days. Sounded great clean or distorted. The tube amp's overdrive sounded better than any bass-specific distortion pedal I've ever used. I wouldn't use this in a live setting, as it just doesn't have the low end to stand out with a full band, but for solo jamming and recording it sounded great.
I was in a heavy, three piece band on a budget and when out guitarist was busy with leads I found a way to get around the lack of rhythm guitar by running my bass cable into an AB splitter, A going into my bass stack and B going into a guitar head connected to a bass cab. I was able to get some awesome tube overdrive and after experimenting with the h/m/l mix on the guitar amp I ws able to get a killer combination of clean and deep lows as well as a ghost "rhythm guitar" :)
Thank you for this video (and your others), they're a massive help! As a bassist (and an intermediate guitarist), your criticism of bassists has inspired me to get better and do as well as I can when I'm playing in a band. I'm doing my best to avoid the stereotype of lazy bass players (I even changed my strings before a recording session), thanks to your advice
Love this! Yes, it works. My main bass recording setup here at my house is an old Ampeg V2 head into an ancient Traynor 8x10 with Jenson MOD 10-50's, with an MD-421. Sounds great, and the preamp on the V2 definitely gives you that SVT type grind when it's turned up.
I've been running bass into a peavey XXL head+cab with good results , even better was 6505 into an orange 4x12. Used the amp tracks for grit/distortion and then a sansamp bddi for the di signal blended in for low end
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Great to see this approach to bass getting more recognition! I tried this for the first time when I recorded a Mötorhead cover for fun, so I did some research on Lemmy's gear and read that he used a Marshall guitar amp with his bass cabs. Using two mics, one close and one for the room gives amazing results!
I recently recorded bass for a rock band and I used 3 channels for each song! One for the direct signal through a DI, one through the DI-out of my bass-amp and one for the cabinet. This helps the bass to stand out between two overdriven guitars and also gives the sound guy room to play with the bass tone.
I did this on a few recordings, bass tone was half a real bass amp, very clean sounding - and then half an orange micro terror for a bit of crunch. You still had the nice lows of the bass amp, but the high end and midrange was really nice from the amp.
In the late 90s when I was using cassette tascam 4 & 8 trackers I often used a guitar amp for bass, usually using the headphone jack as a line out though not always. The clarity and thick fullness of the bass came through surprisingly well.
Man I hope more people revert back to miking amps for their records (for guitar and bass). I’m guilty of using plugins on my releases but I’ve decided to mic all instruments for my future releases. I will say that the Studio Devil Bass Amp Pro is a pretty damn good plugin for bass, if one must go that route.
It's hard to argue against this one - the guitar amp version really does bring something to the table, with more air and just a general feeling of 'real live bass player'. I've used a technique before where I double track the bass using a 4001 and a jazz - not stereo, just stacked right on top of each other. I put the 4001 through an amp and I di the jazz, and wow does that make a big sound ! Try it :)
![일상 속 기분 좋음 [Proto disco meme]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/DwmEIaZ7XGQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Hell yeah can't wait to try this with my line 6 spider
ajjajaja
Oh yeaaaaah !!!
I'm actually legitimately curious if this method only works with tube amps
I've actually done this and while maybe not being suited for recording, it can get pretty close to a lemmy tone for practice.
@Brandon Fox of course it's just tube amps. Anything else is basically sacrilege.
Thanks for being cool about it Glenn!
I realized most DIYers = SM57 + Vintage 30 in an oversized cab (or a Kemper derivative of that setup) + DI bass + EZdrummer. So it’s easy to fall into that trap.
You are helping the community get out of cookie cutter metal land by preaching real drums etc. I wanted my channel to do the same for guitar, by utilizing multiple mic types/speaker types/rooms etc.
Plus doing the same thing with bass takes it further away from cookie cutter land.
I think your original bass DI/distortion technique can still be used a lot for impact because it DOES sound heavy. It can take songs over the edge for a savage ending/drop etc. That technique is legit. Just perhaps not for an entire album where that nasty distortion can grate on the ears.
Again...Thanks for being open minded with the response. I’ve been a sub for years. Bought the t-shirt, put the “bass player c**t” sticker on my guitar and waved it proudly in my bass playing brothers face.
