spiderjazz

I currently have a Fender Mexican 5 string Jazz bass, with a threaded truss rod. I've went looking for repairs locally, but they're all saying that they need to take the truss rod out from the back by taking the skunk strip out, which is going to be very costly. I see that Stewmac have a truss rod repair kit, [url="http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Truss_rods/Special_tools_for:_Truss_rods/Truss_Rod_Rescue_Kit.html"]http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Truss_rods/Special_tools_for:_Truss_rods/Truss_Rod_Rescue_Kit.html[/url] [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dm_5GDHT2A&feature=player_embedded"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dm_5GDHT2A&feature=player_embedded[/url] which would do the job for what I need, but nowhere near me seems to have the equipment/heard of it. Is there anywhere around that people know that I could send the neck to, that could perform this task for a reasonable price? I am based in Ireland, but would send the neck to England.

That sounds really cool, just listened to the first song, I get a bit of an Extreme vibe off it, which is always a good thing!

I think it sounds great for a first effort to be honest. I've only been recording stuff for a little over a year, but here are some tip's I've picked up which might be helpful. 1. You could try hi-passing and lo-passing the guitars, which is using an EQ to get rid of the low lows and the high highs, for guitar you could safely get rid of everything below 65-70hz and everything above 12-12khz without chaning the fundamental tone, but it will get rid of some noise you won't necessarily hear, but that will muddy up the mix. You could use ReaEQ in reaper to do that, most EQ's have the option though. Same with the bass, though I would normally take more lows from the guitars, and take more highs from the bass. 2. I'd drop the gain a bit on the guitar, I find by the time that you have everything layered up that you don't need as much gain as you think you do. That should help with some of the squeaks as well on the strings. 3. I'm not familiar with hydrogen, but can you send on the separate parts of the drum to separate tracks in Reaper/Audacity? If so, you could try replacing parts of the kit with better samples, which can be found for free online. I think the kick and snare need to go up in volume as well (or drop the guitars down), so that might solve the problem. 4. If you wanted some different tones, you could use the Behringer or the Boss to record a DI signal, and use some free amp plugins on your computer on the signal. LePou has some good ones for guitar, and there is a great sansamp plugin called TSE BOD. Hope these help!

Did a bit more tweaking (less gain, more fundamental) and made a short clip. There's a clip with guitars, and without, to let you hear the bass just with drums [url="http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/chug"]http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/chug[/url] [url="http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/chug-noguitar"]http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/chug-noguitar[/url]

[quote name='rOB' timestamp='1331555740' post='1574603'] Welcome to the forum. [/quote] Cheers! [quote name='silddx' timestamp='1331555891' post='1574609'] Hello mate. I started playing bass in the same way you did, but the bass took over, although I still have a guitar gig too. Guitar can be a quite good instrument in the right hands. [/quote] I've been playing guitar for 12 years at this stage so I can't see myself turning my back on it, but it'll be good to have a grounding in bass, as I'm doing the one man recording set up at the moment, and I've realised how important that a good bass line/bass tone is. [quote name='mep' timestamp='1331558763' post='1574707'] Hi & welcome. A good move on your part getting into the bass. You have come to the right place. Good luck. [/quote] Thanks. I've nearly ended up playing more bass than guitar in the past year since I'm playing bass in a band. Hopefully I'll be able to transfer any skills I learn between the two instruments.

[quote name='Chest Rockwell' timestamp='1331556554' post='1574627'] exactly. A lotta people ask me why I dont get a 5 string, then I tell them it's drop B (BF#BE) and they reply 'Oh'. it's not just having one phat string, they're ALL phat personally sound-wise I've kinda gone with the non-scientific 'plug in a Big Muff, that sounds fuzzed up and meaty' and left it at that. im long overdue for some sounds homework, but between what you get on stage/different cabs, i'm never really fully in control so as long as it's fairly reliable, I'm happy. We usually get complimented on sounding meaty/rumbling/fat, so thats cool I would also suffer from distortion getting covered by the two guitars as they're distorted too, but I'm pretty damn low n bassy, so there should be (even more) low end there. [url="http://thorun.bandcamp.com/track/god-particle"]http://thorun.bandca...ck/god-particle[/url] my bass kicks this one off. Probably our best riff to highlight my dodgy timing, it's an odd bastard and im always glad when the band kicks in around me!!! to answer the OP, Distortion 3 sounds Awesome to me!!! \m/ [/quote] That song is sweet man, love that old school heavy vibe. Certainly not lacking any low end from it anyway, so fat! [quote name='TDM' timestamp='1331561580' post='1574789'] I'm personally a fan of the sound new strings and a little bit of grit gives. The guy from Killswitch Engage, for example: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhejPhdnwj8[/media] [/quote] I'm a big fan of the sound Adam D get's on the Killswitch stuff. I thought his tone was more distorted, but listening to it in this, it's about the same as the clip from my curse [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gQzwbcK-l8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gQzwbcK-l8[/url]

