Sponsored by the letter A.
Re-recorded the Jazz Bass parts on the Tascam 2488 using the Bass Pod XT. Things definitely sound more tuneful (or at least, more in tune…).
Hope to edit tomorrow, for remixing/remastering next week.
Regards,
djp
Posts Tagged ‘Tascam 2488
14
Jul
11
“No Position To Argue” – 140711
12
Jul
11
“King Fidget” – 120711
Sp0nsored by the letter R.
On repeated listens, I came to the conclusion that the bass line for …FIDGET was way out of tune. I mean way out of tune. Worse than that even… This was as a result of the Jazz Bass being very badly in need a of a set-up at the time of recording, a matter which is dealt with here. That having been sorted, I decided that the best thing to do would be to re-record all the bass parts (9 of ‘em). So I spent a few hours last night re-recording on the Tascam 2488, using the Bass Pod XT. It’s amazing how much easier it is to play a bass line against actual music, rather than just against beats and a metronome. The session went quite smoothly.
I spent this morning doing audio cleanup on the bass parts in Cool Edit Pro and editing in CE5. The earlier and simpler parts hardly needed any editing at all, while the more complex parts in the middle needed a bit more. I also added a touch of auto-tuning to some of the Aria parts.
All in all, the track sounds much better and is ready for remixing and mastering next week.
I must have a good listen to see if there are any more of the Jazz Bass parts that need a seeing-too. Plenty of time for that…
Regards,
djp
26
May
11
In Heaven For A Conference/Whatever Happened To The Citizens Of My Abandoned Evony City? – 260511
Sponsored by the letters M, N, O and P.
Good day/bad day…
I finally worked out what was wrong with …HEAVEN. The signal going into the CE5 stereo output was too weak, so that when I mastered and normalised the track, there was too much normalisation required and everything got distorted. So I reckoned the only thing to do was to scrap the entire mix and start from the perspective of having adequate signal at the output. And this worked a charm. I got a very decent mix put together which mastered nicely via Cubase VST/24 and AA3. And I even took the opportunity of adding in the Sawstrings 2 file which, for some reason, I’d omitted from the mix.
That having worked out nicely, I then got the mad notion of re-introducing the Ice Hall part in place of the Tabular Bells part and did an alternative mix. That worked out fine too. So now I have two different versions of the same track – which one will I put on the album?
Things didn’t go so well with …EVONY, though. Spend a lot time tweaking the mix and just when I thought I’d got it all sorted, I discovered some clipping in the X/Y/Z part, which seems to be have been due to some interference picked up by the Behringer mixer. I re-recorded the part, both through the Behringer, and even through the Tascam 2488. Not too sure if I’m happy with the results, and I ran out of time eventually, so I’ll have to have another go at this tomorrow.
Grrr…
Regards,
djp
26
Mar
11
Yes, it’s another session…
Sponsored by the letter C.
A second cut at a bass line for Peter Fitzpatrick’s song, Dirty Little Secret
Recorded 15 bass parts on the Tascam 2488, using the 4003 and Bass Pod XT.
Unusually for me, I played the bass with the fingers (actually, one finger…) rather than with a plec. Got a nice “borpy” bass sound, verging somewhat towards the sound of Free’s Andy Fraser on All Right Now. But nowhere near as good.
I need to do some audio cleanup of the wavs tomorrow and then I’ll Soundcloud ‘em for Peter. Hope he likes the work.
Regards,
djp
Sponsored by the letters U and W.
Spent a lot of the day recording a bass line for Peter Fitzpatrick for a song entitled Through The Lens. I recorded 10 different parts on the Tascam 2488 using the 4003 and the Bass Pod XT.
An interesting blend of styles:- Jah Wobble in the verses and Bruce Foxton in the choruses. I was going to do something fancy for the middle 8, but I chickened out and went for a plain vanilla line.
I’ll spend a bit of time doing audio cleanup and such, and then put it up on Soundcloud for Peter. Hopefully he’ll like it.
