Mastiff
Senior Member
I'm still new to double bass, but getting better... I'm working on a recording with a single pedal part at the beginning and then at the end a double bass part, fast for me at 180 bpm (actually 32nds at 90bpm). What I notice is that at the beginning of the song, in the single bass parts, the bass sounds fine, but the double bass section just sort of turns into a rumble where the individual hits can't really be made out. It sounds marginal in isolation, then lost in the mix when the guitars are added in.
I caveat all this with the fact that my technique could be better, so maybe more power could help. I'm not asking for my problem to be solved here, but just for general comments on whether I should expect to be able to get a good bass sound at 180 bpm without extra help, like a trigger or click pad or heroic measures in terms of gating and EQ? I have tried a number of things in Studio One and gotten some improvement, but it's nothing close to what I'm used to hearing on records. I've also made pretty good improvements by switching to wood beaters and putting my mic way inside the drum aimed at the impact point.
If I just need to go out and get a trigger to do this right, I'd rather do that than beat my head against the wall trying to get my current setup to work.
I caveat all this with the fact that my technique could be better, so maybe more power could help. I'm not asking for my problem to be solved here, but just for general comments on whether I should expect to be able to get a good bass sound at 180 bpm without extra help, like a trigger or click pad or heroic measures in terms of gating and EQ? I have tried a number of things in Studio One and gotten some improvement, but it's nothing close to what I'm used to hearing on records. I've also made pretty good improvements by switching to wood beaters and putting my mic way inside the drum aimed at the impact point.
If I just need to go out and get a trigger to do this right, I'd rather do that than beat my head against the wall trying to get my current setup to work.