Studio Tips - Guitar & Bass, Microphones

It almost plays itself - my Ovation Celebrity

12 strings are better  than 6 - mostly...

On the very last day of the old Millennium I happened to be in Glasgow (Scotland), and passed a Guitar Shop (purely coincidentally, you understand). Both of my above guitars were purchased there, so the sales manager must have been rubbing his hands in glee when I took a stroll through the E-Guitar section. My old electric had never sounded completely true, and although I do not use that much electric guitar in our music, I felt a more playable instrument would ease the start into the new Millennium (any excuse will do!). After some tests I walked out with a Yamaha Pacifica under my arm. Although by no means a 'classic' guitar, I am very impressed with the quality of workmanship and playability a guitar in this price range has to offer. The pick-ups (1 humbucker, 2 single coil) allow for plenty different timbres, and, at least to me, the solid wood body looks very pleasing.

Recording electric guitar used to be quite tricky, and would have one spend a fortune on expensive Christmas presents to assuage ones neighbours, disgruntled with the noise intrusion of guitar amps wailing through the night. Amp simulators like the Line 6 Pod have put a stop to this, and not too soon. Little needs said about the Pod - every guitarist will have heard about it. I've had mine for many years, and it's still my preferred choice for recording electric guitar.

After all these years of attempting to play smooth and convincing bass lines with a synth or sampler, I eventually made the ad hoc decision to go for the real thing. Some hours online later, plus half-an-hour's testing at the local music shop, and I walked out with the Johnson JB-2 bass guitar you see on the left. Apart from the gorgeous looks, what really impressed me about this fine 4 string specimen is its solid construction with a through-neck, and the built-in active electronics with bass and treble EQ. Another pot adjusts the balance between the two soapbox-style pickups, so that the tonal range available from this instrument is extremely wide. A surprisingly good package for a bass guitar in this price range. What was even more surprising was the amount of fun I've been having playing this chap from day one. I'd been hoping that without any previous bass playing experience and only my guitar skills to fall back on, I'd somehow manage. This turned out to be mostly true, although I was surprised by the physical strength required  to move up and down the giant (by guitar standards) fret board. At least its fairly narrow neck helps my dainty guitar-player's fingers to get to grips with it.

The punchiness and low frequency energy that comes off these strings is very satisfying. No amount of sample tweaking could adequately simulate this. Twanging the low E string even without amplification makes your whole body vibrate, and before you know it, tentatively at first, you start working on those bass lines you've been chasing all those MIDI-bound years. 

Recording bass is not as straightforward as I thought. Though the active on-board electronics help, a lot of compression is needed to tame the dynamics. This in turn robs the resulting sound of some of its punchiness. Tricky.
So out I went to buy the Behringer Bass V-Amp (since my plastic had lost its flex at the time, and the price of a Line 6 Bass Pod seemed excessive). First impressions were positive. But once embedded in the mix, even the V-Amp's results failed to inspire. Latterly I've found a very usable preset as part of the EMU 1616 hardware effect programs. Two EQ slots plus one ravenous compressor combine to at last get me close to where I wanted to be all along. But since it's all about personal taste, I won't bother reproducing the parameters here. I would, however, recommend anyone on the quest for their perfect bass sound to A-B their mix against some of their fave CDs. This really helps to pinpoint where your own mixes are lacking, and saves a lot of fruitless blind trials and errors.

Mike and the Mechanics Every reputable recording magazine keeps stressing how important the choice of microphone is. I used to sneer at the mega-expense involved in buying a "good mike". My old AudioTechnica AT811 back-electret mike (the poor relative of a condenser mike) had served me well in recording acoustic guitar and vocals for many years, and I seemed happy... Since the cost of quality studio condenser microphones has plummeted in recent years,  I decided to see what all the fuss is about, and purchased a Rode NT1 large diaphragm condenser mike. What a difference ! Although this is one of the cheaper "professional" mikes, it exhibits tremendous warmth and detail, and has an extremely low noise floor. Together with the Joe Meek VC3 (see next page), the NT1 has provided me with an acoustic input chain that is head and shoulders above my previous standard. Thoroughly recommended! One thing to note when using a professional mike with balanced (3 pin) connection, as opposed to a cheaper unbalanced stage microphone, is their increased dynamic range. When recording rock vocals, I initially missed the more compressed sounding output I'd got used to from my old and unbalanced Audio Technica mike. This can be easily remedied through some additional compression, and for those quieter passages the full dynamic range of the NT1 can be readily appreciated. One should consider investing in a shock mount at the same time as one decides to purchase a large diaphragm mike (though these days, many already come with it). These microphones pick up even the ticking of the kitchen clock downstairs, so you can imagine how faithfully they will reproduce foot-induced floor vibration that would otherwise travel unhindered through the mike stand into the mike body. For the NT1, and probably for many other models as well, there is no need to buy the outrageously priced manufacturers shock mounts. A generic model from most music shops fitted mine perfectly, costing a quarter of the Rode model. Finally - get a pop shield. The foam covers that come with some mikes will simply not do the job. Either make one yourself - stocking draped over a wire loop - and tape it to the mike stand, or buy a no-name model for £15, which has a clip, and looks more professional. Both work fine, and should be at a distance of around 5 to 10 cm (2 to 4") from the mike.