TesseracT - 'April' initiative groove cover!

[Kurkkuviipale]

Hey guys,

Our bassist got himself a new Warwick so what's the first thing to test with it? Covering TesseracT!

This one's a really fun to mix and experiment with; I didn't try to get compositionally close to the original, just added layers to hear how the bass fits in.

April Cover Clip by Kurkkuviipale on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Does something sound off or do you like something particular in it? Leave a comment!

E: Some of the guitars sound a little out of tune, but that's a minor issue. To be honest, I didn't even tune the guitars before I recorded this...

[Prydogga]

I sent this to your/our other bass player. Told him he's going to be super jealous.

[Kurkkuviipale]

Bumping this and sneakly posting a link to my NGD thread (the bass that was used in this):

here it is

And for the lazy, some easy-accessible bass porn (this has nothing to do with fishes though):

[Kurkkuviipale]

[Larcher]

that's a pretty bass, what is it?

[Kurkkuviipale]

Cheers Larcher, it's a Warwick 5-String Corvette FNA Jazzman.

And guys, I got 135 views and only 2 comments... If there's something wrong with the mix, say it!

[prh]

i think the lack of comments is cos noone has anything substantial to say haha

mix sounds lovely and clear dude, just release a ....ing album already

[jsaudio]

Hey haven't heard the mix yet but any chance you be interested in sharing the bass DI on this? I have always wanted to try processing a Warwick. I'll give the mix a listen when I get home for sure!

[Kurkkuviipale]

Originally Posted by prh

i think the lack of comments is cos noone has anything substantial to say haha

mix sounds lovely and clear dude, just release a ....ing album already

Yea, if that's true then, good, but it's important for me to know if everything is OK in the mix and that I'm not missing something. That's why positive feedback is equally as important as negative feedback. It's also good to know if somethings good in someone's opinion since then you can continue and develop that thing/idea.
CC, and thanks! And how could we possibly release an album before we even have a singer...

Originally Posted by jsaudio

Hey haven't heard the mix yet but any chance you be interested in sharing the bass DI on this? I have always wanted to try processing a Warwick. I'll give the mix a listen when I get home for sure!

Yea I can. Actually a fun fact I was about to write on this thread about bass:
Bass on this was recorded from three different sources. 1st of all, the bass came as DI through Mesa M6 Carbine. 2nd and 3rd sources are from mic'd MesaM6->Laney 4x10 stack. Both mic's were about an inch off the grill, on axis with the cone. I'll upload the three tracks as .wav files to this thread a little later...

As to what comes processing, blending these three sources really gave a lot of options for nailing the tone although a little compression were applied. I also ran the high end through a mild distortion (just so that it would compress and gain some warmth, really not distort at all: we wanted a clean tone on this) and scooped some high end from the clean signal.

[Kurkkuviipale]

Here are the files: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11989434/April%20Bass%20Wav.zip

[Larcher]

Originally Posted by Kurkkuviipale

Cheers Larcher, it's a Warwick 5-String Corvette FNA Jazzman.

And guys, I got 135 views and only 2 comments... If there's something wrong with the mix, say it!

damn son, that is a helluva bass. I'm jelly as can be

ps, Diggin the mix

[Kurkkuviipale]

Cheers dude!

[Speculum Speculorum]

Wish I had a freakin' Warwick. Those basses are just something to behold.

[VILARIKA]

I'm digging your bands music

I'd love to try out some of the patches you've made with the Axe-Fx, they sound awesome.

[Kurkkuviipale]

Originally Posted by Speculum Speculorum

Wish I had a freakin' Warwick. Those basses are just something to behold.

A true sentence right there. Both Warwicks my bassist has now even beat (in my opinion, not speaking for him though) his EBMM Bongo and this is from a Music Man instruments fan.

Originally Posted by VILARIKA

I'm digging your bands music

I'd love to try out some of the patches you've made with the Axe-Fx, they sound awesome.

Thanks man. This clean patch is actually an older patch I've done with the cab sim turned off so it goes really metallic and thin.
Another fun fact about this mix: I used a total of 6 guitars for this. Four clean electric guitars (JP6->AxeFX->cubase) and two for acoustic guitar mic'd with SM57.

[Oxidation_Shed]

Sounds really sweet. The bass tone is really, really excellent. If it plays as well as it sounds/looks then that is one sweet catch.
I could be talking out of my arse here, but I do think the guitars benefit from the sextuple tracking: it gives it a really nice ethereal quality the way the acoustic and electric have slightly different attacks and tones.
The only negative thing I would say is that the snare seems a little dull and too far back in the mix. Though it does work well with the ambient nature of the track, I'm just a sucker for a really crisp drum track over ambient passages.
But that's all subjective; it sounds very, very sick.

