WinterMute

Always liked a bit of Giger, so these have long been favourites

plus varying amounts of distortion.

DI box into a mic pre-amp input is the usual way, some amps have DI outputs that'll do the same thing. Bass into DI will give the sound of the bass via its pre-amp, an amp will colour the sound, a box like the Line6 Stomp will add modelled amps and cab sounds. Other boxes are available, Tech 21 Bass driver DI etc. Loads of options. Depends what kind of sound you want.

Did someone leave it on a radiator? It seems to have melted... One fugly bass.

Too bloody small to let it get messy, I'd be up to my neck in tea mugs and biscuit wrappers in no time.

Mines been posted on other threads, this is it's current state.

Infra sound is well known as a physiological trigger, people who live near wind turbines are often driven to despair by the LF, anything at significant levels below 15hz will cause a physical reaction. If your bass playing is having that effect, a high pass filter set as steep as it will go (24db/octave or better) dialled in at 25 or 30Hz whilst practicing will help. Obviously you don't want to record with that set, but I've often added a 25hz gentler sloped filter in mixes to tame unruly LF below 20hz.

Anything old with a valve in it...

Unfortunately most music rooms also have amps and computers in them, not to mention people, if you don't have active airflow, they get hot and stuffy all by themselves. Even on cold days, my sound proof studio gets uncomfortable after an hour or two, I run the AC on circulate pretty much al the time.

Yup, single room AC, keeps the fresh air circulating when it's not cooling too...

My first bass amp back in the early 80's. Certainly didn't appreciate it then... Not a great pic, but that's it behind me in, I think, 1980

Nope, but he was still Rorshach...

Every time I see one of Alan's builds coming to life, I'm seriously impressed with what the man can do with a bit of old tree... That's a proper looker.

Soundproofing for bass is very expensive and a bit hit and miss if you're not an experienced builder. I've built studios for years commercially, and it cost me about £8K to soundproof my garage, but it only really works as I have utility room with 2 good doors and an exterior double skin brick wall between the studio and the house. A lot cheaper to get some really good headphones. LF is known to effect people physically (look up The Brown Sound) so it's not unfeasible that they're causing the wife's headaches.

A couple of incidental shots from Alan's workshop blog, control and battery cavities being routed.

Alan does such great things with wood, doesn't he?

See, that's the point for me, I do love a bit of pyrotechnics, Geddy Lee's playing is a huge influence, as was Jaco, but it has to work in context of the song, and often that level of virtuosity outshines the composition, there's a reason Micheal Manring plays solo... That may just be an excuse for my lack of talent however...

Not a fan of slap bass, but what fine bit of playing, talented fellow.

The new Mac Minis with the Apple Silicon chips are audio monsters, quicker than my 6 core Mac Pro, they run Logic brilliantly well, so much DSP... Cheap too, for Apple. I'm a ProTools user, I have Logic for project work, but I'm not keen, Reaper is very good but doesn't offer anything more than PT other than the price. Once Universal Audio sort controller support for Luna (if they ever do), I'll probably switch to Luna. In 25 years of running computers for audio my take is that you'll spend a good 20% more time administrating Windows than on MacOS, I run a 2015 Mac Pro, never gets above 30% DSP and I record and mix some massive productions. In the 3 years its been in the studio, it's not been touched but for updates to OS, PT and plug-ins. One piece of advice, get more RAM, 32Gb is good, 64GB is better. RAM is good. I'd go with Logic on an M1 Mini were I you.

It's a beast, the combination of the Shelford channel and the stomp on separate tracks gives me a ton of options in the mix, never had a bad bass sound from it. (or guitar for that matter).

Not in my studio... do not filter bass sounds, a steep 25Hz filter only if you really, really must, let the mix engineer decide what he wants in the LF. definitely don't filter over 10K, plenty of useable stuff on a bass above 10K. What he said. Also Line 6 Stomp, does amp and cab sim and a bunch of FX too, choice of compressors and limiters etc. Takes a bit of learning, but sounds very good. I take a feed from the stomp and a feed from the Rupert Neve DI in the Shelford channel, mix the two.

As I remember it was an 8x10 and a flightcased Warwick thumb 5 in the boot, a TE 4x10 on the front passenger seat and a GK RB800 and a leads/pedal bag in the footwell. Fuel economy suffered a bit mind.

I got an Ampeg 8x10 in a Renault 19....

Geddy Lee set the bar for me in the late 70s, stringy twang played aggressively with distortion to suit, I employ that tone now, on both fretted and fretless, I went through a stage in the 80’s of clean and powerful, but have always come back to pre-amp/valve distortion. 34” scale with heavy bridge orientated pick-ups. Latterly I’ve come to love rosewood fingerboards, but I played a wenge/bubinga Thumb for 20 years. Loved Pastorious’ tone, Les Claypool, Jack Bruce in places, anyone who didn’t just want to fill in the LF...