On 8 March 2016 I posted a video on You Tube where I demonstrated the complete process of changing strings on my Music Man Classic Stingray bass guitar. The video is also posted on this blog. In that video I mentioned the reason I was putting a set of new strings on my bass. The reason was that I wanted the best possible amount of brightness/treble in my sound for an upcoming recording session … and that the engineer/mixer could always cut treble, but not boost treble. (Boosting non-existent high frequencies only leads to undesirable hiss.)

The recording session has come and gone. So what happened in that session?

As usual for most sessions involving bass guitar (double bass is different) little time was spent in getting a bass sound. In fact, the bass sound itself was fine, but ultimately we ended up with too much fret buzz.

This happens with new strings. I made the mistake of keeping the action (the distance of the strings from the frets) the same as for live playing. Initially this sounded fine, but we ultimately decided to re-record the bass with a different setup.

This new “studio setup” involved raising the action of the strings so as to almost eliminate fret buzz. We left just enough fret buzz to give the bass sound that “live feel” without too much rattle. Of course, raising the action also puts more tension on the truss rod, making it more concave. In addition, the intonation had to be adjusted at the bridge saddles.

For many recording sessions during the past 40 years I have had to change to a “studio setup” on my basses – so this situation was not new to me.

We may need to be able to make such adjustments on the spot.

We were running out of time, however, and the session drummer, Pete Wilkins (Pete and I played together in a jazz fusion band about 10 years ago) had to leave for a gig. So we decided to do the remaining tracks with drums only in the allocated studio time and to record the remainder of the bass tracks separately at a later date.

By the way, Pete has toured with Blue King Brown and recorded with Ash Grunwald. Here is a quote from WikiPedia:

•    In late 2014, Ash headed back into the studio, this time taking with him Ian Perez keyboardist for Wolfmother and Pete Wilkins, former drummer for Blue King Brown. Under the guidance of famed American Producer Nick DiDia (Springsteen, Rage Against The Machine, Pearl Jam, Powderfinger) an intense focus was brought onto the structure of song composition, to record an album that has been described sonically as ‘psychedelic blues using synth rather than stringed bass’ and conceptually as ‘strongly political, rumbling from the depths of internal rage.’

In this session two typical studio experiences arose. They can be summarized as follows:
1. It takes longer than you expect.
(Getting a good drum sound took about 4 hours. Yes, there are many elements involved in getting a “natural” sound on a recording.)

2. Be prepared to adapt.
(To expect the unexpected and be willing and able to adapt is essential in most musical situations.)

Think about how this applies to you.

I hope you can gain from some of my experiences.

…To Be Continued …

In the next episodes of sharing this particular studio experience with you, I will tell you how I actually prepared the songs and what we (the producer and me) did to get an awesome fretless bass sound, plus, of course, a much much better sound out of my Stingray.

Breaking news: The upcoming single from this recording session is mixed and ready for mastering and release on iTunes soon. Of course I will keep you updated on the progress. Plus, a video to support the single is in the pipeline, too.