Major Project: Tracking Bass

On Thursday night, I tracked the bass parts (performed by Carter) of the two tracks that needed re-recording. For the whole session, I could've done a better job with the recording if I had just researched how to properly mic a bass as I put a mic in front of the amp, a random mic about 1 metre away and a room mic. I also didn't do a proper sound check to see if the bass was too boomy (which in most takes it was) and didn't really have a clear idea of the tone I wanted for the songs. The session went a tad slow as I was a bit unorganised and there were a few errors here and there. Don't know what was going on but yeah I was just unfocused and was probably too focused on keeping the performer comfortable instead of worrying about the technical stuff. It was kind of a disappointing session from the technical side of things but we still had a good session nonetheless; learnt a lot of things from that session.

Micing

I had three mics in total: an AKG D112, a Beyerdynamic M88 and an AKG C414. The AKG D112 was up close and positioned to the centre of the cone to capture the raw tones of the bass, the Beyer M88 about 1m away from the bass amp to capture less of the bass frequencies from the amp and a more lo-fi version of the sound, and the AKG C414 to capture the room sound, as well as to capture the nice bass frequencies of the room. For next time, I would like to spend more time on finding the right space in the room because hearing back from the recordings, the AKG D112 had too much low and sub frequencies that it was hard to hear the natural growl of the bass which I needed. The Beyer M88 sounded better than the D112 as the growl was more noticeable but there were less sub frequencies. The AKG C414 was able to capture more of the low frequencies but not much of the growl as it was positioned the furthest from the amp, but it still had a nice signal. Listening back to those recordings, the only mic that sounded great was the Beyer M88 along with the DI signal as it was the most clear sounding mic out of them all, which was really disappointing. I wished to have done more research on recording techniques in the first weeks of trimester which was when I had the most time, but I've definitely learnt a lot from my mistakes and hope to do some mic experimenting during the holidays.

Monitoring

To add to the disorganisation of the session, I forgot that I couldn't use channels 9 and upwards due to the wiring of the console and only 8 channels to work with, when I had previously organised to have each stem on its own channel plus having channels for the mics, for the bassist's headphone mix. Because I was limited to using only 8 channels, I had to group all the stems into 2 channels: one channel being for the drums and click, and the other for all guitars and other effects. I had 3 channels for the mics (Amp, Close mic, and the Room mic), another for the talkback and another for the DI, and the last channel for the demo bass stem. The order of the channels was really unorganised because I panicked when I realised I couldn't use all channels on the console. Also because I hardly record guitars and bass in the studio, I totally forgot about DI'ing the bass when planning for this session so the DI option was a last minute thing too, hence why it's channel is after the TB channel. I really wasn't prepared for this but I found my way around it to keep the session running smooth and to not keep the bassist waiting.

With the headphone mixes, the artist wanted to have all stems (excluding the demo bass stem) and a bit of the DI'ed bass, I mixed his headphone mix in the control room and set his levels to his liking. That was probably one of the only things that didn't stress me out and it was done quickly too.

The Bassist & the Performance

It was really good to record Carter as he was really patient and easy going, which really helped reduce my stress levels as we would have a chat and a laugh while I was fixing errors and rearranging things. He also brought in two of his bass guitars (Fender Jazz & a Greco Violin Bass) so that I was able to pick which bass tone suited each song better. Unfortunately because of how poorly I recorded his bass, I really didn't allow myself the freedom to choose between the tones but moreso, picking which bass had the clearest signal.

He rehearsed the bass parts for both tracks before the session and performed really well but I had to help him with a few sections that he wasn't clear about. I had a lot of trouble communicating what I wanted him to play regarding notes and the rhythm without me having to show him. It was pretty frustrating to me as he wasn't understanding and it was a tad embarrassing, but he was patient and we managed to get all sections right by me showing him my written notes and by me humming the melody and rhythm.

For each song we had about 5-7 takes: most of them replicating the original demo bass stem and the rest being some freeplay/improv takes. When recording the original takes, we recorded half with the Fender Jazz bass and the other with the Violin Bass and from those takes, I preferred the tone of the Violin bass as it had more growl to it, which was needed in the tracks.

Tracking Sheets for the Two Tracks (big cheers to James for the sheets again)

As I mentioned in the beginning, it was a pretty disappointing session from the technical side of things and I went home feeling really drained because I knew I wasn't going to get the best recordings of his bass guitars. But it really helped having a really easy going bassist and we worked together to get all the bass sections done. From this session, I've learnt to be prepared properly, even for a small session like this as many things can still go wrong. I've also started to look into Bobby Owsinki's The Recording Engineer's Handbook as I really want to improve on recording instruments properly as it's a skill that I lack in. Aside from all the bad things, it was a good session! Completed everything I needed to have done in that session and it definitely taught me a lot regarding technical stuff and soft skills such as communicating.