Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

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SweetDan
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Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

Post by SweetDan »

Hey all, I'm trying to nail the sound I want on an acoustic/double/string bass part for a tune I'm recording, and thought you all might like to hear the different sounds you can get just by varying the mic placement. All samples were recorded through a Blue Spark LDC ("focus" switch dis-engaged), then into the computer through a Tascam US-122 interface (with its on-board pre-amps). These are raw, un-edited and un-processed recordings (other than rough level-matching).

There are 6 different samples/mic placements; each was roughly 1 to 1.5 feet away from the top of the bass, and parallel (more-or-less) with the top. With that, I varied the lateral/vertical positions of the mic:

1. roughly even or slightly below the bridge, a few inches outside the treble leg
2. up a few inches but still lower than the fingerboard, and in closer to the fingerboard (still on the treble side); mic rotated down slightly
3. up yet more inches, higher than the fingerboard a few inches, and right next to the treble-side of the fingerboard; again, rotated down slightly
4. similar to #3, but on the bass-side of the fingerboard
5. mirror of #2, bass-side
6. mirror of #1, bass-side

(edit: counting is hard)

I was a bit surprised that the mic placements closest to the bridge sounded the most dull, and those furthest away sounded the brightest. After thinking about it, though, I'd theorize that it's really likely there's a concentration of non-vibrating nodes near the bridge in the top plate of the instrument box because: 1) there's the most downward pressure from the strings, 2) the arch is highest at that point, and 3) it's also the narrowest point of the body; because of that, more vibrations entered the mic capsule off-axis at that point, and became more on-axis as the mic position rose. It's just a theory, though; I am neither a luthier nor an acoustic engineer, and I play neither of those roles on TV. :cool:
Last edited by SweetDan on Thu Sep 21, 2017 4:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
awesome youtube comment of the day
Lol it's still less satanic than whatever rituals Katie Perry and Taylor Swift do in their performances. 😂
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Greg_L
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Re: Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

Post by Greg_L »

SweetDan wrote: Tue Sep 19, 2017 2:22 am Hey all, I'm trying to nail the sound I want on an acoustic/double/string bass part for a tune I'm recording, and thought you all might like to hear the different sounds you can get just by varying the mic placement. All samples were recorded through a Blue Spark LDC ("focus" switch dis-engaged), then into the computer through a Tascam US-122 interface (with its on-board pre-amps). These are raw, un-edited and un-processed recordings (other than rough level-matching).

There are 6 different samples/mic placements; each was roughly 1 to 1.5 feet away from the top of the bass, and parallel (more-or-less) with the top. With that, I varied the lateral/vertical positions of the mic:

1. roughly even or slightly below the bridge, a few inches outside the treble leg
2. up a few inches but still lower than the fingerboard, and in closer to the fingerboard (still on the treble side); mic rotated down slightly
3. up yet more inches, higher than the fingerboard a few inches, and right next to the treble-side of the fingerboard; again, rotated down slightly
4. similar to #4, but on the bass-side of the fingerboard
5. mirror of #3, bass-side
6. mirror of #1, bass-side

I was a bit surprised that the mic placements closest to the bridge sounded the most dull, and those furthest away sounded the brightest. After thinking about it, though, I'd theorize that it's really likely there's a concentration of non-vibrating nodes near the bridge in the top plate of the instrument box because: 1) there's the most downward pressure from the strings, 2) the arch is highest at that point, and 3) it's also the narrowest point of the body; because of that, more vibrations entered the mic capsule off-axis at that point, and became more on-axis as the mic position rose. It's just a theory, though; I am neither a luthier nor an acoustic engineer, and I play neither of those roles on TV. :cool:
Those all sound cool to me. I think I like the second one best.
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Re: Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

Post by vomitHatSteve »

Are you doing vibrato on an upright? Dang! Your hands must be made of pure callous!