Cheers!
I saw your original video actually and noticed that Glenn had commented on it. I've since tried your technique by plugging straight into my Blackstar (oversize 2x12 V30 cab) and I think that sounds great too. I won't do it all the time as a lot of my bass sound is clean, but when I want it a bit heavier I definitely will.
JDODify Very cool. You can treat it just like any other sound. You can add dirt, pedals, 4 x HM-2 pedals in a row etc.
Well, maybe not the last one. Never the last one...
LOL - I actually used to have a HM-2 and loved it (in the mid 90s)... when I used the pedal about 15 years later I thought it was so shit that it must be broken. I actually donated it to the CS Guitars TH-cam channel - he's done a few videos using it - I realised that it wasn't broken, its supposed to sound that shit.
No doubt it sounds better but I remember a friend telling me that plugging a bass guitar into a guitar amp can do serious damage to the amp (and speakers) something about overloading them..?
Think that was true for old guitar amps, not so much nowadays
This is why I love Glenn. It's so rare to find someone who can truly accept constructive criticism. It's the most intelligent people who adjust their positions/beliefs/actions based on new evidence, rather than cling to dogma or "That's the way we've always done it." Awesome video.
Brian Miller Magic plus if people applied that to their political persectives, the whole world would be way less fucked, so you're right it's an AMAZINGLY admirable virtue to have IMO
Good criticism? True, but i do think it’s a obligation for sound enginners to have that kind of mindset, most of them have it, and those who don’t, don’t make it. Cause, You have to assume your clients aren’t idiots (even if most of them are... singer/drummer/bassist), some of them actually care about facts, and will verify what to tell them to be true, not cause they’re idiots, but because they wanna be able to trust your knowledge on stuff, which is kind of normal when you record a project with one specific SI for the first time...
@@stupidmusicianskiller511 so you play guitar
This comes full circle, because the Fender Bassman was originally designed as a bass amp, and guitarists started using it shortly thereafter. The first Marshall amps just so happen to be modeled after the Bassman.
What's that? You had an open mind and you grew as a musician? That's why I love this channel. You give people shit when they deserve it, but when you're wrong you own it and advance.
Seriously though, great video Glenn. Mudvayne had some of the heaviest mixes I have ever heard in metal. This was due to the bassist being an absolute monster on his instrument and he became the foundation for the entire band. Preach it to all the drooling bass players!
As a bassist, when I record, I use both the d.i. box and the amp. Separate channels, and I blend the two different tones together for a real thunderous thick tone/ sound. Hope this is useful for you Glenn. Rock on!!!
It's not just the air, there's also the saturation you get from the tubes. I used a JCM 800 to record the bass for our album, because it has a similar preamp circuit as Ampeg SVT (but a very different poweramp), and it worked.
Lemmy was definitely on to something playing through a Marshall. I saw that video as well and it sparked something. Thanks @Circle of Tone.
What you can do to get the best of both worlds is use the bass pedal for tight low end and do a high low split with the tube amp covering the high end
That is what I was thinking too!
Agreed, that would be even better. These clips here when compared mostly sounded better on the ones where he reamps it through his REV. But the ones that were reamped had too much presence in the mix imo altough their bite was welcoming. And so it seems the best option is to just do both!
So what Warren Huart does basically
Jeff Matz from High on Fire & Justin Chancellor from Tool taught me that one.. It's the best of both worlds and the tone is crushing!
Only problem is the sans amp had no bottom. The amp is where the bottom end came from. WTF?
The thing is, I feel like too many bass amps nowadays have gone in the high-fi direction. I think what we need is a widespread revival of the all-tube bass amp and have the whole idea of high-fidelity thrown out the window. I built my own bass amp by modifying a guitar amp kit to have better low-end response. The result? I never want to go back to solid state.
It's as if bass amps are designed by bass players!
Thank goodness I'm not a stupid bass player. I'm just tired of seeing bass amps that emphasize watts and powerful EQ's over good sounds. Lemmy only needed two 100 watt heads that had relatively useless EQ's on them, and he had a fantastic tone.
all tube bass amps are HEAVY and have to be the size of a refrigerator just to put out a measly 300 watts! they sound great in the studio but there is more cons to the tube power amp section than going solid state. Also there are lots of benefits for solid state power section in live music. The vast majority of music recorded the bass player is usually using an ampeg all tube head but it's starting to fall out of fashion as people experiment more.
