studio

40wattsun is scheduled to be in the studio for the next 2 weeks to record 7 songs starting this sunday.

i spoke with the engineer today to tell him about my rig, basses and processing. i just wanted to give him the heads up, being as i'm not the typical, fender p bass right into the 8X10 and ampeg kinda player. i gave him the inventory expecting him to say things like, "we'll post production those effects thru the board. leave that processor at home." or "we want to di all your bass." or "theres no need to bi-amp and crossover with only picking you up on one input." or "dont you just have a 50W tube amp to use."

he didnt say anything of the kind.

he was actually really into all the craziness that i'm doing. he's looking at it like a challenge.

he really wants to play with the kahler too!

i was also suprised when i started telling him about the rig problems i'm having with not enuff watts in my 15". he told me not to worry about it, as he is gonna wanna use multiple mics on multiple cabs and di's to get a full balanced overall sound and different sounds for everything that i'm doing. he said if need be, he'll grab a friends mesa 600W 15" to cover it if thats the best sound for a particular sound (and it will be). he said if it takes 10 tracks than we'll master it from 10 tracks. wow.

i then expressed concern that what would be recorded wouldnt be what we sound like live.

he told me that he can work with me and teach me some tweaks and techniques to get everything i need to match what we do in the studio out of my rig.

that ... and i just ordered a 600W 15" carvin speaker. great price btw.

not only tips from a sound engineer nerd, but i think i've also just needed someone knowledgeable to listen to my sound and help tweak out a few bugs i regularly have and / or things i just dont notice or hear myself.

i think this is going to be an exelent studio experience. i think between the new head on my rig and this studio experience, 40wattsun will be sounding much better all around.

i'm thinking that after we do the ruff tracks and the drum tracks, i'll be going over there during the week without the band to lay down the bass lines. i wanna take my time and get it right.

Awesome, MadMike! It's always great to work with an engineer willing to actually work with you to get your sound. Keep us posted, Bro!

Awesome! Let us know how it goes...a couple "studio reports", maybe?

Best of luck. Hope you get to use that Mesa cabinet! That'd be rad.

didnt need the mesa. didnt even need the 600W 15". mic on the whole rig, one amp to the rig, the other amp out to the board and one line to the board from the processor. not too shure what he did ... but man did it sound good. it was like ... every nuance, attack of finger strike, bend and even fuzz of distortion came out crystal clear like the rig wasnt even close to being turned up ... but it was loud behind me and thru the headphones.

he gave me some tips on better ways to use the bi - amp on my carvin ... like mixing the clean amp with the distortion from my effects for a punchier growl effect. i didnt know my processor could do that! i need some pedals for bypass to do this correctly.

and oh yeah ... i'm a real lucky guy. my band rules!

7songs in 10 hours. we're done. we just knew to be prepared. we knew where there would be engineering problems and addressed it immediately with isaac and he handled it. we did a ruff track in 2 takes next to perfect. most of the other finish takes were done in one shot. it went so smoothly that when there were mistakes, whoever made it just started the song over again ... we did no punchins.

the preliminary tracks before mastering sound awesome! isaac said he'de mix and master them by thursday. i cant wait to hear it then!

i'll have it posted on the myspacers thingey by this weekend.

That's great! I can't wait to hear how it turned out!

just wanted to give you guys an update .........

yes, we did kick its butt.

this is the hardest part of it. going back and forth with the engineer trying to mix what we got the best we can and what we want. with what we want, because of how we recorded it, there are limitations. ok with a standard rock outfit ... with guitar and vocals in the forefront this setup for recording would have been fine ... but i think what we are really shooting for needs more savy sound engineering and more technology and equipment.

the main thing with me is the limitations of a single amp rig. i have the bi-amp and crossover capabilities on my carvin, but with the layers of effects, we just kept loosing that bottom end punch and boom of a clean bass chanel. we tried boosting the lows but it all just turned to mud. i just need to run a separate rig with a clean channel. theres always the di thing that i thought we were gonna do ... but eh, after the fact, we shudda.

there are several other "mix" problems that need to be "fixed" best as possible. the one song i am driving so much low frequency, the kick drum is rendered inaudible (teeheehee! ... but not cool seriously).

of course this technically is "my" band, but i try not to look at it that way; its "our" band. but this expectation has put me as the middle man between the band and the engineer ... like i got total control over this or something. its getting exahusting. i've got a job to go to and a new house to fix up ... i feel like i'm babysitting.

all in all ... it was a good experience and i did in fact learn some things about recording bass. i will definately go about it differently next time. the recordings are definately better than what we had.

i hope i will post the music in the next two weeks when we're done with all the back and forth nonsence and everyone is at least close to happy.

i look forward to all your input.

Fantastic, MadMike! I can't wait to hear it!

Thunderous low end...piles of effects on the bass...sounds like something that I'll like!

volleying back and forth via e mail has rendered communication ineffective.

when i say, "turn the bass up", the engineer gives me all the technical excuses about how that was recorded and the frequencies that exist (or dont) due to the master bass recording would make that low boost, blah, blah, blah.

i just wanted him to turn the whole instrument level up.

i'm trying to get him to set up some time so him and i can sit down and mix it together. i'm thinking the majority of issues are simply overall instrument levels. we're not a trypical rock band ... the bass doesnt sit in the back while the guitar and vocals are out front ... it just doesnt work that way.

Maybe you could clarify with "turn the bass guitar up".

And my quick and dirty solution is to have the mids and high-mids jacked up a bit.

man ... that requires more typing (like my messages and posts arent long enuff).

i spoke with the band last night and they have faith in me going in there and getting their stuff right. i spoke with the engineer today and he agreed to spend all day next thursday with me at the board, fiddeling and nudging to get it where we want it. our music being what it is (really weird) i think that this is the only effective way to get it done. we got this new years gig set up and we wanna hand out cd's that sound as best as they can.