[Kurkkuviipale]

Yea I think I was going for a more "realistic" sound on drums (if you will).

For example, listen to the snare in this:

Doesn't sound very modern and is really "far" in my opinion. I'm still figuring out how to reverb snare right though, so you are kinda right saying it's too far, I feel the same way; I just want it to be "far" in a different way, not like I did on this mix.

Thanks for pointing that out!

As to what comes to sextuple tracking... For distortion I would never do such thing. To be honest, I don't like quadtracking either on distorted guitars. For cleans it's a whole different deal since on every take a different set of overtones accentuate thus making the earlier takes sound more rich and full. For distortion, overtones don't really have that much headroom to accentuate so you don't have much to richen. IOW distorted guitars have so compressed frequencies so that there's nothing to make more full.

So it really is justified to track multiple cleans, but what I did in this case was this:
1st set: the clean stem on first octave panned 80L - 80R
2nd set: the clean stem on second octave (octave higher) panned 100L - 100R (I like to have a hierarchy on how I pan my high-end stems and low-end stems)
3rd set: acoustic guitar, left channel 1st octave, right channel 2nd octave, panned 100L - 100R

I did a fun effect on acoustic guitars too which turned out pretty well. I sent the acoustic to a side-channel, compress the side chain, put an octaver (pitch shift) on it and put a 60% reverb on it. Gives it a nice bright feel when the strings are so dark.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11989434/Apr...20Acoustic.mp3

Here it is with and without the side-chain.

ps. don't really know if anyone's reading all this, but hope this helps/inspirates people.

E: the side-chain is high on volume in that example, it's lower in the real mix.

[Oxidation_Shed]

Yeah, like I said, I think it works quite well: it's just all personal preference. I just love bits like 3 minutes or so into Animal King by The Safety Fire. That really modern, but really room-y snare.

Yeah I can't really see a benefit to sextuple tracking distorted guitars unless you were having a competition with The Acacia Strain over who could put more layers on their recordings.
But that combination of electric and acoustic: mmmmmm. I might have to kidnap my vocalist's Taylor and give that a crack in the near future.

[Speculum Speculorum]

Stereo positioning, in my opinion, is one of the most fun parts of mixing so far. I do all kinds of crazy things with panning. What you are doing works pretty damn good. One of my buddies was telling me about how his AE teacher said "never pan less that x, y, etc." when I told him about some of the things I was doing.

I just pan until whatever I'm working with slips into the mix. Sometimes if you make seemingly small nudges things just pop right out or sink in where they're supposed to. There are some things that are obvious, like hard panning distorted guitars and whatnot, but for the most part I just go with what the situation demands.

For example, on the acoustic recording I just did, my panning looks something like this:

Rhythm guitar: neck mic panned 25% L, body mic panned 25% R.
Solo Guitar L: Body mic panned 60%, neck mic panned 70%
Solo Guitar R: Body mic panned 70%, neck mic panned 60%

People can argue whether or not it makes a serious difference on psychoacoustics all they want. The rhythm guitar leaves a nice dip in the center for vocals, and the solo guitar fills a bigger stereo pocket with less frequency buildup coming from exactly one point in the stereo positioning. So much fun!

[Kurkkuviipale]

I have yet to experiment micing acoustic guitar with multiple mics and what you, Brian, wrote there is a great info for starters! Thanks for that. For this recording I only used a single SM57 positioned to face @ the hole or whatever it's called. So all of the room is pretty much generated digitally (especially taken that SM57 is a close range mic).

[Speculum Speculorum]

Stereo mic'ing acoustic guitar is fun... once you get the phasing issues right. And when you aren't working with a partner, that's a whole lot of NOT FUN! Then it's just a matter of positioning the mic's at points where you find a pleasing balanced tone... and then making sure you haven't moved your mics out of phase with one another... And then you hit record, listen, and make sure that you like what you are hearing. Repeat. But once you nail it, it's a great feeling.

[Kurkkuviipale]

I'll be sure to have a friend with me next time I record acoustic... or actually I guess I'll be the guy pressing record and setting mic's since I don't play guitar.

[spilla]

Thanks for posting those bass DI's and sharing that acoustic trick, sounds really cool, will have to give it a try. But first, now i really have to get a proper mic and interface so i can mic up my acoustics. Connecting my semi acouitic to the podxt and using the Bodilzer plugin just dosnt cut it after hearing that.

I cant offer any comments on the mix as im in awe of your skills... in particular, i really like the way you mix your overheads. Sounds very airy yet bright/crisp.
Now off to check that NGD thread, as that bass looks crazy nice.

[C2Aye]

Gorgeous bass and gorgeous bass tone! I would add more but I'm in exam mode at the moment

[Kurkkuviipale]

Thanks guys and no problem with the tips/bass tracks!