The Condenser and Dynamic Duo

The quest for tone never ends. With new gear, technique and even frame of mind comes a new challenge lying in wait. Given the technology we have today, achieving that superb bass tone shouldn’t be that epic a task anymore, yet we still stumble over little blocks on the path. This is because we bassists do silly things all the time to try to get that tricky little punch to sound right. Live sound can be a breeze depending on your gear and overall know-how. I’ve heard some really gnarly stuff come out of a few RAON amps and cheap effects pedals… But getting the right tone isn’t always about knowing how far or when to turn your pots and faders especially in the studio. Plugging in directly into the board is still the most recommended option. Regardless of what your extremist instincts might say it really works better than most methods and is the staple of the industry’s battle-tested traditions (some brands even put in balanced outputs on their instruments for this specific application) although sometimes there are situations where your lines might need that extra push.

For instance, I love using loud amps in recording. I’ve been experimenting with right hand playing techniques* that ask for a very light touch on the strings that is automatically compensated by a bass amp cranked up to at least three quarters full. Using both traditional guitar microphone placement and also a clean direct sound, we always get a surplus of frequencies to choose from. To try to get as neutral a tone as possible we’d put everything on flat and move the mics around to find that clear mid.

Its a Shure thing!

We usually use a dynamic instrument mic like an old TV antenna, methodically moving it around the front speaker while someone plays a steady groove, “Whooops! There you go! Don’t move!” Finding the sweet spot equates to having a better mid to low freq pot that you just can’t magically add to your console. The large diaphragm mic we’d place a bit of a distance away, depending on how loud you want your amp to be. Of course we still have a clean signal going in direct. This we used to call our “safety track” till we determined that at a certain volume level it can totally push that overall tone forward. We keep this track dry and flat. Our overall signal (with all frequency tracks mixed in) sounds very loose and malleable and it doesn’t fill up every blank space in the mix while remaining completely audible even when the volume isn’t pumped up.

Now I’m not saying that this will work for all styles of music and playing. What we have determined though is that this is ideal for anything from a smooth fretless bass run in a metal mix to a punchy finger-style groove on a syncopated rhythm line. Even in songs at a little under 200bpm, the bass still sings and lines are all still clear. It is a great live sound foundation and if you can spare the time and resources to tweak this method to fit your style and sound then by all means.

All around Condenser Mic...

Ironically, this clarity was just a byproduct of our original search for the perfect overdriven bass growl. We went about attempting to capture the overdrive off of a small Marshall B65 combo amp and ended up playing funny harmonics for a whole afternoon! We anticipated a lot of low freq rumble being captured by a kick drum mic we had positioned at half axis, near the grill and exactly a foot below a large diaphragm condenser microphone. A random instrument mic was plugged in but wasn’t pointed at the amp directly and was assumed “muted”. To cut the long story short, it wasn’t and it ended up capturing a few accidental harmonics and a lot of abnormally brilliant hi-mids. We decided to configure it into the array between the condenser and the kick drum mic but we ended up with a rather flange-y bass mix. So we took out the larger dynamic mic and left the instrument mic along with the main diaphragm.

I wouldn’t call it simplifying even after I’ve taken out everything from the Bass Driver DI to the EQ and compressor. This is more like opening up an EQ box and putting the faders in strategic points across the room. We then dressed these faders up as microphones and that’s it!

What I would like to be able to do is to empty out an untreated room in the house and set up the bass amp in the middle. Then as we grope for that tone, the amp moves around too, in relation to the microphones and the distance of its back to the walls.

Plugging in directly into the board is still the most recommended option.

Outside of all this placement experimentation, clarity can also be achieved through much simpler means. You don’t have to go all out on capturing devices and such just make sure your inputs are leveled properly. Give your tracks a lot of headroom when you record so you can have more space to wriggle around in. The last thing you want is that annoying clip busting out of your track. Clipping audio will add to a lot of your problems as you go further into that song so take precautions by basically just double checking all your signals. Making sure they don’t push up past the threshold is the key here. Setting the input channels to below zero can help in most extreme situations. We can even go as low as -6dB if the project demands a lot of high gain or velocity. Also reducing the amount of processing between your instrument and the interface can give your signal a righteous level of crisp lucidity.

If you really want to use that Frankenstein pedal board, I would suggest recording that live signal from an amp. Otherwise, just plug in direct. Just keep your post FX in check cause it is just as easy to clutter up even a clean direct take with all sorts of unnecessary processing.

All these applications can theoretically be applied even in a live setup. With just a simple DI, you can split your signal between the bass amp and the house, and get the mixed signals to work in your favor. I’ve seen a few very brave bassists and guitarists that use laptop PCs (and/or Macs) to process everything from amp simulation to octave and harmony effects and then just plugging in direct to the PA, using the bass amp as a stage monitor. Depending on what you want there really isn’t anything beyond reach.

