tips...018.
A REAL RECORDING SESSION WITH POWERTRACKS.(cont.).
ok..lets deal with mr bassman.
we now have the rhythm guitars working well mebe
double tracked for reinforcement.
mebe reinforced with some ptw fx.
let me say , just before i get to the bass track..
and appropo to this post particularly is what i
call "guerilla recording".
a wise and very kind to me audio engineer (who i swear could wring sounds out of
a tin can...lol,.) once said to me 30 yrs ago,
to use guerila recording ideas.
what is "guerilla recording".
basically its getting a song down with little money,
and not much gear. and youll see that many of my tips
use this idea. a good example of GR is...u see a crummy old
midi sound module with some sounds in for 50 buks at a yard sale or in a pawn shop.
some might bypass it. but you might be surprised what sounds
you can wring out of it n even weird sounds useing ptw effects n
mebe some guitar pedals.
for the beginning recordist there are a slew of
deals like this out there.
me personally.i LOVE things discarded by others.
cos its a challenge to see what i can wring out of them.
so how does this relate to mr bassmann ??
he arrives, to the studio...but no bass..cos assumed the studio had one.
which u dont..whaddya do ??
theres a trik.,.just to produce a filler bass track.
take a guitar and cut the treble and play the bass notes on the
6th n 5th strings. then invoke mebe after recording some experimentation with
ptw's compressor. ive fooled some layman with this down low in the mix.
mebe try the ptw 5 band eq. (EDIT>>>audio effects>>>tone control.)
notice the drop down window. notice the "low n punchy" setting for example
n many of the other settings or try your own setting.
try also the graphic eq....(bass boost setting.)
and the parametric eq for even finer experimentation.
(i'll get into eq'ing more in later posts.)
just be CAREFULL...if the bass has been recorded too hot..
and u apply eq u might break thru the 0db digital brick wall.
thus before experimenting with eq..select whole in audio
edit window..then..
edit>>>audio effects>>>gain change, .and in the drop down select -3 or -6db n process ,
whichever is most appropriate.
and this brings me to a point why normalising is sometimes or often wrong.
BECAUSE...later u might do a boost for example and break
thru the digital brick wall.
thus dont be too eager to use normalisation.
once again its choosing the right tool at the right time.

just experiment with it. and see what u can do with that guitar as bass track.
mebe try just a tinge of flangeing.
note..something to think about.
u solo the guitar acting as a bass track.
(to solo...select track then S icon.)..
but by itself it dont sound so great.
this is a dodgy way to do things.
its best to listen in conjuction with the other tracks.
in this case the drums n guitars.
it might just fill in nice.
(ive actually sometimes when ive not had a bass been able to fool some friends with
a guitar as bass, where ive conditioned the track somewhat).
another trik.try doubling the track by playing it again,
mebe use a different guitar amp with different settings where youve
eq'd favoring bass frequencies.
once again its lots of experimentation and being prepared to
spend the time.
another trik applicable to whether useing a real bass or a guitar as a bass is .....if u have one..
use a bass patch on a midi keyboard. and record the audio out on the midi keyboard to a ptw audio trak.
mebe the pitch is too high that you recorded to sound like a bass.
in this case try the ptach in ptw's pitch shift (clik down arrow.)
that says octave down. dont necessarily use the bass patch on a synth.
mebe some other patch shifted down an octave in ptw..sounds better just under the
guitar as bass track.
to recap.
in this scenario.lets say track 10 is the guitar used as bass track.
and track 11 a synth used as bass track.
tho laborious....if u had no midi keyboard..and the song was just a few number of chords u could paint in
bass notes in ptw's piano roll window.
there is also another interesting way....i call it the poor mans rhythm section.
i'll briefly touch on it here..and explain in more detail later.
once i have more basic stuff detailed.
you CAN make a rhythm section, comsisting of many different midi instruments out of drum patterns..!!
no i'm not nuts ....lol. you can make base tracks or trumpet tracks or any type of track.
now HE IS REALLY NUTS i hear u say. lol.
nope. remember midi is just data.
do this sometime. set up a midi pattern useing several midi drums.
and say useing the drum grid editor. and plonk on a track for one bar.
then on a second track copy it to bar 2, then on a third trak to bar 3.
ITS A TRICK..follow me. now look in the bars window and loo n behold the tracks are filled in.
with midi data.and so is notation !
now go to the classics window and useing your guitar to tune to..
bar one on first track.set key such that when it plays back the notes
are around a C, on next track a F , and on next track a G.
(youll have to experiment a bit with key values.)
set all 3 tracks for a bass patch. notice what happens ??
wow !..we have a bass playing..!!
try now a trumpet patch or any other patch.wow trumpet or whatever.
al without a midi keyboard.
believe it or not for fun ive actually done whole songs where the whole
rhythm section was derived from the drum pattern.
with the bass changeing chords etc.
its a trik ...lol. lots of work .but a trik.
if u know your music theory..of course an implication is useing the right intervals in
the original drum grid pattern. and of course u can always use the piano roll
and ptw's event editor to change notes etc etc.
also think about this. a different midi track is needed for each chord change.
thus if the song has chords in it C , B flat and F for example..
youll need a track for each chord...related to the bass.
if you follow all this correctly....wow..lol n behold...
youll see also the bars window showing all the blocks filled in
where the chord changes occur !!
so..in the foregoing situation where the bass player didnt have a bass, if u were adept...
u could create a bass track from the drum pattern as a filler bass.
just to keep things moveing along or use the guitar as bass trik.

now lets assume we do have a bass.
there are lots of ways...a slew in fact.
some people will go naked into a direct box.
others mic a bass amp in conjunction with a direct box.
others a bass rockman. others useing other bass specific gadgets for
improving the sound of the bass on its way to the sound card.
some people might for example record bass on track 10 in ptw useing the direct box.
then reinforce it by say playing a bass thru another bass gadget and recording on track 11.
(or whichever tracks youve designated as bas tracks to record to.)
ie...if its a wimpy bass .mebe try double tracking it.
but for our purposes.
lets say we record CEFE bass to track 10 via a direct box.
thus we would name track 10. bass...direct box.
(updateing our track sheet of course that we made for the song.)
after recording the bass...see if it can be tightened a bit.
select whole in audio edit window...invoke ptw's noise gate...
(some basses might have some low end noise.or bass devices.)
and try various settings for threshold. say -23db to start.
if u find your cutting out signal try -25db or lower.
it depends the level the bass was recorded at.
you could also try duplicating the bas to trak 11 for example then shifting
trak 11 forward a few milliseconds n see if it thinkens up a wimpy bass in conjunction with eq.
for broad quik eq corrections i often find ptw's tone control
rather usefull.

the next topic will cover a little digression ,
cos its very important before i get to the rest of this CEFE
song and further track laying.
its called "CLEAN UP YOUR TRACKS AFTER RECORDING".
and how to tips. useing the audio edit window
and various ptw features.