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Last Night for The Home Recording Show I did a quick, pointless shootout of some bass distortion pedals.
Enjoy!
Hopefully the Vimeo embed works, if not it’s on YouTube too.
Bass Distortion Shootout from Jon Tidey on Vimeo.
There’s not really any point to this, there’s no moral to the story and no quiz. However, I will say I think any one of these sounds is better than what I can get with plugins.
The hard part about recording a distorted bass is that often you have no reference of what it will sound like with the rest of the instruments. Committing to a distorted bass sound early can bite you in the ass when it comes time to mix. For that reason alone, it’s a good idea to record a clean DI along with it.
If you save the distortion for when you are mixing, you can reamp through a distortion pedal.
I was just listening to some tracks over at the Propellerhead Music Forum.
Some tracks lacked a cohesive “vibe” to them. This often happens when using REX loops.
A loop is a recording of a performance. Depending on how a player plays, what the sequencer was set to, bad editing, or anything in between, the vibe can be very different from what you might get when quantizing. Let’s not go into the quantizing debates. 
If you have a loop with it’s feel kicking away in your track and then you sequence along with it, you may notice that the feel/vibe isn’t there. Quantizing may not fix it as the vibe in the loop may not be quantized. Playing it over and over until you get it right may not be helping. What to do? Groove Quantize!
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Last night I spent a few hours listening to some of my favorite songs. So what, right? What was different was listening to it in Mid/Side, and muting the center. It’s really quite amazing what kind of sounds are buried in your favorite albums.
To do this you’ll need an M/S Decoder. I use the free Soundhack +Matrix from the freesound bundle.
On a stereo audio audio track, insert your M/S decoder, set it to L/R>M/S (which will convert Left and Right information to Mid and Side.
Then insert a Multi-Mono Trim plugin. Unlink the channels and mute the Left side.
Then insert another M/S decoder and convert the Mid + Side back into Left + Right.
Drop in a song and have fun!
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Try it with anything from Tool Ænima, the side is all room mics, extremely cool.
Announcing DRIVEDRUMS, a new drum sample library from MoReVoX. All the guys here at AGZ are itching to try out this collection and we’ll have a full review of DRIVEDRUMS in the near future.
Distortion is at the center of an exciting sound.
MoReVoX DRIVEDRUMS has been developed by generating distortion through different kinds of devices.
Vacuum Tubes, Analog Tapes, Preamps are been used to create samples with light to aggressive and violent distortion.
MoReVoX DRIVEDRUMS contains RICH and FAT natural acoustic sounds ideal for every kind of music. All samples are been tested on mixes and optimized for retriggering and stand alone use.
The MoReVoX DRIVEDRUMS Samples have been divided into two categories : Drive Samples and Over Samples.
The Drive Samples have been developed starting from the classic hardware harmonic distortion , so all the samples contain a smoother distortion character (Tape compression warmth, subtle valve saturation).
The Over Samples instead are based on distortion; the samples have been developed finding their character in conjunction with the hardware distortion (Valve/Console Preamps, Analog Tape Saturation, Heavy Valve Compression, Dedicated distortion outboard).
MoReVoX DRIVEDRUMS contains 30 Kicks, 30 Snares, 8 Toms Racks, 30 Cymbals and more for a total of 800 Samples 24Bit|44.1kHz.
Developed by : Sabino Cannone
Available on DVD & Digital Download
Prices : $ 99 [Download] $ 129 [DVD]
Review coming soon!
Before recording a note, make sure the guitars are in tune. I mean really in tune, not just “close enough.” Getting professional results in a home studio is tough, having your guitars only mostly in tune is just going to make things harder.
A properly set up guitar can make the difference between a good recording and a bad one. Poor intonation is often a subtle problem that can be difficult to perceive, it’s one of those things where you go “something doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know what it is.” It’s also a problem that you might have a lot of trouble fixing after the fact, so I’d say that proper setup and intonation definitely does better when put into your pre production. It’s not hard or time consuming (usually), and if you learn to do it yourself it will cost you nothing but a good tuner, which you already have, right?
First, change your strings. You should already have done this, since your getting ready to go into the studio and you would never go into the studio with tired old strings, right? Do this however you like, I have my way, you have your way, everybody has their own way, so I’m not going to go over that (even though there are better ways to restring and this does effect you intonation and other aspect of your guitar).
Next, make sure your strings are well tuned and stretched. You can’t intonate strings that are still stretching. You can either wait for the strings to naturally stretch themselves to the proper tension, or you can do this yourself by repeatedly stretching the strings, retuning, stretching, retuning, and so on.
Now, pick a string, I don’t care which one, some will argue you should start one way and some will argue you should start the other, so do whatever feels right, I’m not here to answer that question (though I would gladly state my preference in the comments if prompted by ambitious readers). Make sure said string is really really really in tune at the open position. Since you have a good tuner you should be able to get it within 3 cents. Now, play a note or harmonic at the 12th fret and observe whether your tuner says it’s sharp or flat, or perhaps even in tune. If it’s flat that means you need to shorten the distance between the bridge and the nut, on most guitars the only way to do this is to adjust the saddle (the thing that the string rests on at the bridge). So, to shorten it, adjust the saddle towards the neck. If the note is sharp you must make the distance greater by moving the saddle away from the neck.
Once you’ve adjusted what you think is appropriate (the more out of tune, the more adjustment necessary) you need to retune at the open tuning, again getting very accurate. Then you check the 12th fret again, if it’s still out of tune you need to adjust again, retune, repeat the steps.
Intonation is something that can get messed up by a number of things, including climate, string gauge changes, or knocking your guitar off something. It’s important to check the intonation regularly, lest you sound like crap. I check mine every time I change my strings, and unless I’ve been touring or gigging a lot with the guitar out of the house then it doesn’t often actually need much adjustment, I just check to make sure.
This is all there really is to proper intonation. This is also where the wrench gets thrown into the deal. You know that $100 Wal-Mart guitar you’ve had since you were 13 and you finally started a band and now you’re making your big debut record? It’s only going to intonate as well as it was manufactured. This is where a big part of the price tag on expensive guitars comes from. Any musical instrument, in order to be as close to perfect as possible needs to be built to exact specifications. That Gibson guitar took days of skilled labor, talent and hard work to get that good, that Steinway piano? Months! Luthiers take great pride in the precision of their craft, so you can take pride in your ax. Your fans and everyone involved in your record will thank you.
