Author Topic: Recording fretless bass, want advice (Read 301 times)

gtrguy · « **on:** January 16, 2015, 10:37:45 AM »

I am starting tracking a new song with my Yamaha TRB-6P that has been converted to fretless. I am wanting advice on how to get that slick somewhat processed fretless tone.

The bass itself sounds great. In fact, I bought it from a band in NY that has used it on their CDs that I have in my collection and it sounds fantastic.

My signal chain is:
Yamaha TRB/ Alembic F2-B preamp/ Meek SC3 compressor/ audio to digital converters/ computer (Sonar 8.5 Producer). It already sounds good, but I don't have that slick tone I want.

Can someone offer advice? Is it a plug in or chorus or reverb or? It is not the playing part.

Thanks,
Dave

pauldo · « **Reply #1 on:** January 17, 2015, 05:04:13 AM »

Do you have any well known examples of what you mean by 'slick tone'?

2 cents:
I don't record much with a fretless but I do find that adding chorus to a fretless is always a nice accoutrement- generally a lower string height will give you more mwah.

edwardofhuncote · « **Reply #2 on:** January 17, 2015, 05:54:39 AM »

+1 on chorus. I use it on upright too.

edwin · « **Reply #3 on:** January 18, 2015, 04:58:45 PM »

You could always find out what their signal chain was. Where were the CDs recorded? Who was the engineer?

What conversion are you using? At this point, I would try bypassing all the electronics you have going on and recording with a very high quality DI box. See if you can find a REDDI. Conversion and DIs do make a difference.

Can you point us to a sample of the sound? In my view, having recorded my fretless a bunch, chorus is not needed in any generic way and doesn't make it sound any slicker.

wfmandmusic · « **Reply #4 on:** January 18, 2015, 06:07:17 PM »

Hi Dave, not sure exactly what you mean by slick tone but I'll give it a shot. I've had lots of experience recording a fretless. Really what it boils down to is how you play the instrument. You can really accent the fact that it is fretless and get a deep slick tone or you can actually play it so no one can even tell it's a fretless. If you play it like a fretted bass and you have very clean technique, you are not going to get a slick tone. If you wet it down, slide on the fretboard, use vibrato, you will slicker it up. No chorus needed. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're looking for, your signal chain should not make that much of a difference. I'll post two clips. The first recording is slicked up in parts. (track

https://soundcloud.com/wfmandmusic/08-track-08

Go to 14:25 in this recording and you will hear not so slick. Both fretless.

https://soundcloud.com/wfmandmusic/earth-pigs

gtrguy · « **Reply #5 on:** January 19, 2015, 01:28:51 PM »

Here is a site where the fretless sounds nice, he says to use reverb (you have to click on the video). My bass sounds like a fretless and sounds good, it is the effects that I am after. Sandin Wilson has a CD called 'Into my World' where he gets great fretless tone (youtube). I know him and use some of the same gear he has used.

Again, the bass sounds good, it is the other post-tracking effects I am after.

Thanks for the help BTW.

wfmandmusic · « **Reply #6 on:** January 19, 2015, 02:23:21 PM »

Sorry I went in the wrong direction (story of my life). Yes that's a slick fretless tone. Deep with lots of sustain. Reverb is a good guess. I have to look up the deep impact pedal I saw on his board. I'm not a big pedal fan but you're never too old...

musashi · « **Reply #7 on:** January 19, 2015, 06:58:01 PM »

Hi Dave,

If this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SQoyrVnRrI

is what you mean, I can tell you how it was recorded.

A Pedulla Buzz 4-string bass with a polyester gel coating on the ebony fingerboard, Bartolini PJ pickups and onboard Bartolini EZ-Q preamp. I panned to the bridge J pickup, the neck P pickup was all but turned off. I ran through an Alembic F2B tube preamp channel with a 12AU7 (warmer to me than a 12AX7). My right hand stayed very much over the end of the fingerboard and I touched the strings with the middle part of the pads of my fingers?that is a large part of getting the bloom out of the notes. I used NO chorus. I did use a big reverb from a Lexicon box, but I adjusted the mix of wet and dry to taste. 100% wet will not get you the sound you want. Folding the verb back into two channels panned moderately hard left and right, and then mixing that with the dry bass signal will generally get the sound that I'm looking for on a singing fretless.... I don't recall using compression on the bass track individually, just on the mix as a whole. A lot of the sound really is in your hands, and your heart. If the sound brings you to tears... or.... euphoria... to that reeling/vertigo thing? Then you know you're on to something.