I think you can get the vintage sound out of any decent bass amp but bass players have to be flexible and bass amps are a serious investment. I think the "hi-fi" is just a way to add flexibility to the amp because bass players will expect to use that one amp to play all kinds of music where a guitar player will get different amps to get different sounds. You can always plug in 70s P bass leave the dials at 12 o'clock and just rock out
I disagree. With certain tube circuit topologies, you get some sounds that are very hard to achieve with solid state devices. It's pretty much impossible to get vintage tones out of modern solid-state bass amps, since the warmth of vintage tones is the opposite of the extreme clarity offered by modern amps. Sure, you can hit the overdrive on a modern amp, but I feel like that usually just puts some fizz in with the clean sound, which doesn't really do the same thing as the vintage warmth. Also, not all bass tube amps are really heavy. The Ampeg SVT is more of an outlier than an average when it comes to weight.
The Pixies Bass sound (a la Gil Norton) was achieved with a bass amp and guitar amp in parallel...
Can you elaborate?
The lack of bass player jokes in this video disappoints me 😐 lol
Jimmy Tylor as a bass player...
I agree gotta lsugh at urself right?
Sometimes it's time to drop that shit and actually get serious, especially when it comes to setting a new standard to get better recordings.
Arin Shadows totally agree I was just kidding 🙂
Kind of a reverse joke, imagine a bass player telling you that his bass sounds better on a guitar Amp, and you laugh it out and DI it
Jimmy Tylor the whole video is about bass. The joke is to expect bassists to learn this.
Hi Glenn, you may not read this comment. nevertheless I wanted to tell you how I appreciate how you take other people comments with an open mind, put it to test and recognise that you can improve. This gives me some hope in human kind! So many after 20 years of experience and so many channel followers would have just ignored this little channel. So keep on the good work, I hope amping bass in guitar cabs won't damage speakers (there are urban legends about it).
Newfound respect for Glenn for being so cool about this
Big balls and Recognition Glenn! You are great in taking all seriously and not agressive!
How to record heavy guitar? Use a bass amp!
Tony Iommi agrees
@@maxbloemendal588 Kyuss used Bass amps for guitar and guitar amps for bass
Not a bad idea.
To my understanding that’s what the misfits did for a while
I legitimately do this when I want to play Doom metal. I pulled out the electronics from an Acoustic B-100, put a direct cable lead into the speaker, put my Egnater 20w tube on it and ran reverb through the FX loop and put a fuzz pedal in front of the amp it and sounded incredible and HEAVY.
Yup. Discovered this years ago. As a dual set-up mentioned in previous comments, I used an SVT rig for the "standard" bass tones with splitting the signal into a Marshall DSL half stack. Nowadays, since I don't play live (or have a vehicle large enough to haul around a massive rig), I record a Bass Driver direct track and through a Mesa combo plugged into a miked single 15 cab. Blend as desired in the mixer. Works for a lot more than metal.
More low end and clarity through the guitar amp. Guess this shatters my belief that a bass through a guitar amp would blow out the speakers...
A bass will blow guitar speakers, but not the head.
Low volume won't do much to the speakers. Cranking it will destroy them though, since they aren't built for the amount of "heavy lifting".
If you're using a guitar amp for bass, it's a good idea to still use bass cabinet. Guitar amps don't really amplify the boomy low end frequencies anyway, so at low volumes it shouldn't be an issue, but if you play in a band and you crank it up to jam session volume you'll shred guitar speakers easily
V30d might handle the low end better than the vintage speakers that were around when that belief was commonly repeated advice.
I plugged my pbass into a blues jr and cranked the master and volume at my last session. very disappointed that the blues jr is still functional.
Circle of tone is one of my favorite channels love this revolution of creating your own sounds with different techniques
I seen the video and I do have to say the man is right. I knew he would actually catch respectable TH-cam musicians ears about the subject.
You know...call me crazy, but I actually preferred the bass pedal for the distortion tones.
