I was gonna wait to do this (could be said about lots of things), but here we go anyway.
This afternoon, I received a package in the mail. In that package was the SuperBoT (Superbot! I am lobbying for that name -- I'm going to use it, anyway.). Jonathan has been kind enough to let me try it out for awhile. Picked it up at the post office mid-grocery run, got home, threw stuff in the freezer, and was playing it inside five minutes (well, inside ten for sure).
Obviously still getting to know the thing (the variable impedance, for instance, is cool, has a palpable effect on tone and feel -- at least with the passive setup I played today -- and merits exploration), but I couldn't resist making a quick recording before having to run out the door again.
Hastily mic-ed the cab and also took the D.I. feed from the BoT. Just the neck pickup. Details in the Soundcloud description:
Very quick and dirty recording – here's how:
Bass (Fender Power Jazz Bass Special - a “reverse” Precision with a Jazz pickup at the bridge; Reed James Vintage Vibe pickups and a middle-aged set of Ken Smith Burners strings) into a Reiner Amplification Super Box O' Tone (SuperBoT!). Unbalanced 1/4” out of the BoT into one side of a Lab Gruppen fp2200 power amp into a Michael Arnopol Soundworks MAS 112 cab, mic-ed with an Audio Technica AT-2035 into one side of a Roland Quad Capture interface. Balanced XLR out of the BoT into the other side of the Quad Capture. Everything via the Quad Capture into Garageband on a macbook, mic-ed and D.I.ed signals recorded simultaneously.
Played in the living room of my apartment as loudly as I felt I could get away with for the duration of the recording – nothing like gig level, but louder than I practice. Mic placement – about 5 feet from the cab, pointing toward it but not at any particular driver, nestled in a travel pillow atop a stool. This can no doubt be improved upon.
Everything in one take, pausing only to flip switches on the BoT. Everything on the neck pickup, with the tone control on the bass fully open. Order is no boost, gain boost, bass boost, treble boost, gain and bass boosts, then gain, bass, and treble boosts. I didn't record bass+treble (would've been a good one) or gain + treble.
I wasn't sure about sharing the mic-ed recording -- there's an art to mic-ing cabs, which I've largely ignored here. Maybe I'll ask Mike or the Big E guys how they recommend going about it. Meanwhile, I figured putting the mic out-in-the-room-ish would give a general sense of the sound without me having to worry about being too precise with with it. In addition to room echo, the mic's picking up the acoustic sound of my bass/fingers/fret clank. I am more conscious of my sins as they are conveyed through these things -- and of my voice! -- here than in the direct recording, but I don't feel bad enough about either to prevent my sharing it in the name of science.
Here's the D.I.:
The coming days are pretty busy for me, but I'll post recordings and observations as I'm able.
That's all for now!
. I cut lows and boosted mids so I could hear myself better. I didn't say anything because (1) it was a sub gig, and (2) I didn't know what it sounded like out front.