[quote name='alanbass1' timestamp='1331453366' post='1572896'] Welcome aboard from another bass player who dabbles in guitar [/quote] Thanks, it's a lot more sociable over here than a lot of the guitar forums

[quote name='shizznit' timestamp='1331552843' post='1574522'] Not all overdrive/fuzz/distortion pedals will work with bass as some of them will soak up the bottom end. For full on buzzsaw bass I have always turned to my RAT pedal. The filter control on it is very useful for placing a bit more low end gurth in the tone. These days I will run a fuzz pedal through a BOSS LS-2 Line Selector and mix a dry and wet signal so I don't lose the articulation and punch from the clean bass. Tim Commerford from Rage Against The Machine uses this 2 channel method and it works really well. [/quote] I was running something similar before with a RAT model as well, basically had the bass going into the ampeg model, and splitting off after it so that a clean signal went straight to the cab, and the second signal went through a RAT before hitting the cab, mix levels to taste then. I'll give a look at it again and see how it sounds with the new bass. With the clip I posted above, I'm splitting the signal off before the signal hits any amp, so it has the ampeg clean tone, and the dual rec tone mixed in, with the dual rec hi passed at around 800hz. Big fan of Tim C's tone, the self titled gives me serious GAS pains for a stingray.

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1331549930' post='1574428'] I've never been a big fan of heavily detuning a 4 string bass....much prefer a 5 string for those lower notes, plus it means normal strings, normal (ish) tuning, no nuts to file, etc. But, I can see why people want to do it. I agree with the above regarding clean tone. Give it a try...some growl on a bass from a Sansamp can sound wonderful, but if everything is heavily saturated in high gain, I tend to lose what is going on. If the guitarist were aiming for a more rock n roll grit (like QOTSA) then distorted bass sounds great because the guitars are less crunchy...relying more on tubes breaking up than full on high gain modern distortion. Even though I grew up with some fairly 'heavy' linfluences, my heart was always in punk rock, Modern punk still has the aggressive mid scooped guitars with quite high gain, but there seems to be much more room for bass because they don't tend to detune as much. I think this is why I have never played in a proper heavy band. [/quote] My guitar tone is pretty heavily gained up (typical enough boosted 5150/dual rec type tone), so they don't need too much help in getting more grit into them I'll make up a clip in the next few days with the first clip and a cleaner setting and see how they compare.

[quote name='shizznit' timestamp='1331548704' post='1574392'] I haven't had a metal/rock set up for many years, but once upon a time I was a metal bass player. I used to use Warwick Quad 6 amps which were nice and crunchy and growly when cranked, but I also liked to switch between clean and crunchy. As there was no way of doing that via a channel footswitch I used to run the amps clean and used a DOD Bass Overdrive with the wet/dry at 25% bias to the dry signal and the drive at 50%. That gave me a really nice crunchy undertone when I wanted to dig in and give the bass good ol' fashioned hiding! Finger style or pick, it sounded awesome and it really cut through. +1 I had one a few years back and sounded amazing. [/quote] I must experiment more with putting a pedal in front of the amp, I found even with blending that it was affecting the low end more than I like, but I probably need to mess around with settings a bit more.

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1331547167' post='1574358'] I'm using clean signal myself at the moment. One guitarist and programmed drums. I found it just allows me to stick out that little bit more. Also I've found newtone strings to be an absolute godsend. They make me custom sets of strings especially for drop C tuning. I'll have a listen to the recordings when I get a mo but so much of it depends on the guitarists really. If you want to hear my particular sound then follow the link below [/quote] Also, what gauges are you using? I'm planning on ordering this set [url="http://daddario.com/DADProductDetail.Page?ActiveID=3769&productid=154"]http://daddario.com/DADProductDetail.Page?ActiveID=3769&productid=154[/url] and either using the BEAD strings, or using BADG.