Hope this helps,

M

gtrguy · « **Reply #8 on:** January 20, 2015, 10:04:13 AM »

Yes, that is helpful. It looks like the reverb settings are what I need. I bought the Lexicon plug ins around XMas and there are so many variables to the reverb that it is confusing. They were on sale then and they are great plug ins.

musashi · « **Reply #9 on:** January 20, 2015, 02:03:55 PM »

I would start with a Large Hall or Canyon or whatever the big room settings are called on your plugins, and then play with the dry/wet mix, as well as how much verb you want to bring back in stereo on the respective faders. Make sure you are monitoring on near field monitors or really, really high quality studio cans (I like AKGs with double drivers on each side) so you can hear the detail. Consumer speakers and headphones are hyped to make the music sound better and usually make the material more bass heavy and more sparkly than it really is-- thus you may end up with a bass-shy mix with too little sparkle. If you can get your track to sound right through the flat platform, it should sound even better on the consumer stuff down the road.

It may help to EQ your monitoring room, or your headphones so as to make your example slick fretless tracks sound as fantastic as they can. Then, when you are working on your own tracks, you can work to make them sound just like your example. I like the ORIGINAL (not subsequent) album releases of Me'shell Ndegeocello's Plantation Lullabies and Bonnie Raitt's Luck Of The Draw as reference material.

gtrguy · « **Reply #10 on:** January 20, 2015, 08:59:23 PM »

Cool! Yes, I use AKG A240 or Audio-Technia M40fs headphones or Event 20/20 BAS active monitors with a sub for critical listening.

Oddly enough, I just squashed a tune I recorded into an MP3 file and listened to it on a cheap Rave MP3 player through a Sony MDR-V250 headphones and I heard things I had not heard before, like misplaced tom hits in 3 spots. I guess that is like listening to the set of cheap speakers studios used to keep on hand back in the day to show them what their songs would sound like on a low-fi car stereo.

In the future I will listen to all my mixes on the MP3 Rave player as well.

tomhug · « **Reply #11 on:** January 22, 2015, 03:03:31 PM »

One think I've noticed with my fretless Epic 5 is that it's more obviously fretless when I favor only one pickup. Playing technique counts for a lot too, as well as slightly lower action helping with the classic fretless MWAH timbre.

If I instantly want to go into hey I'm playing a fretless mode, I'll pan to the bridge pickup and increase the treble about 20% above flat. Viola

mario_farufyno · « **Reply #12 on:** January 23, 2015, 01:26:10 PM »

You could also enhance the mids between 800Hz to 1.2KHz, where the fretless mwahh (in the Jaco's kind of tone way) and note articulation sounds. Mudness (is this a word???) may lie a little lower, between 200~450Hz, but you must be wise to not thin your tone too much cuting your bass energie here (this is also where tone's body is felt). The low mids between 250Hz to 120Hz can thicken your tone and help to hear the bass on tiny speakers. The structure or deepness (not the fat) lies on lows below 120Hz and a B string reaches 31Hz.

All those frequencies are just a suggestion to you explore, but you must hear how they work for your bass and with your bandmates, too. Because each of us has our own exclusive tone in mind and you know that mixing also means choosing which frequency we will have to dismiss to other voices be heard. An Eq will affect frequencies above and below those centers (how much depending on its Q setting) so there will be always a overlapping happening there. And, as you are recording direct, check how you sound at engineer's seat to be sure you're not equalizing your bass onboard preamp wrong, based upon how it sounds in front of the amp inside the studio (we should assume that monitors must sound truer than a cabinet).