Difficulty recording 1964's Hofner Volin Bass guitar?

S

syedansar

Guest
We're having lots of difficulty in recording this instrument. The guitar is a gorgeous Vintage 1964's Hofner Volin Bass, used by Paul McCartney and the likes. I'm not finding it easy to make this sound good in the mix.

I'm not sure if any of you are familar with this sound of this fairly quick bass quitar, it's got a very bouncy twangy sound. The humbucker pickups on it, which are sweet! anyway it's a vintage sounding bass, and lacks those lows that modern solid bass guitars bring. i've been trying to make this fit in the mix with great difficulty! I mean glueing it Im using Waves MaxBass in the signal chain an idea? Restraints:sadly We've got a naff a$$ bass amp, mic'd up using D112 + Clean DI'd, + Sm57 for (the naff a$$ amp sounding) tube sound.
(other mics we've got AKG C414 XL2, SM58, SM57 just incase it helps) Also tried di'ing a clean sound running it through amplitude bass amps? just sounds lifeless and atad flat, even after compression (C1), Eq'ing, Limiting, Im not getting this at all.... as you can probably tell from my post...So anyway

....if any of you clever people got an ideas you wanna throw down my way, always appreciated! or even better if anyone recorded bass using this guitar!!! share your thoughts with me...
 
This is more of a tracking issue than a mixing issue.

You have to get the sound right when you record it. Forget about DI for a moment. Is your amp giving you the sound that you want? If it is, try a single condenser to capture the amp sound better rather than a dynamic which. If you want to capture more amp, then get the mic closer, if you want a little ambience, pull back a little bit.

If the sound is twangy, you probably don't really need to maximize the bass. The twangyness is going to come from some of the lower-mid frequencies rather than the lows. If you go all lows, you will lose the twangyness.

The signal probably sounds dead because you're using so much compression on the signal and are not allowing the instrument dynamics to shine through.

So first, get the sound that you want from the amp, and then mic it. You can DI also of course but record that to a separate track and work with the mic'ed signal. Then work in the di signal to make the bass more upfront. Use the mic'ed signal to make your sound how you want it and use the DI signal to give it some low-end if that's what you also looking for.
 
ampeg ams works very good on this bass, especially the ampeg svt head with a marshall bass speaker is my favorite on this hohner.

I know also a reggae bass player who use this bass on a full ampeg setup with exellent results (wich means a deep bass with no attack).
 
I hope the strings are not from 1964 too :D
Whereas it may be nice to play a vintage instrument it certainly kills some of the pleasure when the strings are vintage.

Perhaps you could try a set of slightly thicker roundwound strings for a bit more body.

From what I've seen the Hofner was often amped through a guitar amp (!)- preferably a Vox AC30- and plucked with a plec.

good luck
B#
 
Or even try flatwound strings. You say you've got a "naff" amp. Well, can't you borrow a decent one? Surely you have friends who'd like to borrow something of yours sometime?

Overall, I think sleepy's got it right. Y'need to capture a good sound in order to achieve a good sound in the final mix.

Have somebody slowly move the mic(s) around while you listen from the control room. You'd be amazed what a difference of an inch or two can make.

-Hoax
 
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