Recording slap bass

S

sirus1987

Inspired
Anyone know any good methods for recording slab bass with hot, active electronics. I recently got a MM bongo and cant get any dynamics out of it because even with SUPER low levels, the slaps still spike the waveform to clipping. Any help would be much appreciated!
 
Slap lighter. Seriously. Just because you're playing slap bass, doesn't mean you have to really lay into it. I can play slap - and get that punchy attack - that is as quiet as light finger playing.

Bongos are pretty hot basses, especially if you're using the onboard preamp (I've owned three, still have one). If you are, stop - use it extremely sparingly, and go for cut before boost.

If you're still having issues, just bring the volume down on the bass, to bring it down before it even hits the front end.
 
selta said:
Slap lighter. Seriously. Just because you're playing slap bass, doesn't mean you have to really lay into it. I can play slap - and get that punchy attack - that is as quiet as light finger playing.

Bongos are pretty hot basses, especially if you're using the onboard preamp (I've owned three, still have one). If you are, stop - use it extremely sparingly, and go for cut before boost.

If you're still having issues, just bring the volume down on the bass, to bring it down before it even hits the front end.
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I mean I'm not going apeshit on it or anything and I keep the master volume pretty low on the bongo. But it does have those neodymium magnets which are very strong despite their size. I'm wondering if there is a limiter or something that I can use.
 
I do a lot of slapping myself (no not slapping myself but the bass! :)) but I don't have any special recording methods. I just record it as my fingerstyle playing. I don't like heavy compression for it but you can try slight compression. If it is clipping just tame down the input. Normally there shouldn't be such a dramatic increase in level between slapping and fingerstyle.

Also it can be that your pickups are to close to the strings especially the neck pickup on the E string or G string side. P basses have that problem lots of times when slapping. The string is coming against the pickup resulting in a peak and pop sound.

Hope this helps!
 
sirus1987 said:
I mean I'm not going apeshit on it or anything and I keep the master volume pretty low on the bongo. But it does have those neodymium magnets which are very strong despite their size. I'm wondering if there is a limiter or something that I can use.
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Yup, it's a hot bass, but honestly, it's not that hot. My Dingwalls when in Active mode are hotter. What is your instrument level set to (I think it's in the I/O menu, but am not in front of my Axe to verify). I think I have mine around 72%, which keeps me out of the red entirely.

Also, I just realized, you didn't specify where you're clipping. In the Axe-Fx or in your DAW?
 
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