The guitar amp sounded better for the clean tone, it also has more low end, and when soloed, it sounds way better than the pedal. BUT, in the mix (where it actually matters) the top end sounded way better and blended in way better with the guitars on the pedal. And, although it didn't have as much low end, the low end was cleaner. Seemed a bit muddy on the guitar amp by comparisson. Probably because it's a guitar amp and not a bass amp.
Yea, it's a matter of taste, but for me I liked the pedal better Because it sounded better and blended better in the mix, and the low end was cleaner. Just my opinion.
Big daddy G - I'm coming back to this video 5 years later to let you know, this is my favorite video you've done. So helpful it was
If you don’t know, in the Metal Pioneer band, Black Sabbath, the bassist Geezer Butler used a Guitar Amp in the early days, the same that the guitarist Tony Iommi used, a Laney Supergroup, but they are really, really too Bass in the sound, so Tony Iommi used with a Treble Booster to get a better Distortion with more Treble, and Geezer Butler conect only the Bass in the amp, that’s why Geezer Butler’s Tone is very distorted and, for me, the best sounding Bass in the history of Metal
Sounds so much clearer and it has that nice old school 90s metal bass tone.
That guitar amp sounded 1000x better. Jesus christ it was so damn noticable lol. That is the kind of bass tone I like to listen too.
Also,this whole video was an insanely wholesome response to Circle of Tone. After being on the internet for so long I expected something extremely flammable. I was dead wrong. Wow.
haha :D
I was going to get a Darkglass Micrtubes but I don't think I need one now.
I actually saw this video when it came out and was wondering if you'd notice it. Mad respect for giving this a proper shootout, I was impressed by the results in the original video myself, and I'm glad that you were too.
Sounds way better through the amp.
Props for being open to discussions. It’s rare these days.
you might as well track with the darkglass microtubes head through one of their cabs, that is a killer rock/metal bass tone,
Which is what Dave Hollingworth has been doing lately, although he seems to use big Ampegs for album recording.
+Richard Harrold i believe he uses a 100w ashdown head
edu jorquera - I'm almost certain he does, too. But I'm rather certain he's about to start using the Darkglass stuff on recordings for the new Toska album
I've seen him using Ashdown too (ABM900 IIRC), but I think the Toska live record/videos used a big Ampeg?
edu jorquera I have a B7k, it's sick. I combined it with a DI and reamp the DI with an amp Sim and Ampeg IR with allot of bottom. Sounds huge and still has bite.
That is an incredible difference. Props to you Glenn for checking out the video and giving the guy some credit. Great video!
Is there a risk of blowing your guitar speakers because they're not designed for that much physical movement surround and cone??
Don't run it too loud. Also, reamping through a guitar amp is usually done to get the shaped higher frequencies from the bass. The lower end can come through a DI, you mix them later. Most guitar amps will cut the lowest of frequencies long before the speaker.
If you're really worried, just high pass the bass before it goes into the amp via reamp and then blend your amp tone with the lows from the raw track.
As people have said, studio volumes are pretty safe for that kind of set up. Get much louder than that, and yeah, the cone movement that the low end causes is going to start wreaking havoc with the speaker. Which is why getting a dedicated bass rig is a good idea if you're wanting to play live.
You are only endangering the speakers, not the amp. You can play a guitar top into a bass cab and be safe.
No. the guitar amp is what stops this. But a BASS amp into a guitar cab will damage the speakers
Bass player here. I tend to use both. And thank you for finally noticing this. Only using direct signals makes it all sound generic no matter how precise and easy it is. Reamping the DI for multiple alternatives in mixing with the guitars is also a great option.
This has only been known for what, 50 years?
The first Marshall 4x12 was actually intended to be a bass cab.
Sadly it still would have been drowned out by the guitars
The first bass cabinets originally used the exact same speakers as guitar cabs, there were just more speakers added to handle more watts. 4x12" cabinets were never meant to be used for guitars
A gentleman and a scholar, as always Glen. That made a huge difference in the tone of the Bass. Thanks for the eye opener
Wow! That's amazing!
