WinterMute

I try these things as they arrive and, whilst they are getting better, they really can't match the work of even the most basically competent mix/mastering engineer. Even the Nugen mastering suite templates are rubbish. If you have no-one available you can turn to or you just can't afford to pay a professional/decent amateur, then maybe, but a little persistence and a little guidance can produce results that are objectively better than AI mix templates IMO. This may not always be the case, I think there's probably going to be a point where running your tracks through an AI mix device will produce serviceable work, but it's not there yet.

We had David Baddiel hosting at the Barbican last night, which made for some fascinating conversation about Geddy's Jewish heritage and his parents experiences in the camps. Alex turned up for the second half Q&A which was hilarious and moving by turns, I hadn't expected Geddy to be so candid about Neil Peart's passing. What a fine night all round .

Same architect did my live room...

Geddy Lee Tony Levin Mick Karn Loads of great players on that list, but it's not a bassist's list without Levin and Karn.

If it worked for Freddie... etc. Can't do it with a U47 however...😆

Always used Schaller, have them on my Bongo 5, they hold the strap off the body well and the new design has a grub screw in the collar that solves the old "working loose" issue that the original design suffered from.

Apart from the app itself, it's always useful having an iLok associated with a Protools install for plug-in authorisations, you tell yourself you won't be using them, but you will...

As BigRedX notes, there is a big "depends" on al studio technology, and what it depends on largely is the style of music, if one was tracking a Jazz album, the entire band could be in the studio, which would have been selected for the job, there would be very little in the way of dynamic range control and the edit and mix stage would be almost entirely free of time-based correction. If it was a Math-core metal band, the drums may well be programmed, the dynamics smashed flat and everyone playing their parts separately with multiple OD and punch ins, all to click. The edit/mix could be a sea of elastic audio and quantised edits. It's definitely horses for courses. I'm not a fan of one size fits all, you have to approach each and every project from the perspective of discovering the best techniques to capture and enhance what the band /artist (and producer) are trying to achieve. Certainly playing to click and applying quantise will make the engineers job easier in the long run, but does it make the outcome sound better? The answer is "it depends".

I loved the Quad, there's a real sense of history about it, but I love the flagstone corridor outside the coach house for a bit of violent drum room action.

That's certainly one way, although drum booths were a good result if you were intending to replace ambience later in the mix. I learned to mic bands in open rooms to minimise bleed, or to utilise it if there was no intention to fix the performances in post. I've run many sessions where the entire bands rhythm section is taken in one pass, and the take that was used was the one that felt best provided there were no terminal mistakes. That really did test the ability of 3 or 4 musicians to play a track without mistakes and whilst creating the groove dynamic and performance required. There is a good reason that professional musicians are professional.

Completely agree with both you and Robbie, the downside is that you need a recording space that is capable of housing a full group and sounds good enough to act as recording space, that's why the legendary rooms found their fame, Abbey Road studio 2, The Mill, Rockfield studio 1 (although the coach house is better for drums IMO), Knopflers GB studios, Konk, Rock City etc. The trend for total isolation and overdubbing came as studios got cheaper and smaller, you can record and mix to excellent results on a laptop IF you have a decent acoustic space to record and mix in. I always track at least drums and bass together with guide guitars and vocals if possible, I'll only OD bass if really necessary, but the groove has already been established between the players, it fells better generally. If I can get the whole band together then the majority of the backing track goes down in one go and the overdubs are done to fix errors or add parts. Generally vocals are the only exception. This does mean musicians have to be good enough tp play a whole song all the way through without errors however, this is not a given.

There’s a difference between an engineer led session and a producer led session. producers should set the style and tone of the project in consultation with the musicians, engineers interpreted that vision.

Isn't that what I said? It's what I meant... Studio engineers respond to the needs of the musicians, musicians shouldn't be compromised by engineers working practices. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

The click can incorporate the groove, but you have to plan for it and spend some time in preproduction to get it right. I'm perfectly happy to allow a band to run without a click, provided they can keep decent time, I'll then use the Extract Groove function in protools to create a tempo map of the track so I can do all the time alignment and loop stuff that inevitably turns up later... Conforming a track to the DAW timeline is the most powerful editing tool an engineer has, regardless of whether it came from a click or a tempo map. In my own work, I've come to view the tracking sessions as raw material for the edit, I can re-arrange whole song structures knowing I can preserve feel and intensity, I can quantise audio parts knowing the groove is going to inform everything that's edited. The technology can work for the music, but you have to put the hours in. I completely recognise that many bands simply can't afford the time or money needed to do this kind of detailed work, but the results are undeniably better. Always speak with your engineer ahead of the session and make sure they're going to do what you need them to do, they certainly shouldn't be imposing techniques on you as musicians, they should be responding to the way you want to work.

