Low bass signal in Garageband?

[BakersMan]

Hey there

I'm just fooling with my M-Audio Fasttrack and my new bass - but I can barely get a signal in Garageband. The only way you can hear the bass is if you crank all of the other tracks way down and the bass way up. I don't have this problem with any of my guitars...

Anybody else found this, and is there something easy I'm missing?

Thx...

[woodman]

i'm not clear on why you can't get a strong recorded signal from the bass ... if you have the gain on your interface maxed out, can't you jack up the level in GB?

[BakersMan]

yeah, i pretty much have everything maxed out. strange.

[4mal]

and if you plug into your guitar amp - your bass is strong ? Please don't test it loud enough to pop a speaker but do a comparison - either guitar into bass amp or bass into guitar amp and see if your levels are in the ball park.

Is the bass active ? Is the battery good ? Is is maybe an impedance mis-match ?

I generally play into my Digi 002R through a passive DI (GT) and take it in mic level. Passive basses, active basses - never seem to have any issues levels wise.

[woodman]

so Bake, i'm hearing that the bass output itself is where your gain gets weak, correct?

you might try raising the pickups if you haven't already ... if you have, sounds like you might need some sort of extra gain stage for the bass. i use a POD for bass recording, but even the cheezy little ART preamps will boost your signal. i'm sure others around here know of equally effective (and possibly cheaper) units to get your signal up to a workable level.

[Tim Armstrong]

I just went and looked at the Fast Track specs at MF, and I see that there's a 20 db pad on each channel. Do you have it engaged? That'll knock an instrument imput level down to practically nothing...

Cheers, Tim