I have another session to do for him, which I hope to nail during the course of the week. And then who knows…?
Regards,
djp
Sponsored by the letter S.
Recorded 9 different guitar parts on the Tascam 2488 using the 360 and the Pod 2.0. Very interesting results.
And that, my friends, would seem to complete the tracking of bass and guitar parts. Another project milestone reached!
Tomorrow, I hope to record an overdue bass session for Peter Fitzpatrick. That is, if the sky hasn’t fallen in the meantime…
Regards,
djp
18
Mar
11
King Fidget – 180311
Sponsored by the letters F, G, H, I and J.
A challenging day to say the least.
I had a tradesman coming round today (not that he was unconscious or anything…), so I decided not to track guitar parts. Instead, I decided to address the issue of programming synth parts for King Fidget.
And it was going so well…
…I programmed up a nice little arpeggiated synth line in CE5 using the MinimogueVA VST plugin (Big Drift). Purely out of idle curiosity, I started messing around with the LFO settings and came up with some very interesting variations that I wanted to keep. I tried to record these as automations, but for some reason this wouldn’t work. Being prudent, and dreading the possibility of losing the synth line I’d already programmed, I recorded it to audio using the Behringer mixer and the Phonic Firefly.
I kept working at my LFO variations, but to no avail. Since the automation angle wasn’t working, I got the bright idea of recording the synth line to CE5 and adjusting the LFO ”live”, as it were. But as soon as I started trying to record the adjustments, all types of crap happened; either the adjustments wouldn’t “take”, or the Minimogue refused to work at all. Most frustrating. I tried to copy the MIDI part onto other VST plugins, but they either didn’t sound right, or they wouldn’t work – in any event, I couldn’t recreate the arpeggio off the Minimogue.
I even tried running the MIDI part through the Juno-D, but the LFO adjustments wouldn’t take. Total bummer. I couldn’t record the adjustments, but I could play them. Occasionally…
…it was very late in the day, when I finally got the bright idea to record the adjustments “live” onto the Tascam 2488. After much trial and error, I got things working smoothly. The only complication was the fact that I had to solo the Minimogue while making the adjustments, so I had no idea, while recording, whether the adjustments would work properly within the context of the track. When I eventually transferred the wavs in CE5 and played back my efforts, I found the adjustments worked well enough, for the most part. I may, or may not, run both synth lines together from time to time in the mix and at other times switch between the two.
Oh, and I almost forgot – I programmed 3 nice ambient-sounding parts off the JV-880 (JP Heaven) and recorded them to audio.
After the day’s efforts, I now find that the track has taken off on a somewhat unexpected direction – the power of synths, eh? Editing and mixing should be fun…
Regards,
djp
Sponsored by the letter D.
Time to welcome the return of an old friend…
Ric flair
My good old Rickenbacker 360 – still can’t play it, but I can squeeze some nice sounds out of it with a bit of trickery…
Recorded 10 different parts in a variety of “styles” (this term is used advisedly) on the Tascam 2488 using the Pod 2.0. The various bits and pieces should edit together quite nicely.
This track is really coming on a storm. Looking forward to the finished product.
Regards,
djp
Sponsored by the letter R.
Nice quick morning – recorded 11 guitar parts on the Tascam 2488 using the Les Paul Studio and the Pod 2.0. And what odd parts they are, and what an odd little track this is – very short, just around 2 minutes, but very fast. I plan to use a wah-wah pedal on the guitar parts in the final mix. Intrigued? You should be…
I’d like to thank Les for his brief, but vital, contribution to the album. Next week – the return of an old favourite…
Regards,
djp
Sponsored by the letters O and P.
Recorded 8 separate guitar parts on the Tascam 2488, using the Les Paul Studio and the Pod 2.0.
Not sure if I’m going to use them all (some of them are either dissonant or discordant - or just plain “off”) but we’ll see. Vaguely Keith Levine-esque…
Onwards and upwards, eh…?
Regards,
djp
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