Ghost U-bass!

My son and daughter each got a new Kala, solid Mahogany, Acoustic UBass this week. I tried to record them with my Sony A-57 Digital camera on video. My daughter was playing her Pono Baritone Uke. My son, his new Kala Lefty UBass. My son was plugged in to our Fishman Loudbox mini amp. The camera recorded my daughter just fine, but the Ubass was completely missing in audio! We then cranked up the volume on the Ubass until it was over powering the Baritone Uke. Although we could painfully hear the Ubass standing in the room while it was being played, it had the same result, except we now heard distortion noises, (but again no bass heard on the video!). I then tried our Zoom H-5. Again a ghost UBass. We are in a folk Gospel group and occasionally make recordings of our songs. Does anyone know how to record a ghostly Ubass? (Please know that I am a singer, with no working knowledge as a recording person, so Please, dumb it down for me!) Thank you so much. I REALLY appreciate ANY help.

What are you playing back over? Could be small speakers not reproducing the bass frequencies? The Zoom should certainly be capable of capturing the bass. I'd experiment with recording just the bass until you can isolate the issue. Maybe there's a high pass filter in the recorder that is rolling off the bass frequencies. That could be the case if there is a "vocal mode" or something- completely guessing there though

Thanks Jim. I am recording through the camera on an SD card, then downloading it to my Apple laptop. When using the Zoom H-5 I have just tried playing it back on the Zoom. It's funny, when we had an upright bass in our group it recorded it just fine on both the camera and the recorder, with all of the same settings as we have currently. (It wasn't amped at all).

We did try just the Ubass by itself and still just 'Nothing' !! Ghostly!!

Check to make sure that you do not have the 'Low Cut Filter' engaged on either your camera or the Zoom unit.

Doing so will disallow the recordings to have any bass frequencies below the cutoff point, which could be as high as 200hz or as low as 80hz.

Maybe you should turn OFF the 'Low Cut Filter', which is usually meant to cut down handling noise, A/C units and wind noise 'rumble' but can work against you for recording any instrument that is considered a 'bass'.

Also, locating the amplifier CLOSER, maybe even MUCH CLOSER to your recording device, without having the volume up to a window-rattling level should improve picking up the U-Bass sound.

Another thing, is that if you are using AUTO_GAIN, this is working against you since it responds to the firtst 'impact' audio peak of the loudest sound, and then reduces the sensitivity of the mic and everything it is supposed to record AFTER the gain is cut, will sound too soft. I would DISABLE the 'AUTO_GAIN' and then set your record levels such that the peak level of LOUDEST sound is not registering above -6 db on the sound meter.

You can always boost the gain back up with a 'LEVELER' or 'NORMALIZE' effect in software later (no higher than -3db to prevent clipping), but if you have distortion and clipping in your recording, from the GAIN being manually set too high, then your audio will be trashed and unusable.

WOW, Booli, you really know your stuff!
Coming from barely knowing how to locate, and to use the 'on' and 'off' switches, I see that I have my 'learning curve' cut out for me!!
What you say makes sense, (I THANK YOU, for explaining as you have.)
I have 'e-mailed' what you have said to myself. Now I will begin breaking it down, step by step, even further over the internet, trying to educate myself as to where I can find these settings. (Remember I am starting at a minus square one!! )
Do you think we are okay with the set ups that we are currently using? (Kala U-bass directly plugged into the Fishman Loudbox mini amp.), or is there something else needed that we don't know about?
When we record, when our group is out playing places, we usually record from the back of the room so as not to get in the way. Will this be a problem?
Someone once told me that to 'hear' the bass you need to be at the back of the room, so perhaps this might be the best place from which to record?

Sixkids said:

WOW, Booli, you really know your stuff!
Coming from barely knowing how to locate, and to use the 'on' and 'off' switches, I see that I have my 'learning curve' cut out for me!!
What you say makes sense, (I THANK YOU, for explaining as you have.)
I have 'e-mailed' what you have said to myself. Now I will begin breaking it down, step by step, even further over the internet, trying to educate myself as to where I can find these settings. (Remember I am starting at a minus square one!! )
Do you think we are okay with the set ups that we are currently using? (Kala U-bass directly plugged into the Fishman Loudbox mini amp.), or is there something else needed that we don't know about?
When we record, when our group is out playing places, we usually record from the back of the room so as not to get in the way. Will this be a problem?
Someone once told me that to 'hear' the bass you need to be at the back of the room, so perhaps this might be the best place from which to record?

