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I recorded a bass track for one of my songs, and it turned out quite well. Makes everything much more fun. Pretty quick chord changes so I didn't get to do much besides root noting, but none the less gave a sense of balance to things. Here's "Play With Guns," a nice garage noise fuzz mover.

Questions, comments, and criticisms welcome.

Nice!
The beginning brings "Warsaw" (Joy Division) to my head.
Bass does help here given the EQ of the guitar. Anyway, I prefer to record more "bassy" guitars an not use bass, but it's okay!
Good work!

gestaltito wrote:Nice!
The beginning brings "Warsaw" (Joy Division) to my head.
Bass does help here given the EQ of the guitar. Anyway, I prefer to record more "bassy" guitars an not use bass, but it's okay!
Good work!

+1, although PP loves his treblez.

Well even without bass there's the trashy guitar, but also there's a separate track which is all blue box->OK.

YES!!!

I likes. There's no shame in keeping it to the roots, especially on fast numbers like that... but I love how it keeps things grounded together when you go off on your solofication.

All we gotta do is get you a nice Jazz Bass with a B:assmaster and dial in some mids and you'll be golden (although that is 100% purely just me imposing my opinion - what you've got here sounds totally great and does the trick).

Oh, wait - I've got a Jazz Bass and B:assmaster...

... and live about a thousandy miles away...

Haha, I already have a Thunderbird which is pretty damn long and huge, I hear Jazz basses are similar. I hate having to reach my arm up so far away just to play F. (er Fb )

If I get a second bass it'd be a mustang/bronco so I can jump around. I like to plug bass thru my white spider with the boost and texture knobs at the minimum, gives a super lo-fi bass overdrive.

Thanks for the comments so far.

This is a pretty good track. Needs some EQ work on the vocals though.

I like the vocals a lot, has that lofi megaphone vibe, but would would you suggest? Not saying I'd for sure change them but i may like it better, who knows.

Needs...more...bass....

kvn wrote:Needs...more...bass....

I'm sorry, I don't own a tuba.

Tuba would be perfect. It has it's own built-in fuzz.

Tuba would be perfect. It has it's own built-in fuzz.

Jazz bass, B-assmaster, volume swells = Tuba.

PP I like it. Has that early Live at CBGB vibe.

Root notes work and work well. As long as the drums and bass are locked together it doesn’t matter how much wanking off the guitars do.
You could bring the lead up a bit in the mix.

MM

PumpkinPieces wrote:I like the vocals a lot, has that lofi megaphone vibe, but would would you suggest? Not saying I'd for sure change them but i may like it better, who knows.

There was just a kind of mid heavy thing going on, it sounds quite muddy, though that could be my shitty speakers. It didn't really have a megaphone kind of effect to my ears, since that sound is sharp rather than muddy. I can see what you were going for though. It sounds like the vocals are in a different place to the rest of the music. Turning down the lower mids a bit and the highs up a bit would probably work well. It's just a bit too dark for me to be a "Lo-fi"'d kind of effect.

The guitar tone is tres awesome by the way. What were you using?

metalmariachi wrote:PP I like it. Has that early Live at CBGB vibe.

Thats funny I was listening to The Ramones and Nirvana's Nevermind seeing how they mixed things, especially with the vocals. I noticed the vocals were mixed pretty high and the guitars were actually lower than I expected but it still had that heavy vibe.

Roseweave wrote:There was just a kind of mid heavy thing going on, it sounds quite muddy, though that could be my shitty speakers. It didn't really have a megaphone kind of effect to my ears, since that sound is sharp rather than muddy. I can see what you were going for though. It sounds like the vocals are in a different place to the rest of the music. Turning down the lower mids a bit and the highs up a bit would probably work well. It's just a bit too dark for me to be a "Lo-fi"'d kind of effect.

The guitar tone is tres awesome by the way. What were you using?

Thats odd because through my speakers they're already trebley.

As far as guitar I double tracked the Blue Box->OK as I mentioned before and another Doubletrack of Devi 33->OK for the trashiness. The guitar solo was all White Spider with the boost on.

PumpkinPieces wrote:Thats odd because through my speakers they're already trebley.

Ah PP - here you have hit on the horrible, horrible truth about recording (which you may know already, but is one of those pesky things that plague even the best home recordist): every set of speakers (to say nothing of the amps driving them) have different natural EQs (to say nothing of whatever EQing the manufacturer does to make them "sound good"). Every studio that I've recorded in has a set of really flat reference monitors (which can get pricey, but there are deals if you shop around), as well as two or three sets of "comparison speakers" - i.e., one set that's comparable to a portable system like little iPod speakers, one set that's like car speakers, and one set that's like a typical consumer system. Of course, you can always just listen to your mix on a few different systems and take notes...

As for the bass, it ain't just about the length, it's about the pickups and electronics and hardware and all kinds of stuff! Passive Jazz pickups FTW! (again, purely in my opinion... but if you're looking for that magical punk rock combo of balanced rumble & bite, nothing comes close) (and now I open myself up for the other bass players to take potshots and tell me how wrong I am... but I can handle it!).

But most of all, it's about whatever works for you... so if you wanna get down all short-scale, well then get down with your bad self! And if you really want to jump around, hell... get a Hofner violin bass copy. Those things are light as feathers. They often seem kind of honky tone-wise to me, but it's a rock & roll honk...