Still, in our present situation where clubs and venues that do invest in decent sound systems are few and far apart, we see some guys just plug n’ forget.

Never mind the degree of seriousness (nothing wrong with just having some fun, right?)But a fairly large number of bassists remain clueless as to their role in the band. This translates directly to their sound as well. Its either you can’t hear them or you hear too much of them.

Notice that a lot of bass players in metal bands love that crazy scooped tone… Most of the time the attack is so pronounced and virtually percussive that there isn’t much tone left at all! Why we aren’t taken seriously most of the time is because of this stigma. For some dog forsaken reason, just getting buried in the mix between blazing guitars riffs and fast neck-breaking drums, these stage-accessories just don’t even bother. Why having no bass player in faster styles of metal is fast catching on here shouldn’t be a surprise. Bottom line is: Clarity directly translates to the quality of our sound. Don’t have to be that loud at all, just enough to be clear.

Some of the bassists I’ve worked with in the studio aren’t even concerned with how their tone will compliment the rest of the song. Maybe they don’t want to be heard in the mix? I wouldn’t go so far as to critique their playing, gear or musical preference since I’ve seen a full spectrum of players that represent the community well with even the humblest of equipment and we can’t let a few bad apples ruin it for the rest of us. But I guess some of these guys are in it for other reasons. Just rockin’ it out since “you can’t hear the bass anyway!” Gah! Poo-poo heads!

Then again everyone has to start somewhere, that’s a fair assumption. And when the lights have dimmed, the sweat has dried off their backs these guys with even the tiniest sliver of concern for their art will, in hindsight ask themselves, “Did I sound okay tonight?”

*based on a Gary Willis, Abraham Laboriel hybrid style

My friends and I started dabbling in recording live music in the summer of 1994. Before that we recorded our songs with a portable cassette player and an acoustic guitar in my friend’s garage. Several years later we graduated to an actual rehearsal studio that we literally built from the ground up. It was here that we would attempt to capture both the room sound and lined-in signals into a mixer straight to a tape deck (or karaoke machine).

Nothing much but live mixer fader adjustment and the band actually playing louder or more dynamically gave us real control. Our ‘product’ was not even competitively close to commercial at all in terms of level output but we, through instinct and sheer luck have achieved clarity where it counted the most.

Our recorded stuff actually had a dynamic guitar sound, a distinct kick drum and a bass that didn’t wallow in the mud… It would take forever to set it up as we didn’t have any real recording hardware save for our live mixer and tape deck. If a band wanted to record a quick demo we really had to charge them triple the rate of our rehearsal fee* (plus 40 pesos for a TDK C60 tape if they didn’t have one already).

But that didn’t stop a bunch of kids from kicking-out demo tapes from our rehearsal studio. Never mind that some of these tapes had two whole sides of ‘Zombie’ or ‘Enveloped Ideas’ on them. Or this one time some kids practically recorded a whole Green Day album. Even had a few anarchists record their demo-EPs and some amateur rappers lay a few vocal tracks with their home made mixes.

Came to a point where we couldn’t accept rehearsals as much due to groups scheduled to record in between their slots and that would mean we would have to tear down and setup our little jungle of cables and mic stands every few hours or so. We gave ROAA all our excess band traffic and they sent us people looking to record. Good times.

I quit the studio to go back to school and/or find a real job as I’ve noticed that there was no quick way to relieve major GAS attacks. But some of my friends and I have never really stopped playing music and I did want to record some of my own stuff but there was no shortcut, DIY way to achieve the actual quality we all shot for.  It’s around this time (around 1998) that I learned about and eventually dived headfirst into digital recording.

What little I knew got me digging deeper into the hole until I inevitably got sucked in past the point of no return. Felt most of my way through, groping about in the dark. All of this mucking about was good though: it takes real time to get a feel for certain things like dynamic compression or waveform analysis… geeky stuff like that.

I finally got some decent tech-time when I jumped down from my DIY high horse and apprenticed with a real professional for a while. At last some real answers… didn’t have Google at my every beck and call back then.

Ah digital… for a while we didn’t think you could keep up. But you finally did! Of course we can still tell ‘em apart but the dividing line has all but vanished. Presently, we are taking huge steps forward: At one point, stuff we did here became a standard for a collective community. Mostly due to the financial constraint strangled across the throats of many independent musicians. We already had the best possible sound available for the humblest production budget.

Why we dropped it all to pursue a few other material goals, I would never understand. But we’re back! And there will never be a better time to do so… A ton of recording studios and home-based aficionados have surfaced during the time of our hiatus. A handful of these new players made me shake my head and smile: At least some of these guys knew what they were doing. Pumping out one independent act after another. Listening to the stuff they’ve produced and pitting it against a production from the majors isn’t quite the same ball game anymore. Back in the day it was an uphill battle. Now? You can hardly tell them apart.