It's nice to see someone on youtube actually responding to constructive criticism in a constructive way! This has inspired me to do a little shootout between a sansamp, a Neve 1088, a bass head and a guitar head which I fourtunately have access to at uni
Run through a guitar amp and then direct as well, taper off the overlap in the EQ.
done.
Hey Glenn, I enjoyed this. I had a similar result a few years ago. I was working on a pretty good thrash track, but it just wasn't delivering the kind of energy I knew was in there. I ended up duplicating the bass track and sending one copy to a distorted guitar amp. Matched phase, and Bingo! The DI gave me clean lows and the amp track did the rest with some gnarly mids - thrash achieved. Now I just record DI and guitar amped bass tracks standard practice, whether I end up using both tracks or not.
Hey Glenn, could you explain the advantages of a straight cab over a slanted one and vice versa?
Slanted cabs are better for rehearsing since the top speakers don't just blow sound into your knees. The angle lets the sound travel up to your ears, you'll have significantly more high end this way, thus being able to hear the guitar or bass better. Straight cabs are better for recording since you don't have to adjust the mic stand like crazy to get the mic to sit dead center on the speaker. You just put it in front of it at a 90° angle.
Back in the day, the top speakers acted as monitors pointed at the guitarist's ears and the bottom speakers went toward the audience. Now with headphones and inner ear monitors, there is really no reason for slant cabs.
Good response Glenn and kudos for taking Owen's (Circle of Tone) observations on board.
WAY more low end.
I discovered that method about a year ago by myself, just wanted to hear how it would sound like. Turned out awesome.
Basically best bass tone=guitar amp
Best Guitar Tone =Bass Amp
Man. That tone is just phenomenal.
Am I the only one who preferred the sound of the sans amp?? More bite to it than the amp, but that's my preference in bass tone....
The amp tone seemed to be more dynamic, but sat back in the mix. The sansamp was in your face, but didn't really sound that great.
Yea I think the sans amp has way more wiggle room, I’m a sans amp guy, with a good distortion pedal the sans amp is unstoppable
sadbuttrue319 I thought that if he would push the amp a little harder It would sound better, it just seemed that the amp wasn't driven for that pushed bass sound, in my ears anyway
Tomer Avira like circle of tone commented up top, it does sound "heavy". the only problem is when it's an entire album, everyone does it and it gets distorted to hell and back on a second track. There's nothing wrong with it but it sounds really sterile and in metal, that shouldn't be a sound you always go for
Cmon, really ? Are you listening through crappy headphones ? For me the difference is night&day, the real tube amp just have way more low-end, where the sansamp is doing so poorly. I mean, it's so important, it's the spine of your track.
Back in the 90's I played bass in a band and my rig was a Marshall VS100 head and a Peavey 1x15 cab and it sounded deadly. I can remember playing at least a few shows where people were pretty impressed with my tone.
One thing to keep in mind though when using a guitar cab for bass, you have to be VERY careful about your volume because those speakers weren't designed to handle bass frequencies and there's a good chance of damaging them if the volume is up too high.
What happens if you use a 15" speaker?
Elias Simon works great for sludge, Doom or vintage tones. I used a guitar Head with a 15 in h Jensen speaker for this bass tone: th-cam.com/video/bDsm3O8oMqw/w-d-xo.html
The 3:40 segment sold this concept for me, that sounds rad and fits the mix great!
5:16 No button?
So much respect for this video. Here's what makes difference between typical vloger and true professionalist one who makes video about his job... Not only able to take criticism, but use it to learn and progress
I thought playing bass through a guitar amp wasn't good for the amp? Is there any credibility to that, or was notion that's it's not good to PERFORM (at volume) with a tube amp?
I'm pretty sure it has loads more to do with the cabs / speakers, rather than the amp. The amp doesn't care what signal goes through it, it just does its job and steers electrons where they're supposed to go.
Guitar speakers, on the other hand, with their (comparatively) small-diameter voice-coils (1.5-2inch) and low cone travel (a few mm at best), are made to shape the tone of (distorted) guitars, where you don't have much low-end. Bass speakers, on the other hand, with their 3-4inch diameter voice coils and more available excursion, *are* built to take hundreds of watts at low frequencies without burning up or ripping themselves to shreds.
