Well, if you really want to know your going to have to ask John's recording engineer.

I bet if you ask any good recording engineer which method is preferred, I would say that putting a mic on a guitar cabinet would always be the choice.

Reason being is that its been the standard for which albums have been recorded for a very long time.

Think about it, if you got all the gear and the time to mix and match all your favorite tones, which would you prefer?

I would take the real deal, mic that cab!

Guitar cabs and bass cabs mic very differently IMHO. Bass cabs are very dependent on the room because of their low frequencies. For this reason I typically DI a bass and mic a guitar cab.

I am fairly certain that the recording is with a DI box... well like 50% sure. :lol:

Cab....I'm guessing! lol I guess I do it all wrong. I run my bass through my Roland Blues Cube guitar amp! Sounds good IMO.

http://www.myspace.com/isaacaaron

Is it noticable that its guitar amp????

A good friend of mine and long time RE likes to DI the bass and then record it through a small guitar amp, I'll have to ask him if he then blends it. So no I don't think your method is crazy, sorry can't listen to your track though here at this terminal.

The same RE prefers DI over cabs in smaller studio spaces.

You can always record the DI signal and Mic the Cab at the same time. Then you can choose or blend. Or you could record the DI signal and then re-amp it at a later time

I typically blend a Radial JDI or my DI mixed with mic on the amp. Time align and mix to taste. The amp I put in a dead iso room, I typically don't want any room tone on the bass.

what do you guys think will give me more of a finger sound...you know
when you can hear the fingers sliding across the strings...with no eq of course (i want the finger sound without eq) so i dont have to change any frequencies "just to get a finger sound" when i could've did it while recording

DI for finger squeeks. And if you really want to know what JM uses, why not post to one of his many fansites where they list his gear?

alstonblues wrote: what do you guys think will give me more of a finger sound...you know
when you can hear the fingers sliding across the strings...with no eq of course (i want the finger sound without eq) so i dont have to change any frequencies "just to get a finger sound" when i could've did it while recording

you want to hear the fingers sliding across the strings without eq'ing? get ready for this tip:
put a mic close the the neck of you bass. seriously!

If its Pino, then you can bet he brought his studio rig with him as well as his incredibly well used MusicMan fretless (third neck I'm told). I would google him and see what he uses in the studio. When you hire someone like that to play on your record its not because you think you have the ability to get him a better sound than the one hes already proven to have for many many years of studio work.

Its a good bet that the sound hes getting is all his own and the engineer simply turned the channel/channels on and said..."Man, this is easy"......

And I dont have to hear it to know this.

Pino is an endorser of these amps I asked about last week, [[url=http://[/URL]="http://recording.or…"]PJB Bass Amps[/]="http://recording.or…"]PJB Bass Amps[/] I read somewhere he uses them in the studio - but it doesn't look like what he uses when he plays live.

This may have more to do with the combination of bass - strings - pickups than DI vs. Mic. Roundwounds on a fretless with pickups that have a nice high end will give you plenty of mwaahh. (It will also have you going through fretboards faster than I go through flatwound strings. Not a big deal. There are plenty of places selling nice necks. Just be aware.)

There is no real consensus on bass recording: different people get good sounds in different ways. My take is that you want to choose your type of rig based on "workflow" issues and then work to get the sound you want. An amp gives you a lot more control in a live situation in small or medium venues - particularly for loud music. A direct rig is what you need for PA based live gigs (low volume or large venue) and it gives you more portability and control when recording.