Ah, the days of sessions with a Studer 827, a Mitsi 32 track and an Atari running some version of Notator with that SMPTE box on the side... I still occasionally run sessions involving a 24 track, but it's usually with the CLASP system as an input to protools. I have expectations of behaviour in studios, I expect the sessions to be pre-produced so that everyone knows what is to be achieved, how it's to be achieved and that everyone involved is capable of achieving it. Unless the session is a songwriting or experimental session, it'll run to an agreed plan. I also expect decent timekeeping and communication, and not to be surprised at 02:00 with "Can we just add..." type requests when the session is supposed to finish at 23:00. I don't do overnights anymore, tired musicians don't play well, tired engineers make mistakes. I also expect consideration and manners, regardless of how badly things might be going, and they do go badly wrong occasionally, I have thrown clients out of studios for being rude/violent/drunk/high, and shall continue to do so. It's baseline good behaviour. The best sessions are well planned, well prepared and well managed, that way whatever magic may happen can do so without technical constraints. That isn't to say there won't be a bassist standing on an 8x10 or a singer running in circles screaming, because those things happen, but I want the process nailed down before the chaos can start.

I have 3 or 4 in my baseline rigs, a pre-amp, an amp and and amp/cab combo, the pre-amp and amp are my captures. It'll be really interesting if they get to the point of being able to capture time-domain effects like chorus etc.

Not really, obviously there's a technical processing limit, but I've run multiple capture on 4 independent channels and not seen it slow down or glitch. I think you'd run out of need before it ran out of grunt.

That's going to depend on how good the captures are, I've heard some brilliant captures from some users and some bloody awful ones that don't sound anything like the unit they pretend to be, the great thing is that the user captures are offered free of charge, so you can just keep looking, or even borrow a Mircrotubes and try to make your own. That said the Neural version is pretty good.

It's not a bad shout actually, I used the Pod XT Pro for many years, and a very serviceable unit it was, I had a Pod XT as a back up, which lacks the inputs and outputs but sounds just as good. I still have the XT bean in my studio, there are some things it does that the QC can't. Dirt cheap now too.

Agreed, it is, as Owen notes, MASSIVE overkill for what is essentially the modelling of an amp and cab...! I will say the form factor lends itself much more readily to live performance than the Kemper, even with the foot controller, and Neural have put a lot of thought into how the unit would be used live with a range of modes to suit most players, it stores input gains as part of patches for instance, and has a master output volume etc. I move between fretted and fretless basses, with varying outputs, and the QC seems able to deal with it well enough. Given I'm modelling an SVT + fridge stack with a RB800 and 2x12 for the HF with LA2A limiters and a few overdrives and distortions, I reckon £1500 is a decent price just to save my lower back. YMMV, obvs, it's great that there's so much choice out there now, not just catering for our 6 stringed brethren.

The Quad Cortex from Neural DSP does a very similar job, but is the same kind of "rig in a box" that the Helix etc are. Their Neural Capture feature allows you to capture the sound of an amp or pre-amp and store it as a editable patch, this can include cabs or you can create IR's to simulate the cab separately. It's a very successful if somewhat complex process that makes for useable hardware models. Not a cheap option by any means though, same kind of money as the other big players, it is, however, a lot smaller and is very easy to use with it's touchscreen and rotary footswitches. I replaced an HX Stomp with mine and I regularly work with a veteran Helix user, I prefer the QC to the Helix. I think it's a better system than the Kemper, although probably not quite as stellar as the Fractal Systems pro unit.

We used Main Stage on a Mac or occasionally Garage Band on an iPad but we had a cheapish 4 output interface, send the stereo track with the backing through 1 and 2, and the click through 3 to a headphone amp to the drummer, everyone listens to the drummer, who listens to the click... We found that a decent headphone amp is essential to get the click loud enough, the headphone output on the interface wasn't up to the job. You can send a sub mix of the backing through to the drummer too, if he wants to hear the track. You'll obviously need to set your click track up with a count in for the drummer to begin his count for you guys. Some issues to look at: How do you run click for a track with no drums in the intro? We used to have the drummer peddle the hi-hat or play a pattern with a shaker. Alternatively, you could run with IEM for the band all listening to the submix with the click, but I found that tended to spoil my enjoyment of the whole process... You do need to allocate the task of managing the tech to someone, preferably the drummer himself, assuming he can handle the responsibility!

Depends on what the song requires, via a Quad Cortex, I'll build a sound to suit the track from a few general presets. The constants are 5 strings and round wounds. I've used the same Boss Bass Chorus pedal for 40 years on my fretless. I have a sound for my originals projects, which is a bi-amped patch using an SVT 3 model into a 2x12 EV IR for the LF and a GK 800RB into a 4x10 TE IR for the HF, both with switchable distortion and chorus paths and an LA2 limiter model on the mixed output, which is suitable filthy when needed, but behaves itself in decent company.

Coming in: La Villa Strangiato by Rush with co-ordinated pall bearer dance moves. Reflection: Take this Waltz by Leonard Cohen with optional waltzing. Bu**ering off: Ace of Spades by Motörhead at full volume, you win some, lose some, it's all the same to me. Additionally, no black, primary colours only and big hats, because you absolutely cannot feel sad in a big f*cking hat.