Do you mean doubling?
Or just using more than one track?

I'd be very careful with doubling... if it's not very tight it gets muddy down there in a hurry.

I've been curious about this too, but haven't gotten around to trying it. What if you recorded a solid take and then recorded another track, cut everything under 1-2khz, and just kept that track to double the "attack" of the bass. It might be a cool sound without all of the mud!?!

I think I'm going to try that if there is time in my next session, and if the bassist doesn't suck.

recording bass guitar

Hello, I am a bass player. I have been recording my bass for over 10 years now. I used to only record my bass mono (1 track). And would only get meidocure results.
Then I started recording 2 tracks (still mono both tracks). The first thing I did right was dumping $230 on a Sans Amp Bass DI.
This gave me much better quality bass response and made my bass guitar sound phat.
The 2nd thing that really improved my sound was purchasing another DI, this time I spent $539 on an Avalon U5.
One word............Wow!
I do not suggest recording 2 different bass tracks. You will most likely end up with a muffeld bass sound and the wave form that you are creating will be affected from the 2 different tracks. For instance....
...What if 2 people are talking to you at the same time. It is real hard to hear what one person is saying to you and even harder to ignore the other person who is talking just as loudly.
But if you tell them to say the exact same words at the exact same time. Then you get a REALLY BIG sound.
Hope this is making sense.
I also suggest recording one track with a DI. And miking the bass cab with a mic of your choice.
This will work very nicely. And then when it is time to mix down, you will have 2 mono channels to EQ differentally, that are in fact the same wave form.
Then you can make 1 track stand out and be heard, and the other track can be as low (bass freq) and as loud as you like.
Also dont use cheap $5 cables. They will crush the lower freq. and you will struggle getting the tone to go to hard drive, tape, whatever. In addition try to use a good bass pre amp, I personally use Ampeg all tube pre amps. This is where most of my great tone starts.
Good luck

i use a audix d4 mixed with the direct signal (no phase problems)
don't like very much the akg d112 compared to the d4! the d4 gives a better response and curve... (for me)

Yeah was thinkiing about seperate tracks. Everybody has some great ideas. So I guess I will try them all. Thanks

depends what kind of music you are playing: i play a lot of funk and soul and it sounds beautiful if you play well, and are tight on timing. i often do 2 or 3 tracks of bass at the same time, with a lot of syncopation and tension release between the different tracks.

but i've also done 5 tracks of bass at the same time on one song, each playing something different (and sometimes harmonizing), also going through wahwahs and eqs to differentiate them as instruments, then panned center, slightly off center L and slight off center R... worked great and it creates an amazing groove. but as i said it depends a whole lot on how you play.........

Well I'm a bass player too... and I almost never take more than one track (whether it's me or another player).
for ME, a good amp, and a good instrument, can be made to get the sound without any extraordinary measures.

Seems to me if your playing is tight and in the groove with the song and you get a good representation of the sound you're looking for even if you are using more than one track(not takes) then you should be good to go. I would hesitate to let anyone except the highest caliber of bassist double track a part. Now if you wanted to layer an 8string bass with a 4 string and then put a piccolo on top of that I got no problems with this scene.But to think you need two takes(or more) to fatten up bass is kinda overkill.

I know Ive said enough already. However I prefer to use a DI rather than a mic for recording bass. (Connected after my bass preamp of course.)

Therse is also somthing magical when the bass is being tracked in the same room as the drums. A little drum bleed in the bass and bass bleed in the drums is like magic musical glue......

To me I can stand bass DI anymore unless it's my old p bass and a certain sound I'm going for. Even then I can almost always get better sounds with mics. DI always sounds....well.....not like a bass, but like a DI!

I always use at least 2 tracks when I record bass guitar (and all guitars for that matter). I like to DI the signal from the guitar straight to the console using a nice quality DI. I also feed the hi-z out to the appropriate amp for miking. By recording the DI straight from the guitar this leaves your options open for "re-amping" the track at a later time. If you later find out that your miked guitar tracks aren't exactly what you were looking for but the performance was great, the re-amping leaves you lots of options to create some new tones without having to re-record the tracks.