On a shoestring project part 26

  Week 26, that’s six months! And I'm only getting warmed up ;-) This week was full of recording and I probably can't fit it all in to this weeks blog, but lets try.
  After the drums was time for the bass. This is probably one of the most under estimated instrument, but one of the most important in rock music. You hear about great bands, great singers and guitarists, but it is the drums and bass that drive the band. In modern rock music it has become more and more fashionable to mix the bas pretty high, a development that I welcome with open arms and are very willing to embrace. But recording bass can be tricky, well not so much the recording as the mixing. A bass balance in the frequency range between the kick drum and the electric guitar and it is so easy for it to get lost there. So you mister guitar hero, back off from the bottom end! Make some room for the bass and a good bass player will make your guitar sound bigger, trust me on this one. In the best bands every one knows their place and will try to stay out of every ones way. The result is a sound bigger than life.
  As to the actual recording of the bass, I know you have your bigger than life Ashdown head and Ampeg cabs with 4x10 and 1x15, and this all sounds great to me live. But if you are doing recording on a budget, I'll promise you recording the bass straight in as a line signal will save you time and headache. At least if you decide to record the map, put the bass through D.I. And record the direct line as well. The problem of recording bass amp is that you will get loads of muddy bass that will just sound messy in the mix.

So we decided to track Tomek’s new Thunderbird straight. The bass sounds great, and Tomek plays with heavy fingers and lots of attack (bit like me on guitar ;-)) so the sound was naturally aggressive, just what we were looking for. Most of the tracks were recorded in one afternoon, but as always it is good to take the tracks home and allow time for some touch ups, which we did on another afternoon. At the recording stage just keeps an eye on the levels, hot enough, but not peaking. I do like to compress the bass a little on mix, just to even it out a bit. But be careful not to squeeze out all the dynamics. Now the following is only my preference and not a set in stone bass settings by any means. Every bass is different, and every bass player plays differently. I try to cut below 100 Hz, sometimes even up to 150 Hz. Then boost between 150-250 Hz cut out a bit wider sweep around 400 Hz. And I like to add some string attack around 1000 Hz.

And this is how I get a great punchy rock sound out of a Thunderbird bass played by Tomek. If it was a different bass in hands of someone else, these settings might be different. Experiment, use your ears, have fun with it :-). Keep the kick drum and bass guitar tight together. This will keep the lower frequency range tidy.
  I also ended up recording few guitars again, as sometimes it is hard to get the sound to sit with the bass. As I mentioned earlier you need to leave room for the bass, and not to grab all the frequencies with guitar. This time I brought my Blackstar amp out of the closet ;-) and micked it up in the middle of the room with two microphones and threw a blanket over the microphone stands that made like a small tent. The two mice thing, I'm a big fan of it, but if you have only one microphone, put a bit of very short delay, and pan the guitar one side and the delay other, and you have your stereo sound and bit more beef. Sorry to all my vegetarian friends, but I like beef!

  I also did bunch of vocals and backing vocals, but I'll do a blog of it’s own soon. And then the mad part of the job, editing and mixing started. Take my word for this; you will spend as much time on mixing as you do on recording! And if you don't, go back and give it another go, I bet you missed something. I did few long 12hour days, but as a rule, I think after 8hours your ears really need a break. And when you finally think you are finished, take a few days break from it and then come back to it again. You can kind of get wrapped up in the mix, and if you are too deep in it, it's time to take some distance from the project.
  That’s quite lot of stuff again. The good news is, we are getting there and the EP should be out soon, so you actually get to hear all these techniques in practice :-) But for now, have a good week and we'll be back for more next week.