They all sounded pretty good to me. 2 and 6 seemed to have the least headphone bleed.
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SweetDan
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Re: Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

Post by SweetDan »

vomitHatSteve wrote: Tue Sep 19, 2017 11:51 am ...the least headphone bleed.
I think what you're hearing as headphone bleed was actually just my *son* practicing trumpet. (In the basement...dang that thing carries!) Luckily, I wasn't actually doing any tracking at the time I recorded these samples, I was just experimenting w/microphone placements and sounds.

Of the samples, I think #3 sounds the best for what I'm trying to achieve in this tune, but I'll need to track the whole part and see how it goes in the mix. (EDIT: Which is interesting, because when I did a scratch recording of the whole tune, I used the mic placement as in sample #1, and I ended up having to do all sorts of mucking around w/eq to get what I wanted. #3 sounds like what I wanted in the first place! :-)

EDIT 2: I a word; now fixed
Last edited by SweetDan on Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
awesome youtube comment of the day
Lol it's still less satanic than whatever rituals Katie Perry and Taylor Swift do in their performances. 😂
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JD01
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Re: Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

Post by JD01 »

I think they all sound pretty good mate, #3 is probably my favourite though. Great sound though - seems like one of them things when you have a decent instrument well played getting it to record well isn't hard!
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Re: Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

Post by Even older now »

I liked 3 was cool, laid in nice (smooth / sustained) And had the 'bowed cello thing that came out there.

Now. Having said that, it could be placement', or 'fingers? ..you laid into it better (no, differently) as you went along? :>)
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SweetDan
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Re: Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

Post by SweetDan »

Even older now wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2017 2:32 am ...could be placement', or 'fingers? ..you laid into it better (no, differently) as you went along? :>)
Sure, there are minor differences in how each note is played, how much pressure is applied, the "exact" point of contact with the string. You can even hear that some of the notes are slightly out of tune in the different samples. But approaching this like a scientific experiment, I attempted to have only one variable -- in this case, the mic placement. So, I'd say I held the bass and played more-or-less the same way in each take, and the differences in tone/clarity you hear between samples (esp. #1 vs #3/#4), is strictly due to different mic placement.

Not unlike how the sound of a mic'd guitar amp can differ drastically if you move the mic from dead-center over the cone to the edge of the cone; that's 6" or less, depending on the speaker, and in the case of the recording I posted for this thread, there was a similar amount of distance between some of the mic placements.

(Speaking of which, I originally wanted to post a photo of a string bass with markings to show the mic placements, but I don't have a good photo of my bass (super hard to do a selfie while holding an upright bass!)...maybe I'll "borrow" a photo from the internet.)

EDIT: here's a photo from wikipedia; I modified the photo by marking the approximate locations where I put the mic for recorded samples #1-3, and though not marked, the mic placement for sample #4 mirrored #3 but on the bass side of the fingerboard, #5 mirrored #2, and #6 mirrored #1.
AGK_bass1_full.jpg
Photo by AndrewKepert [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons; see also: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... 1_full.jpg
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awesome youtube comment of the day
Lol it's still less satanic than whatever rituals Katie Perry and Taylor Swift do in their performances. 😂
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rayc
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Re: Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

Post by rayc »

I liked 2 best but it isn't in any context so - nice capture on 2.
When micing my cello I use position 2 as I don't want extraneous bow on string noise. I also have a fairly nice pickup that I'll blend in if needed. The best tone I achieved from a mic for cello was a REALLY cheap little Sony ECM19b.
ecm19b.jpg
It has a bit of self noise but achieves a better tone than my "decent" mics.
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SweetDan
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Re: Some acoustic (string, double) bass samples with different mic placements

Post by SweetDan »

Sweetwater just posted a blog where they did a similar experiment. Granted, their mics (other than the SM57 and the Audio-Technica) are way more expensive than mine, and their recording space is obviously a real (and nice) studio.

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/choos ... d-samples/
awesome youtube comment of the day
Lol it's still less satanic than whatever rituals Katie Perry and Taylor Swift do in their performances. 😂
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