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Originally Posted by DHD So Michael can you tell me anything about tracking Pat Badger and how you track bass in general.
I think Pornograffitti sound amazing. I dunno how you create such clarity in busy mixes like this record and the Ozzy stuff. You are da man.
Oh Yeah and any thoughts on your Testament stuff would be cool! 
Y'know I think your mixes such as No More and Porno make me think you should be adding some Industrial metal to your CV.
Stay well,
Peace,
DHD |
Thanx for the kind words.
The method of tracking bass changes with each project a little. Normally, if the setup allows (enough room for amp and speaker, keeper bass tracks etc.), I track bass with a DI (mostly the VIPRE DI or the TabFunkenwerk V71) without EQ or compression, so I have the pure signal of the instrument, just in case I want to re-amp it later. I also normally record the bass through an amp/cab, so I get a bit thicker bass tone with some much wanted speaker distortion.
Those two tracks are going to be slightly out of phase with each other, depending on how far the mic is placed from the speaker. There are a few different methods to get that back in phase. The out of phase situation happens because the mic signal arrives at the recorder later than the DI signal. It's about (and that is only a ruff estimae) 1ms per foot distance. Now, distance from what? The middle of the speaker which can be a few inches deep, or the outside of the speaker or the cabinet? You'll have to go with trial and error on this. Use a delay to move the DI later to align it "timewise" with the mic on the speaker. The delay unit has to be able to be increased in very small incremements, preferably samples. You can find out the delay time by recording a few notes and checking how far the waveforms are apart in you DAW.
The other way to get around this problem is the LittleLabs IBP, a wonderful studio tool, which should be built into every mic pre. Put it in line with the DI (after the preamp) and just slowly turn the knob until you have the exact sound you want. The most changes are going to happen in the low end. In some cases it's even cool NOT to have it aligned exactly, because the bottom end is tighter that way.
On some projects I just track the DI and leave the re-amping to mixing time, when I have a clearer picture of the overall sound, especially if there ae a lot of heavy guitar tracks, which ocupy the lower frequency range as well. In that case one has to live with an "unfinished" bass sound during the project. On other projects I have replaced the amp track later with a re-amped amp track when we had more information about the overall sound. On King's X we tracked the bass DI from the instrument and DI from Doug's rack, no real speaker involved.
Now what is this about Industrial metal?