IMPOSTERvideo the worst thing that could happen is it'll sound bad, back in the day bassists just plugged into amps like marshall plexis, if amp from the 60s can take it, a modern amp certainly can
IMPOSTERvideo you definitely can. It won’t do anything to the amp. Just make sure you play through speakers that can handle the low end and not fart out. I’ve played for years through tube guitar amps through bass cabs and it’s been fine. At ridiculous volumes btw.
It's the speakers that don't like bass frequencies, not the amp. Bass requires a lot more movement of the speakers to get the low frequency reproduction. Speakers like the vintage 30 don't do well with that amount of movement if you crank them up. Keep the volume down and they'll be fine. Speakers intended for bass guitar are built to move more. Different tool for a different job.
So the conclusion is guitar amp and guitar cab for the studio and home practicing, guitar amp and bass cab for live and rehearsals. Is that correct?
One of my favorite live bass setups was a blend of a di with a blue ball (the blue phantom powered one). With good eq the two complimented each other for a very round and robust bass that could both cut through the mix or blend in depending on the song. This was in a cover band setup so the ability to change gears was necessary to compliment the material being performed. A lot of the time you could just adjust the faders to achieve the desired effect without messing with the eq much.
As a bass player who exclusively uses pedals and floorboards... I’m shocked and... I don’t actually know what to do with myself now 😅
I think the missing pieces for many bass player’s rigs (whether live or studio) are power amp tubes. Most modern day tube amps advertise themselves as having tubes but usually the tubes are only in the preamp section of the amp. While these sound nice and give your tone a valued warmth, power amp tubes really need to be present to produce “heavy” distorted tones. The main issue that I run across pushing power amp tubes with bass is that the amp has to be reallllllly loud so I run an attenuator to reign in the volume. Then couple that with a sansamp and you’re golden.
IMO, the pedal sounds better. In general I prefer solid state amps for bass, cuz of much smoother and clearer low end. I do, however, like the distorted as fuck tone that Jo from Bolt Thrower achieved on the Realm Of Chaos by plugging her bass straight into a JCM800.
I love your attitude! You supporting for another TH-camr who is trying to help us all is great to see.
I've been recording bass through my guitar amp because
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.
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I can't afford a real bass amp. Hehe.
As someone who both plays bass and uses 2 guitar amps to head my cabinet I can vouch. I can get all the bass sound you'd expect but also get more articulate responses and definitely a more complex tone that will sit in a mix and have that little edge most guys can't get from a traditional bass set up. Thanks and keep the vids coming!
If you want to do it even better, get an svt and an 810
cone Amen!
This reminded me, back in the day, I used to play keyboard bass in a hard rock band after we threw our bass player out. I ran a Minimoog into an SVT with a JBL single scoop cab. Holy hell, what a sound! The ground literally would shake!
Lol ye. Seems that svt tone and live driven bass has been forgotten. Even though its actively being used. Rex Brown anyone??? Maybe its cause mainly guitarists watch this channel. And tech 21 VT bass, c'mon. Drive the fuck outta that amp and keep the bottom end thicc af.
That's what I'm doing right now! I have accidentally plugged my bass into Blackstar HT40 combo on rehearsal and was amazed by tone on OD channel! Can't quit it!
I found your comment about capturing real speakers moving air to resonate. I really, really dig it when a record has that feeling like you have some bass and guitar stacks right in front of you and they're not just "loud" but they are shifting air around you. Listen to the song in our blood by yob as an example.
Nice! I watched the Circle of Tone video that you're talking about. I'm glad you took it as well as you did. It is good to see that you're willing to take the time to reassess how we do things. Awesome!
You are exemplary of how everyone in the industry should conduct themselves. You know damn well what you are doing but keep an open mind and that's why you are and will remain on the cutting edge . I would take you over road runner records 10 times out of 10 my friend. I wish you had a channel promoting the band's that you record so to make it easy to stay up to date on your work sir.
Holy shit, the bass just seems to come alive in the mix when you switch from the pedal to the amp in these examples. I love it!
