Recording with an SVT

[coreyfyfe]

In my experience the best bass guitar isolation rooms start at 28' X 14' 10" with 12' pent roof. I have tried very hard to achieve good results in small isolation rooms, even ones with most of what spare area there is taken up with bass traps, have been muddy and excessively resonant in the low mid on the microphone sound.

If you're close mic'ing with a directional mic it shouldn't matter a lick what size the room is unless you're struggling with proximity effects.

 

[coreyfyfe]

What works well is recording a scratch track and re-recording the bass track last on its own. This allows isolated recording in a room with some air around the speakers and allows you to rethink the bass lines and fill in any holes or add melody once the song has been worked through by everyone else.

Remember, the bass is important. It can make or break the song.

That's the importance of pre-pro, good time to nail these things down if you're short on time. The last recording we did we had 12 hours to complete everything but vocals for one track. Our producer/engineer was in town for one week and had booked studio time to tackle some projects with a few bands. We snuck our night in between two other groups.

Anyhow, what we ended up doing for the parts on this was record rhythm and lead parts for the bass. All my melody lines and fills got tracked separately from a line that followed the rhythm guitar parts. Did all the parts DI and with my B15 but different mics for the two parts. The rough mix sounds pretty good that way.

 

[Jim C]

Couldn't disagree more with bass last:

First comes the song.
Then a well rehearsed band with decent players
Record the rhythm track live until done; punch any mistakes; always run a scratch vocal; sometimes it's a keeper.
Overdub as necessary
Mix
It's the producers job to make sure the songs are arranged and ready to record prior to th session date. Also his job to know what take and why. It's all about the feel of the track and not mechanical manipulation.

While I have put a lead vocal track together from 4 other tracks and had drummers record kick or kick snare hat as a limited drum set, this was purely due to the players ability or lack of preparation.



Everyone sees it different.
I did some session at the Power Station once in studio 4 and in walks Tony Bongiovi (owner); he had mixed some stuff at my home studio many years before. Of course I asked his opinions on recording & producing techniques and he said the bottom line comes down to 3 things.
The song, the song, & the song.

Sorry to the OP for the derail.

 

[beans-on-toast]

...It's the producers job to make sure the songs are arranged and ready to record prior to the session...

Yes, in an ideal world. From a budget and business point of view, everything should be worked out in advance. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way though.

Sometimes the song evolves during the recording process and this leads to changes. Sometimes songs are fleshed out in the studio where critical and spontaneous events can be captured properly. Granted, not everyone can afford to work that way. But even after the pre-production process, if the artist comes up with a great idea part way through, the song doesn't have to be written in stone because the producer and accountants locked it down earlier. Sometimes songs are even re-recorded because they can be done better.

Some studios and the equipment in them are magical and they become part of the development process. This isn't available in pre-production . No question, the song is most important and it provides a base that has to be there. But the recording process can help take the song to higher levels. In a case where you don't know what the final song is going to sound like until it is finished being recorded, doing the bass last allows you to put finishing touches onto the song. It is like adding the tasty icing onto the cake.

 

[Bassmec]

If you're close mic'ing with a directional mic it shouldn't matter a lick what size the room is unless you're struggling with proximity effects.

Struggling with proximity effects?
Looking at the position of the U47 tube on the SVT cab in the isolation booth photo, if that cab was working hard unpower soaked, I would be interested to know how much tube distortion you where getting from the 6550's in the SVT and how much from the VF14m pentode in the mic. unless someone had fitted an aftermarket pad for the capsule a la mode U67, in my experience that mic in stock form gets a bit sensitive for that job at anything less than say 3' off a loud SVT cab.
Unless of course the mic is nuvistor equipped and is therefore more like the gain of a Fet 47.

 

[coreyfyfe]

No tube distortion, that's not the sound we went for with the svt. And yes, it was a fet47.