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Hi. There are two things I mic frequently at home; one is drums, about which there's no shortage of working opinion on the internet. The other is upright bass. Let's be frank: it's a difficult instrument to bring its best qualities through. So, those of you who do spend time pointing mics at them: let's talk about it. And let's acknowledge that bowing makes it a different animal in the same body, in terms of its decay and its projection. It is almost its own opposite.

I have some favorite approaches but I don't feel like it's a done deal for me--everybody likes mixing it up a little--it's good for you

I'm opening this thread by talking about them as the only sound source in the room--isolating this shit is an entire other can of rattlesnakes. Here we go!

I. They move:
They sure do move. Even when you try to stand goddamn still, there's a lot of reaching and movement which affects directionality and proximity of that big resonant body. I've recently switched temporarily back to trying one DPA omni clipped to the bridge, and it definitely ameliorates the consistent distance issue, but I cannot in any way say I prefer the sound of the DPA to my standard miking approach below. I don't. This is the struggle that vexes me right now, and I want to win it. It's tough to visualize how I could add this clip-on omni to my otherwise-fave two-mic approach below without getting phase issues as the body moves.

II. Generally capturing the sound:
With the exception of the motion problem, I'm perfectly happy with the classic approach of a good mic pointed at the fingerboard (I usually use an M160 but wouldn't sniff at any half decent SDC, why be a little baby about it) and another good mic in figure-8 at the body, a bit north of the f-holes (I usually use a Melodium 42b which is fantastic but noisy; I also think the ksm44 is kickass in figure-8, and right now for kicks I'm trying out a highly-suspect multipattern tube mic in fig-8 that I got from monoprice, and it's not knocking me out yet but I'm still hanging with it).
With the opposite wall far away, both mics are only about 20-36" away from their targets, which works great except for (1) the moving bass body problem means it points away from these close mics very easily; (2) proximity of some low frequencies (esp wolf note, i.e., the frequency --and to a lesser extent, its octaves-- which make the body resonate hardest).

III. Controlling attack vs. swell when bowing, especially for wolf notes:
Been putting some light-moderate compression with moderately-slow attack & moderately-slow release on the body mic (I'm currently using a Symetrix 522). This seems reasonable and helpful, to me.

IV. Preamps:
Any good preamp seems perfectly fine, but I will admit the BAE I use on the body mic seems better at handling the low end than the Sytek does. I'm only saying "seems," and I can admit to that. I suppose I should check that more methodically sometime.

Anyway, upright basses: they are both beautiful and a fucker. There's an old gearslut thread, an abnormally good read, "upright bass--still a PITA" and it's so true.

What have you got? What do you do? Bring your best. Thanks!

I do absolutely zero recording of upright bass and really have no business posting here, but I'm wondering if contact mics can help, in a blended-in-with-other-stuff sort of way?

Sadly I also have to preface w/ "never recorded an upright before but":

Would a mid-side mic array in front of the bass let you capture the errant movement of the instrument + let you non-destructively narrow the information as needed?

A 57 wrapped in foam and shoved in the bridge usually worked fine back in the day when I did a bunch of Jazz shit. Here is a pic of when some weirdo did it with a U87

Mason wrote: Wed Nov 17, 2021 11:51 am Sadly I also have to preface w/ "never recorded an upright before but":

Would a mid-side mic array in front of the bass let you capture the errant movement of the instrument + let you non-destructively narrow the information as needed?

This is what I did that last time I tracked a Cello.
M/S with a pair of ribbons. Compressed the shit out of the side mic with an LA2A. Nothing done to the middle mic.
Made for a nice wide roomy image that got nice and center focussed with louder dynamics.

Pretty sure I grouped the M/S array and put some additional stereo compression on it.
Gonna have to dig through files for the old memory refresh.

Thanks all so far.
FM airloom tells me he's been recording a lot of classical--including bass recitals. with a pair of nice omnis, evenly spaced about 4-5' back. Huh

Bubber wrote: Wed Nov 17, 2021 2:54 pm Thanks all so far.
FM airloom tells me he's been recording a lot of classical--including bass recitals. with a pair of nice omnis, evenly spaced about 4-5' back. Huh

Yeah this doesn't surprise me - for a while those Earthworks omnis were kinda the industry standard for this sort of app - maybe they still are. They do sound great, I recorded a cantata at a church years ago directly to two-track with some of those in a decca tree and it was near-perfect.

You could always go the Josh Abrams thing and point an RE20 at your bass and plug the RE20 into a B15n. Weird thing but it sounds cool.

I've only done this once but I remember it was difficult. The key for me was a ldc with some distance, maybe 2-3 feet. This seemed to even out the idiosyncrasies of the attack, random noise, and varieties of low end. This requires a mic with a solid, even low presence since it's too far for proximity heft.

The other key was a clever compressor. I'm sure a vari mu would be brilliant, I probably used a STA level, but the over easy setting on a dbx 160 could probably get the job done cheaply. The idea is a soft knee or variable ratio so the compressor can interact with the signal more often without the sudden audible overreactions from hitting the reduction hard and suddenly on an aggressively plucked note.

Been ages since I recorded an upright, but I've mastered a ton of songs featuring these unruly fuckers, and as far as the 'wolf note', it tends to be the D at 74hz, which would be the "10th fret" on the low E. Sometimes the G below that (~50hz), sometimes everything below 120 just seems crazy, but for whatever reason, uprights tend to resonate at that D. Dynamic eq works wonders to smooth everything out.