Glenn, you hair is looking good, my brother in still rocking the long hair. I'm 36 and still proudly rocking it since I was like 8 (only 1 short, short hair period where I once shaved my head while planting trees in a Nova Scotia forest). I feel so petty to suggest this to someone I have a such huge amount of respect for, but brother, if you got a trim, your hair would look and feel sooo much better. It would look wayyyy thickers (not that thickness is a problem for you), and you'd be able to brush or comb it without any snarls or snags in your comb! Believe me, I often go without trims, but once I do it, it feels SOOO much better.
I watched the video in different devices just to be able to give the most unbiased opinion. My first impression was "Where is the low end in the guitar amp track? This sounds like crap" After taking a break and drink some coffe I watched the video in a different computer than mine with different speakers and I can hear the huge difference so, I was wrong : Guitar amp sounds better in the mix and I need better speakers.
I didn't cared about too much recording bass because in 20 years of playing bass the rule of thumb I found almost everywhere was : "Don't worry ,I'll plug the bass in a DI" so when you're young and unexperienced you take the enginner's word as sacred. I just figured that was the right way to do it. Nobody's fault. It always has been done that way and everybody did it. In all that time only two producers told me to use a bass amp and captured the bass amp sound.
Glad you gave Circle of Tone a shout out, Glen! He makes some great content.
Everything in these mixes sounds great! Great job Glenn!
I love that you did try out his advice. Props for being open minded and a cool guy.
I plugged my bass into a Blue Voodoo 60 when I was in a pinch one time, and holy hell! There's DEFINITELY a place for using a guitar tube amp for bass from time to time.
Really interesting! As a home recordist, I use a Vox amp modeller for all my tones. Used to just DI the bass with no pedals & it sounded OK... ish. Then I got a Zoom bass pedal which was a little bit better sounding. One day the Zoom died on me & I had a bass part to record so out of desperation I plugged into the Vox using a Soldano model, and suddenly my bass sounded thunderous compared to how it had sounded before. So it seems that even using a guitar amp simulation is better than at least some bass pedals out there :-)
Kudos for recognizing circle of Tone. Great vid Glenn!
I'm really happy to see you address that video.
Glenn, good for you for always being open-minded. This technique definitely works. I actually work the other way round, than most engineers. I use no DI in the mix. I record it, but never use it in the end. Instead, I combine a regular bass amp (Eden Nemesis, 2X10 & 1X15 & twitter), with a guitar amp (Laney gh100l, Marshall MF400). The guitar amp really gives me some very useful high mids for a saturated, edgy, modern sound. Sometimes I use the guitar amp with minimal gain and cranked master, to get the 6L6's warm, other times I crank the preamp to create distortion and add it to the clean sound of the bass amp. Either way, the combo works great. And I don't even have V30's, which I would prefer for this application. My guitar cab has 4 K100's, but still does the job.
Cheers from Greece and sorry for my English.
I tried this a year ago with my Orange Micro Terror just for fun and was very impressed how awesome it sounded. I used a 1x12 with a Jensen Mod 12-50 as Jensen states it is safe to use with bass.
The way you responded to the Circle of Tone video was awesome!
Glenn! I think this video is fantastic. By the way, this is the reason that I record an old fender bassman for my bass tracks, because it has a guitar and bass channel. Because of this, there are actually a couple of cool things you can do, like jumpering the channels together, using the guitar channel for high end frequencies (engaging the bright switch, taking out all of the bass and adding in all of the treble) and the bass channel to do all of the low end. If you have a good cab, by crom's balls it is surprising! Even for metal, the Fender amp on bass kicks some serious ass. If you ever happen upon one, I highly recommend it.
You were humble and learned a valuable lesson. Props to you!
A couple of friends and I just finished tracking for a local hard rock band we actually ended up using an ART Pro MPA I modded with JJ tubes as our bass rig for the session, and it really gave it more grit and a more even sounding tone. I'd definitely like to experiment with running that pre into a power amp and a cab just to hear the tones you could get out of it, probably mic it up with a Beta 52 and a 421 to give it that thick low end with some high end growl.
Wow! The amp also made the color better! Amazing!
That’s amazing and has given me a shit ton of cool ideas. Dark glass Pedal through a guitar amps fix loop... could be cool.