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1331547167' post='1574358'] I'm using clean signal myself at the moment. One guitarist and programmed drums. I found it just allows me to stick out that little bit more. Also I've found newtone strings to be an absolute godsend. They make me custom sets of strings especially for drop C tuning. I'll have a listen to the recordings when I get a mo but so much of it depends on the guitarists really. If you want to hear my particular sound then follow the link below [/quote] Good stuff man, the bass does sit nicely in that while still being audible. Did you record an amp and process afterwards or is it a DI? I do the one man guitarist/bassist/drum programmer as well, here's a quick clip of what my bass tone was like with my old bass, an Ibanez SRX500 [url="http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/samuel-l"]http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/samuel-l[/url] I'm looking to get a bit more thump and attack out of my tone though, so hence this thread

[quote name='jazseven' timestamp='1331516069' post='1574147'] Modded ibanez tubescreamers are worth a look at for really aggressive overdrive. Only thing I use on the overdrive/distortion front. Never been a fan of bass specific fuzz pedals [/quote] I have an 808 in the signal chain before the dual rec in the clip above, maybe I just need to drop the dual rec [quote name='jazseven' timestamp='1331516273' post='1574151'] If I get round to it i'll stick up some recordings of my studio tones side by side with my live tones tomorrow [/quote] That'd be great, thanks.

[quote name='Truckstop' timestamp='1331508082' post='1574070'] I used a GK 400RB in my old band (myspace.com/purenegative (The Return and The Cider Complex are my recordings)) which had plenty of grit in it already. Other than a pretty heavey fingerstyle, completely clean. I find, if the guitars are that distorted, and the drums are that huge, clean bass is the way to go. I've never ever heard a 'metul' band that's managed to get a sweet fuzz/distorted tone cut through live or recorded. It just seems to blend in at the frequencies where the guitars leave off. Listen to bands like Lamb of God (especially New American Gospel) and Necrophagist and the bass tone is almost completely clean, and more to the point, sounds hella aggressive, raw and totally cuts through. There's something about someone shredding the hell out of a clean bass that just sounds epic! I'd work at getting a great clean tone before adding any fuzz or distortion effects. Having said that though, dist. 3 does sound sweet... but does it work with everything else? Truckstop [/quote] I've been listening to a couple of isolated bass tracks, and they do seem cleaner than I would have imagined. I have the producers edition of Sacrament, and John Campbells tone is very clean. A tone I quite like is Rex Browns, which is dirty but seems to be more of an overdrive than full on distortion [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ8rg3S3vpI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ8rg3S3vpI[/url] I think I'm gonna record a short clip tomorrow with guitars and drums, and try out a couple of different tones in the mix. [quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1331509252' post='1574082'] I love steels presence is good, but can add hiss... and can also make slight imperfections in technique stand out LOADS. Something I've battled with tirelessly! Sounds great as is though, I bet in a band mix that tone would destroy \m/ [/quote] I'm gonna try mixing it with more instruments soon and see how it turns out! [quote name='jazseven' timestamp='1331509501' post='1574084'] from personal experience everything below 70hz is just inaudible space being filled and can make stuff a bit, for lack of a better word, 'muddier' than it could otherwise be, i normally have a boost from 100-200hz but roll off almost everything below 80 and let the kick drum have some of that space (as it makes all the difference between a kick sounding triggered or tight and punchy). i also generally have a peak around 400hz and another somewhere between 1k and 2.5k and the roll off most of the topp from about 3-4k but not as steeply as I do at the bass end. my basses are both pretty mid heavy though so what works for me may not work for you you also have to bear in mind that even if your bass sounds MOTHER-FRICKING-AMAZING on it's own it may not (and in my experience it doesn't) work in the mix. More often than not when we're nearing the end of the mixing process I'll listen to the bass solo'd and be utterly amazed at how bad it sounds on its own, yet stick guitars, vocals and kit in there and it fits perfectly. Also when using a lot of distortion you'll get a way 'bigger' sound with less saturation/fizz and something a bit more overdrivey... and it should help the bass stand out more in a live situation as all that fizz will most probably just get lost in all the guitars and cymbals thats about all the advice i can give you, hopefully [i]some[/i] of will be of some use Jaz [/quote] I normally roll off from around 50-60hz in a recording, and take a dip out where the kick hits, but I haven't put an filter on the "clean" track in the clip above, might throw one on at the end so make sure it catches all the low rumble. I could lose some of the fizziness alright, so I'll try low passing lower than I am. I think I have the gain at nearly 0 on the recto model, no shortage of gain on it No doubt about judging the whole mix rather than the individual tracks, I've recently started banning myself from using the solo button while mixing I was messing around with using a big muff model and a rat before but wasn't too happy with the result, I need to give it another go though. Thanks for all the tips.

