Yes! Thank you 🙏 I’ve been waiting for this video for a while. 👍 Your attention to detail is incredible and the final product shows that which made me seek you out in the first place. The string dusters could set up a mono cassette recorder in a room and it would still sound good but how you capture and produce them turns it to acoustic magic. I’m going to steal your techniques and I hope you don’t mind 😉
Thanks! I've been wanting to do this for a while. I'm glad you liked it. There is so much more to recording acoustic instruments, I'll be doing more videos on the subject in the future. And go ahead and use anything I'm showing in these videos. I'm happy to share.
@@FreakingOutWithBillyHume in the past I’ve gotten caught up in the “you have to use that EQ and compressor” mindset. After I just started mixing with almost no compression and only EQing to manage the low end my mixes have come out sounding WAY better. I save just a little tweaking for the end. I’ve learned a ton from your videos. Someday I’d love to share some of what I’ve been doing. Thanks again 🙏
I just found your channel, love it! Great points about acoustic bass. I've had the chance to record some wonderful bassists who specialize in upright and the better the player the easier it is. Also, a little distortion goes a long way!
Thanks! I am currently mixing a string band / bluegrass project and they recorded the bass with 3 mics. One was an Ear Trumpet Labs microphone. Never used them before, but at first I thought it sounded terrible. But as I worked it into the mix with the U47 (which was in front of the bass) I started too love the punch of that mics sound. I want to go deeper into these mics.
I love the depth of your techniques on the UB. So meticulous on the eq automations Billy, it must've taken forever to do, I can hear the difference between the multiband and the automation though. How did the band like it? Ahh...they loved it I'm sure! I'm a fan!
Thanks! The band loved it. I've built much of my mixing career from what I do with then low end. It started with doing so much rap music back in the day.
Great video! Basses really are pretty weird when you're trying to record them in a studio. Like you alluded to, they can fill up a room with sound, but when you try to capture that it doesn't quite translate.
True! The room has a huge impact on the recording. Everytime I recorded the Stringdusters it was in a different studio so I was never able to learn the room enough.
thank you - not too much out there on double bass specifically, given its prevalent role e.g. in jazz... one question: with a setup such as this, do you ever experience phasing issues (d.i. vs. mic) and what's your favourite way to treat them?
Yes. I make sure the mics are in phase by first listening and also recording a little and looking at the wave forms. Then I make sure the bassist isn't moving too much. However, the small diaphragm condenser that I have high up on the neck is mostly picking up the buzz from the strings vibrating on the neck and such and I'll sometimes high-pass that mic so there's not actually that much low end on the top mic, which is where the biggest phase issues are going to be.
@@FreakingOutWithBillyHume Also excellent video walkthrough. I don't play (standup bass) any more, because of long term health matters. And, I've never been able to capture 100%. I now use (or should I say, try to program) Spectrasonics Trilian, just for writing purposes. It's not the same. Even though the samples (for me, as an amateur) are good, they're still not at a consistent volume, and that's very frustrating. Fantastic video walkthroughs all round.
Thank you so much. I'm getting more and more acoustic bands to record and the upright bass is an illusive sound to get right in the monitors. Hammered dulcimer as well! Thank you Sir!
@@TM-hw7by I've only recorded and mixed Hammered Dulcimer for my own stuff or people I'm producing. So I'm careful with how I do things and I punch in a lot. But as far as tonal range, I've had similar issues with mixing banjo and dobro on the same song. I always pan them apart and then find the best mid range frequency for each one (different frequencies for each one) and boost with a narrow bandwidth.