I usually use a Trace Elliot V-Type tube bass head into an Ampeg 8X10 cab, but have gotten some amazing results running the bass through a ‘68 Fender Vibro Champ loaded with a Weber 8”!
amazing how much of a difference there is, thanks for the vid Glen
absolutely can be done with solid results. i'd have thrown a 421 on the cab, cranked the mids and blasted it with the distressor, but i get why you went this way. i'd also make a point to blend in a low passed DI, bus them together and wreck them both with compression.
I’m glad that you made this video. As a bass player who spent his hard earned money on an Ampeg SVT CL I can tell you the difference is night and day. My band recorded a demo and I went direct. It sounded okay but when we re-recorded I insisted on using my SVT. The tone had so much more color and presence and the overall mix sounded way better.(also Robert Trujillo blends a mesa boogie with his SVT. I really want to get a guitar head to add even more to the sound)
I was thinking of buying a boutique tube amp when I have the scratch. Good to know there's a world of difference in tone.
I was playing one of my basses through my Marshall DSL100H and it sounded fantastic. Not super bassy, but Lemmy-tone for days. Sounded great clean or distorted. The tube amp's overdrive sounded better than any bass-specific distortion pedal I've ever used. I wouldn't use this in a live setting, as it just doesn't have the low end to stand out with a full band, but for solo jamming and recording it sounded great.
I was in a heavy, three piece band on a budget and when out guitarist was busy with leads I found a way to get around the lack of rhythm guitar by running my bass cable into an AB splitter, A going into my bass stack and B going into a guitar head connected to a bass cab. I was able to get some awesome tube overdrive and after experimenting with the h/m/l mix on the guitar amp I ws able to get a killer combination of clean and deep lows as well as a ghost "rhythm guitar" :)
Thank you for this video (and your others), they're a massive help! As a bassist (and an intermediate guitarist), your criticism of bassists has inspired me to get better and do as well as I can when I'm playing in a band. I'm doing my best to avoid the stereotype of lazy bass players (I even changed my strings before a recording session), thanks to your advice
Love this! Yes, it works. My main bass recording setup here at my house is an old Ampeg V2 head into an ancient Traynor 8x10 with Jenson MOD 10-50's, with an MD-421. Sounds great, and the preamp on the V2 definitely gives you that SVT type grind when it's turned up.
I've been running bass into a peavey XXL head+cab with good results , even better was 6505 into an orange 4x12. Used the amp tracks for grit/distortion and then a sansamp bddi for the di signal blended in for low end
Great to see this approach to bass getting more recognition! I tried this for the first time when I recorded a Mötorhead cover for fun, so I did some research on Lemmy's gear and read that he used a Marshall guitar amp with his bass cabs. Using two mics, one close and one for the room gives amazing results!
Bass and tubes just love each other!!
I recently recorded bass for a rock band and I used 3 channels for each song!
One for the direct signal through a DI, one through the DI-out of my bass-amp and one for the cabinet.
This helps the bass to stand out between two overdriven guitars and also gives the sound guy room to play with the bass tone.
I seen that Circle of Tone video and thought it was thought provoking and wonder what Glen Frick would think. Classy response.
I did this on a few recordings, bass tone was half a real bass amp, very clean sounding - and then half an orange micro terror for a bit of crunch. You still had the nice lows of the bass amp, but the high end and midrange was really nice from the amp.
In the late 90s when I was using cassette tascam 4 & 8 trackers I often used a guitar amp for bass, usually using the headphone jack as a line out though not always. The clarity and thick fullness of the bass came through surprisingly well.
Man I hope more people revert back to miking amps for their records (for guitar and bass). I’m guilty of using plugins on my releases but I’ve decided to mic all instruments for my future releases.
I will say that the Studio Devil Bass Amp Pro is a pretty damn good plugin for bass, if one must go that route.
It's hard to argue against this one - the guitar amp version really does bring something to the table, with more air and just a general feeling of 'real live bass player'.
I've used a technique before where I double track the bass using a 4001 and a jazz - not stereo, just stacked right on top of each other. I put the 4001 through an amp and I di the jazz, and wow does that make a big sound ! Try it :)
this is an awesome video glenn the guitar amp brings so much more colour to the sound I'm definitely using this technique when i get something set up