Pullin out the Bass - your go to signal chain?

I'm not very familiar with crossfilter approach with bass. I get what it is but do we have that somewhere in the Axe Fx. I havent used that before. I mean theres the MBC for compression
 
For an amp starting point I would mess around with the Mesa 400 and SVT #2 models and see which you vibe better with. Mesa 400 flat is bass and treble around 2 and mids at 10, just for reference. Somewhere in the gain of 4-8 and master in 3-6 should be a good starting point. For the more classic rock tone, the portaflex can also be a good choice. The main goal here is to find an amp model where the gain structure/drive play well with your bass and playing technique.

I find that IR/Cab make a huge difference for bass. For the more classic rock sound, I would recommend checking out the portaflex 115 dynacab (since it comes stock). The new 810 dynacab pack is also great but is a separate purchase. For more aggressive tones I really like the Mesa 410 + 115 IRs from ML. There’s a few of them as stock cabs, but the full pack is available in the fractal store. Also comes with a solid ampeg 410 in the ML pack, but the real magic of the pack is the Mesa cab to me.

I personally prefer not to do a split/crossover signal unless going for really high levels of distortion. I really like the sound of the full spectrum bass through a single amp.
 
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Chewie5150 said:
I'm not very familiar with crossfilter approach with bass. I get what it is but do we have that somewhere in the Axe Fx. I havent used that before. I mean theres the MBC for compression
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You could either use a crossover block to separate into two paths, or use two paths where one pass uses a low pass filter and the other pass uses a high pass filter.
 
awesome thx guys. I need to spend more time with bass presets and these ideas. filter cross over. 2 lines with filter blocks. Derp! okay hahha I get it. I was overthinking
 
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Chewie5150 said:
awesome thx guys. I need to spend more time with bass presets and these ideas. filter cross over. 2 lines with filter blocks. Derp! okay hahha I get it. I was overthinking
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Yeah then your lows can be clean clear and compressed with one ratio and your mids/highs can be crunchy with another compression ratio to help you cut through a mix. You can also put modulation effects on that line so you can have your effects without canceling out low frequencies.
 
The other day I had recorded some bass using my UA apollo x6 with plugins. DI track along with one with amp sim. Good results. Today since I updated newest FW on AXE Fx III figured I should give that a go for bass. I had a preset and can't remember who designed it but it looks to employ the 2 path filter method. Sounds fantastic on my CLR's but running into an issue and i'm sure its something stupid I"m overlooking. the issue: hot signal. too hot coming into the DAW
my setup is (and has been for sometime now) the AF3 connected via SPDIF to my Apollo. Guitar into Hiz 1. that feeds into The SPDIF channel (on my UA console) where the AF3 is. I'm getting a great DI signal. But the AF3 processed sound (in my case coming from channels 15/16 from Apollo (SPDIF) is coming in uber hot to my DAW (ableton) even when i turn down level in UA console for the Axe FX its still registering very hot in DAW. Hopefully that makes sense. I'm not using the scene show in pic below but rather scene 1 that is a clean bass sound with no drives in front of amp blocks.

edit: I think its just how abelton is showing me the monitored level as I play. Once recorded the level seems appropriate. I was A/B'ing the AF3 bass to my UAD and its a pretty clear winner and I know how I'll be approaching bass recording moving forward:
survey says: AF3! by a long shot. It just has more girth/clarity and I will add wayyyy simpler to record vs a string of plugins. SPDIF is handy also when i arm 2 tracks in Abelton (session view) i can record the DI along with processed and no phase issues. So I can still use the DI track in Ableton to add bit of compression and EQ. I should've known AXe would win out here
 

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Chewie5150 said:
I plan to pick up this cab pack later today now that I'm gonna stick to using the AF3 for bass recording
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Let us know how you like it! I won't have time to dig into it too much for a couple days, but feel free to share any tips or cab recipes you really like. I want to re-do my main bass patch at some point to use the DynaCab instead of my existing IRs.
 
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