Best recording techniques for bass

[lukedavo]

ohhh yeah, I ussually use this clean. Way better sound through this than the bass pod and a gazzillion times better than the Vamp.

[Nubus]

I want the JDi - Jensen transformer - I want to use the speaker setting and take my direct after my amp. want want want.

[johnS]

How big of a difference does the JDI make? Is it worth dropping the coin for just a straight-up DI box or would the sansamp RBI give better bang-for-buck for direct recording? (I have no bass amp, btw.)

[Nubus]

well i like little tough ass boxes that i can step on better than rack gear so it might suit me better. i didnt like the sansamp di pedal/box when i tried it, i can get a better bereaking up-sound elsewhere... and I would totally break the knobs off of it eventually.
though if i set up a live rig with a seperate power/pre amp i would use the sans rack.

[DreamwaveMusic]

use a good clean DI (active is nice) i use radial. mic the cab if you like, its always good to have more choices than fewer. TRUST your ears. studio grade preamps, compressors, eqs, and effects will make a big difference, but i believe you can get really good sounds by experimenting. helps alot to have a nice sounding bass and a dynamically-minded musician.

[johnS]

Yeah, I just tracked a bass part direct through the JDI-->JoeMeek vc1qcs compressor for a bit of squeeze. Once the track was down I added a bit of distortion with a Sansamp plug-in. Definitely got me where I needed to go. And it only took me about 20 takes to nail the part!

The biggest thing I noticed with the JDI is the complete absense of harsh fizziness to the tone. A detailed but mellow sound. Made it much easier to work with the track in the DAW. I'm sold on the JDI.

[DreamwaveMusic]

where can i get more information on the JDI? i could only find jensen DI built into amps

[johnS]

They also have a two-channel version . . .

http://www.radialeng.com/di-jdi.htm

[DreamwaveMusic]

is the only real difference between active/passive is more headroom? the active radial is so clean and i prefer it to the DI on the ampeg heads, even though i like the tube coloration of the ampeg DI, i notice it is much noisier than the radial.

[johnS]

I could be wrong about this, but I think you can't get total signal isolation with an active DI. Can anyone verify/correct this?