Getting a decent live bass guitar thru Ableton?

[Giacomo17]

Hi folks. I'm interested in being able to play a bass guitar and a banjo (both with pickups) live thru Ableton, along with the rest of my synths and drum tracks and such, so I could loop them and apply some of abletons effects to them, too. I have a Radial Reamp to boost their signal once they leave master. But they still sounds like crap. Both instruments have really low volume output and a muddy tone. My suspicion is the audio interface. Just a presonus firestudio, for like 3-400 bucks or something. What would be the best approach?

[gjm]

Are you asking if the FireStudio is good enough?

[tintala]

Guitar rig is amazing for this..

[Tone Deft]

a while ago I did this and it helped a ton.
set up your gear so you can record your voice and guitar at the same time. then slowly go through all your pickup and tone settings while dictating out loud what you're doing. then go back and listen to what sounded best. the more you do this the more you learn your bass.

just throwing Guitar Rig or effects at it is just turd polishing. I've chased that dragon, pain in the ass. for bass I just go straight into Live.

one tip I've heard is to record with your tone knob wide open and EQ later. I don't do that because I'm lazy.

[Donnie]

Are you plugging into an input that is Hi-Z capable? Or running it through a DI first? I notice you say that you boost the signal once they leave the master, but if your input isn't Hi-Z capable its going to sound flaccid.

[sounddevisor]

Radial Reamp isn't the right tool. It's designed to take an already-recorded signal (at low impedance) and convert it to the right impedance (that is, very high) to feed into a guitar amp - that's the opposite of what you are trying to do.

You will get much better results using either a DI (also called a Direct Box) or a pre-amp. Either of these will impedance match the right way - converting your high-impedance bass signal to a lower impedance which your interface will be much happier with. An active DI or a pre-amp will also boost the signal level, which will probably also improve your recorded tone.

[Tone Deft]

it's not impedance matching, it's a similar technique called bridging. impedance matching gives you maximum power transfer while bridging gives you the most voltage with the least amount of current and therefore energy. a low impedance output into a high impedance input. going the opposite way gives you the bad sound you wrote about. line level driven signals like a synth's output don't need a hi-z interface, they can drive the signal fine.

[rluk]

Firestudio's inputs 1 or 2 or both (check manual) should be designed to take instruments directly.

Do not crank the preamps too much, you dont have to push it as loud as you can at this stage.
I usually aim for -10-12 db with bass guitar.


Now, there is no way this volume will stand a chance against your vst synth presets or sampled drums.
Turn all of them DOWN (yes down!, really!) to match the level of your bass. Now turn the overall muster up.

With half-decent playing and instrument you should have good sound. It will ofcourse be very dry and clean DI bass sound.
If you want that SVT overdriven stuff go get an SVT or sansamp.

[Giacomo17]

Thanks for the good responses folks. I'll give them a shot.

Bu I was wondering also if you think the personas fire studio is needing replacing for live performance?