Thanks for all the comments! [quote name='tommorichards' timestamp='1331502574' post='1573944'] yeah, id have to say distortedbass 3 sounded better [/quote] Thanks [quote name='thodrik' timestamp='1331502793' post='1573951'] It really depends on the tone you are looking for, the style of the band, and how anything you record is going to mixed. You could have the greatest most cutting bass sound ever but if you decide to mix it like ...And Justice For All, then it doesn't really matter. From experience, if the guitarists are also downtuned, using an amp like the dual rectifier with a big scooped eq, and the drums are using obscenely massive sounding triggers, it can be hard to get a bass to cut through. Being honest I prefer the no 2. I just don't like the blend personally, its like two different bass sounds with each sound fighting against the other. I prefer something that just sounds a bit more cohesive, though I'm pretty old fashioned. With no 2 (even number 3) the grit might actually get lost in the guitar mix so anything you hear might just be the clean part. Both good sounds. Maybe no 2 for some kind of bass intro to a song, but number 3 would work better in a mix. No right or wrong answer really. Personally for any 'metal' metal with lots of double kick drums I would use a fairly clean sound verging on gritty, based on some kind of emulation of a valve amp being cranked, or failing that a valve amp being cranked. Then get somebody to mix it so the that the bass is heard. [/quote] Well I'll be mixing any recordings of it myself, so it's gonna be a case of trying to find a balance between that and the guitars. What I'm looking for in a bass tone is something that will glue everything together, so I want to leave a space in the mids for the guitars to shine through, and let the bass nearly totally cover the low end (below 200hz) and have a bit of grit in the mids to help it sit with the guitars and fill out the sound. I've tried running pedals in front of the amp sim, but I've found it effecting the low end too much, either by taking away the punch from it, or muddying up the low end. I get what you're saying about it sounding disjointed though, it doesn't sound like one cohesive sound. Hopefully the grit will blend in with the guitars in a mix and won't be noticeable. I must try and work with the amp sim a bit more and add some more drive via that and see how it sounds. [quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1331504403' post='1573988'] We use CGCF(AD) tuning too although our sound (stoner/sludge) has a more organic less frantic vibe to it than yours. I find myself cutting back a little more top end than I used to these days in order to occupy my space in the spectrum. What gauge strings are you using. Ive settled at 125s. I've found they give you that fat open C without the compliance of other gauges not meant for drop C tuning. I'd choose No3 btw. [/quote] I'd probably low pass it a bit harder in a recording as well, I think its cut around 9k at the moment, but it could easily go to 8k without losing anything too important. It's got the strings it came with on at the moment, so it's drop D with what I'm gonna guess are nickel 105's. I'm planning on ordering a Daddario Prosteel 5 string set at 130, and using the B, A, D and G strings. I think this should give the most even tension across the neck. [quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1331505226' post='1574004'] I like the sound, a lot! The Rectifier always sounds great on bass. I'd probably opt for an even more clanky initial attack sound on the clean blend, but thats literally a personal thing, and if i was to use it in one of my current bands [/quote] I'm getting some prosteels for her so hopefully I should get a bit more clank that way. I could try adding some more presence as well though to help bring it out.

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1331501315' post='1573907'] Far prefer the tone on distortedbass3 to that of distortedbass2. Not really "up" on newer dropped tuning sounds from a user point of view, but no.3 sounded great to me. [/quote] Thanks for listening. For the distorted bass 2, I was using a compressed DI along with the dirty signal, and I think there was an overlap in the low mids between both of them which muddied them up. Switched to an Ampeg SVT and 8x10 setup for the clean on Distorted Bass 3, gave a better lowend and took some mids out which let the dirty signal fill it out better.