Click to expand...

Sure thing. Glad to help. I spent many years as an audio engineer. Now I only record myself at home.

One rule of thumb, is that whatever is closest to your mic, that is going to be the loudest thing in your recording. This holds true whether you are using a unidirectional mic (cardioid) or omni-directional mic.

Proximity = greater 'presence' (volume) in the recording.

Keep in mind that if you place the recorder AWAY from percussion like drums and piano (which have huge transient peaks in volume), and closer to BASS instruments, you will get a more balanced sound.

Bass frequencies have a shorter wavelength than midrange or treble frequencies, and as such, BASS frequencies to not travel as far as the others at the same amplitude (or volume, measure in Decibels, or 'db').

In order for bass frequencies to travel at the same distance and have the same 'perceived' volume (to the listener in the audience, or on a recording with a mic) as midrange and treble, they usually need 3x-5x the amplitude as the others. Meaning you need like 500 watts of bass amplification to balance out 150 watts of midrange and treble frequency amplification, if in fact each sound source has it's own amplifier/speaker. This is why a PA system with a mixer is used, as the levels can all be controlled and balanced before they get to the speakers.

One way to compensate this without rattling windows and causing the cartilage in your chest to vibrate from having a painfully loud bass amp, is to put your Zoom unit closer to, and pointing directly AT the bass amp.

You will have to experiment, in possibly a dozen recording tests to find the sweet spot.

The Zoom manuals are all available to download as PDF files from the product pages on their web site:

https://zoom-na.com/

Using a single mic, or a stereo mic, to record an ensemble, the best recording will be had by taking a direct feed from the LINE-OUT or REC-OUT of the PA sys's audio mixer and then going to the LINE-IN on your device.

You have to set the levels accordingly. This is ONE case where AUTO_GAIN is useful if in fact there is a 'sound guy' running the PA system, as it is his job to balance all the levels. If you have a U-Bass going, and using the Fishman amp, they have a balanced line-out that can feed to the PA which will give a sound that the 'sound guy' can mix and blend with everything else to come out of the PA system's speakers.

Otherwise, he can put a mic right in front of the speaker of the Loudbox, or any other amp.

In either case, the amp functions more as a stage monitor for the player to hear themselves, which the line-out or dedicated mic is for the PA to the audience, as well as offering a balanced tone from the output of the mixer to your Zoom recorder.

Also, yes if the bass amp is closer to a wall, but also tilted back so that the speaker face up at least 20 degrees, the sound will project farther.

The wall helps as it acts as both a resonating surface, as well as a reflective surface, and a corner is the most effective for projecting bass frequencies.

I hope that some of this can start to make sense.

If not, ask away and I will do my best.

Also YouTube is your friend, just search your question and I'm sure you will find some guidance.

Thank you, I will try!! We have a sound board and have our singing mics plugged into that and also the mic for our banjo plugged in there as well. The Baritone uke is plugged into the Fishman amp, and we are just about to add the Ubass to the gamut. We can plug the UBass into the same amp as the Baritone Uke, or we do have a second Fishman amp we could use just for the acoustic / electric Ubass. The upright bass we are replacing wasn't plugged in at all.
We did get good sound recordings on the Zoom H-5 and the Zoom H-1, which we had both of them running, (as well as the sony A-57 camera on video, ... just not as good a sound on the videos as on the Zoom recorders of course). We use all three, 'just because'!
We had the H-1 up closer to the front of the room, (just because the person controlling it likes to sit there), and the Sony and the H-5, on tripods at the back of the room. Could perhaps we, somehow, 'line in' the Ubass alone to the H-1, and then somehow add it to the recording we can pick up from the back of the room on the H-5? (If I am making any sense at all!! )
You are most helpful and I really DO appreciate your comments. Our group isn't the best, (by ANY means), but we do have fun singing and playing, and occasionally have a few requests for copies of our free Cd's. (I think they are just trying to be polite because they know we don't charge anything for playing!!) so, we wanted to be able to also have some bass added to the recordings if possible.