Gunpoint Recording Studios: Having Below-Average Bass Skills: A Problem You Can Throw Money At!
Bob Popp says he doesn't normally track Bass Guitar direct, but he makes an exception in this case, as he's going for a deep, reggae tone . . . and he's the one playing the bass. Being a bit self-conscious about his abilities as a bassist, Bob has decided to run the signal through an Avalon U5 preamp.
He's also running the signal through channel 15 on his modded Soundcraft 600 board, which is specifically dedicated to recording bass. I wonder, is there a dedicated channel for the recording of modest self-deference?
BOB POPP: Hi. This is Bob Popp of Gunpoint Recording Studios. You can find us at myspace.com/gunpointrecordingstudios.
We're going to talk about how I recorded the bass guitar through my board. I normally don't use a DI but because I had to play bass and I'm not really a great bass player, more a guitar player, I chose to use a DI this time and I used the Avalon U5. This is a little bit pricier than your normal everyday DI but it's got a great sound, it's industry standard, and it's probably the least expensive product they have and it's still pretty expensive.
I plugged that in and I went into channel 15 of my board. Channel 15 of my board is my standby bass guitar channel. I had it modified by the guys at Creation Audio in Nashville. I asked them I need a channel specifically for bass, and they custom-tailored this for me. They said, "We're going to put this series in here; just make sure that you remember that channel 15 is for bass because it's going to sound all different than the other ones." So, I usually split my drum channels 1 through 14, I start bass on 15, 16, sometimes 17 if I so choose to do three bass tracks at once, and I start doing my guitars on the rest of them if I'm recording a band all at the same time.
Normally, I get drums a couple of scratch tracks and then I'm good, and then I start using other channels to record, but in this instance that you'll hear, I used the U5 going through channel 15, and my EQ setting was low roll-off cut at 1.2 by about 6 dB and a cut of 300 by 6 dB also. Why was I cutting all that mid out? Well, I'm not a really good bass player and I was using a guitar pick, which gives a lot of attack, and I wanted to get rid of some of that honky, nosy sound, so I chose to EQ it like that. For the reggae song that I'm recording today, I didn't really need a big, clicky, smacky sound. I needed something low and authoritative to match the bass drum. So, we're going to listen to that now.
[BOB POPP PLAYS HIS BASS TRACK]
We we're just talking about the channels that I use for bass guitar. I use this channel also for keyboards, and on this track I just wanted to have like a solo key line going, so I went directly into the board, I bypassed the DI because the board has great -- the keyboard has great fidelity. I went directly into the board and I bypassed the EQ, I disengaged, so all we have is the sound of the keyboard, and this is what it sounds like.
[BOB POPP PLAYS HIS KEYBOARD TRACK]
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