I'm trying to dial in and fine tune a metal bass tone for live and recording use. I'm normally tuned in drop C (CGCF) and play with a plectrum. The stuff I play is gonna have lots of kick drums and downtuned guitars, so I want to make sure that I'm keeping the lowend punchy and not muddy. I like a bit of grit in it as well to ensure the bass is audible and not just "felt" since metal mixes are pretty dense and tracks can get lost easily. I have a clip of a tone that I have at the moment, it's with my overwater and axe fx. It's basically an Ampeg model providing the clean tone, and a dual rectifier providing the grit. Any feedback on it would be great. [url="http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/distortedbass3"]http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/distortedbass3[/url] What gear/techniques are the rest of you using to get your metal tones, and what would you consider the qualities needed for a good bass tone?

[quote name='leschirons' timestamp='1331151880' post='1568624'] Welcome to the forum. There's lots of great info here and there's also the "Other instruments" section to cater for the multi-stringer side of things along with all other stuff. [/quote] Thanks, I haven't check out the multi string section section section, must do!

Can't recommend room treatment enough, I got HS50m's a few months back, and it wasn't until I had the room positioning and the treatment sorted that I was able to fully appreciate them. [color=#333333][font=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif][size=3]Here's a post I did about some treatment that I did in my room a while back[/size][/font][/color] [url="http://talesfromthepartydungeon.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/therell-be-no-first-order-reflections-in-these-here-parts/"]http://talesfromthepartydungeon.word...se-here-parts/[/url] [color=#333333][font=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif][size=3]and there's some great information on this site about placing monitors[/size][/font][/color] [url="http://www.realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm"]http://www.realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm[/url] [color=#333333][font=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif][size=3]I've done a bit more since then, including getting monitor stands and making a panel behind the monitor speakers. In terms of results, I would put them in this order, from most to least[/size][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif][size=3]1. Speaker Placement[/size][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif][size=3]2. Bass Traps[/size][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif][size=3]3. First Reflection Panels[/size][/font][/color] [color=#333333][font=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif][size=3]Proper placement will make a huge difference, I found reading the above link and learning the rules will get you in the general ballpark, and then some trial and error will fine tune the placement.[/size][/font][/color]

I've been hanging around the forums now for a while, so it's about time I made my introductions. I've only really dipped my toe into bass for the last year due to neccesity at the start. I've played guitar for about 10 years at this stage, but started getting into recording about a year and a half ago. After borrowing friends basses for a while, I decided it was time to pick my own up. I started out with an Ibanez SRX500 (nice bass for the money), ended up "upgrading" to a Fender MIM Jazz V, which ended up a bit of a disaster as someone who had owned the bass before had managed to strip the threads on the truss rod, and I wasn't able to adjust the neck for higher tension strings. In the last week, I've bought an Overwater by Tanglewood Contemporary Jazz 4 from tom1946 on the forums here, and I'm delighted with it. I'm running into an Axe Fx for all my amp and fx needs, and running this into an interface for recording, or straight to the desk for live use (currently filling in on bass duties in a metal band). In terms of guitar gear, I've downscaled recently in terms of amps and fx, and I'm using the Axe Fx for everything. I'm playing an Ibanez RG550, "Signature" Les Paul and an 80's Charvel Model 2 body with a modern Charvel So Cal neck on her. Recording wise, I'm running a Focusrite Saffire 6 interface with Yamaha HS50m's. Some of my own recordings are in the links down below. I'm very much a guitarist playing bass, but I'm trying to sort that out so I'm looking forward to picking up some tips from the forum.

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1331036870' post='1566586'] You definitely SHOULD set the system to run at the same rate and bit depth as the original files. You do not want to load the system any more than necessary and its having to downgrade the sample rate and bit depth to output for no good reason (assuming your soundcard can handle that bit depth). 24 bit is absolutely required for getting the best out of a digital system when recording (esp drums etc), since it gives you massive headroom, so you can give far more room for peaks at the top end of the volume range. Downgrading to 16bit on the fly is definitely not lowering system load. Just lowering the quality you are hearing. [/quote] I didn't realise that, but thinking about it it makes total sense about the files having to be downgraded. My bad