Elusive tone

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rokket
  • Start date Start date
Rokket

Rokket

Trailing Behind Again
This is going to take a bit to get to the point, but I promise, there is one...

When I first started to record, of course I had no idea about proper tracking, levels or anything else. I didn't know about the no no's of DI guitar, nothing.

I had a Tascam MF-P01 4-track cassette recorder. One input, one track at a time, no bouncing... you get the picture. I'm sure some of you have used them.

So I was recording song "ideas" more than anything else. And one day I came across a real cool one, so I hooked up the ol' drum machine, laid down a good beat, and the dug out my acoustic with a sound hole pickup and laid down two opposing guitar lines. I was digging it.

After listening to it 10 or 12 times, I was revved up and laid the bass line. The bass line really carries this "idea".

And that tone!!! :eek:

Everytime I listen to this piece, I marvel at the tone of my bass. I didn't own or even have a clue about DI boxes, so it was straight into the MF-P01...

To this day, I can't replicate the tone I got on that song. I know it's 90% in my playing, because I have recorded other songs on that same unit with the same setup, and it just doesn't sound like that.

I will be forever in search of that tone.

Anyone else ever capture a certain guitar or bass tone that just gave you goosebumps and you couldn't recapture it no matter what?

Merry Christmas, and screw all the politically correct nonsense!
 
If I can, I'll post a short clip so you can hear what I hear. It's kind of hard to do right now, since I am not home and this is a gov't pc with no audio apps at all in it...
 
Rokket said:
If I can, I'll post a short clip so you can hear what I hear. It's kind of hard to do right now, since I am not home and this is a gov't pc with no audio apps at all in it...
Click to expand...

I once ran a cheap Casio keyboard from the 70's through a Morley wah pedal and straight into my Tascam US122. I used the cheap, cheesy Pipe Organ setting on the keyboard, and just started to 'swell' the sound with my foot. Wow. It was like early Motown. You know the organ sound in 'Midnight Hour' by Wilson Pickett? It was like that, but with more bass, and more fluid. God I loved that sound.

Anyway, I can't do it anymore, because my first keyboard just gave up on me after nearly 28 years. I have a new one, but that kinda Hammond-esque vibe with the wah pedal just isn't there. I feel your pain.
 
32-20-Blues said:
I once ran a cheap Casio keyboard from the 70's through a Morley wah pedal and straight into my Tascam US122. I used the cheap, cheesy Pipe Organ setting on the keyboard, and just started to 'swell' the sound with my foot. Wow. It was like early Motown. You know the organ sound in 'Midnight Hour' by Wilson Pickett? It was like that, but with more bass, and more fluid. God I loved that sound.

Anyway, I can't do it anymore, because my first keyboard just gave up on me after nearly 28 years. I have a new one, but that kinda Hammond-esque vibe with the wah pedal just isn't there. I feel your pain.
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And I'm feeling yours. I had a Peavey Tracer, it was the first guitar I ever bought on my own that was actually a lefty. I loved that guitar's tone, even though it had stock pickups. I went home in August and broke her out only to find the locking pins on the nut were missing so I couldn't restring and tune her. I contacted Peavey about replacements, but they stopped producing them in 1988.... my only hope is a pawn shop.
God I miss that guitar... :(
 
Best bass tone I ever got, I had no clue what I was doing.

Fender Precision straight into the mixer. Then the mixer broke, I cussed, and I sold the bass.

Never had that sound since.....and I cant figure out at all how to get it back!
 
soundchaser59 said:
Best bass tone I ever got, I had no clue what I was doing.

Fender Precision straight into the mixer. Then the mixer broke, I cussed, and I sold the bass.

Never had that sound since.....and I cant figure out at all how to get it back!
Click to expand...
Like I said earlier, 90% of it is probably in the playing. the mood you are in, how warmed up you are, etc...

But a lot of it is also in the instrument. I know that I've played 3 or 4 Fender Jazz basses in a shop and they all felt different and played different. The tone was similar, but there were differences there too. I think the pickups have something to do with it: pickup "A" was made on Monday, when the guy was just getting back to work after a long weekend of drinking with the boys, so it wasn't wound quite perfect. Pickup "B" was made on Friday when he just wanted to meet his quota and get out of there to go drinking with the boys, so it was hurried. Pickup "C" was made on Wednesday, and he was back into the routine, so it was done "perfect".
Same with guitar necks, some are quirky. Some feel smooth, while the same guitar next to it, the neck just doesn't feel right.
Am I getting too deep? I can never tell...
 
I still haven't gotten a good sound, no matter how hard I try or don't try. At least you guys have gotten it once. :confused:
 
there's that old thing, I never did, to take notes...

I wonder how many Engineers really take notes?
So when someone says "hey how'd you get that great bass sound?"

They actually know how they got the sound or can refer to the notes and dial it in on demand.

or like me, they say "damn we were just messing about, I don't know how we got it?...i think we ran the bass into a Alesis 2630...or was it a Joe Meek...hmmmmaybe it was a mic'd amp? we were pretty drunk??? I think it was a DI and ...no, no...it must have been a Ampeg cabinet we mic'd?"
I look back at my early recordings and it was lack of skills and technique, not the equipment really. frkn Caveman Recording methods....clueless recording concepts of cavemen....drums that sound like garbage cans, headphone mixes that sound like shit in the car, all of these basic things...

AC/DC comes to mind, when the repeating of the "sounds" comes up. They apparently know how to get the same sound, over and over for nearly every album. There's something cool about that ability to be consistent and ability to dial it in on demand.
 
I got a guitar sound once that I could never get again. It sounded a little like Shellac's guitar sound. Same guitar, amp, mic, room, positions, sound card, and software. I remember slapping on some compression and reverb (didn't have a clue as to what I was doing). I was just dicking around like I always do.......scratch pad stuff that gets abandoned for the newer scratch pad stuff. I must have tried 50 times to get that sound again.
 
Man, I've had a few times that I really liked the tone...and then never got it again. I wind up dinking way too much with the stuff, and spoil it. :o
 
My problem was that I dinked with stuff, not really knowing what I was dinking with, and couldn't recreate the dinking again.
 
I'd think bass would be one of the easier ones to get a good sound, take notes and be able to re-create it consistently.

my brothers band is wasting hours trying to get a sound they "had" but because of dinking around no one paid attention....then they spend days trying to remember.

they don't have an engineer in charge, so its kind of like the musicians running the HR studio...like the Monkeys taking over the zoo. :eek:
 
that's what i feel like most of the time, a fucking monkey running a space ship. :D
 
TravisinFlorida said:
that's what i feel like most of the time, a fucking monkey running a space ship. :D
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I feel like a spaceship run by monkies... :D
 
Dogman said:
I feel like a spaceship run by monkies... :D
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I feel like the man in Planet of the Apes---surrounded by a bunch of stupid monkeys... except the monkeys are people who run retail chains....

:D
 
dgatwood said:
I feel like the man in Planet of the Apes---surrounded by a bunch of stupid monkeys... except the monkeys are people who run retail chains....

:D
Click to expand...

that too. it's amazing how some "sales associates" get by on such little training.......or is it that they don't give a crap? imagine if the rest of the working world did that. :eek:
 
I have done this before. Now I do this after getting a tone that I like-

And the approach is unconventional. And yes, it's a guitar POD.
 

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To get the best tone from my bass I still plug it straight into my 4 track. I'll either take a line out of that into the comp OR upload the taped recording into the comp.
In concert with the above I often have a split line to my marshall amp & mic that then blend to get the best of both worlds of bass recording.
BUT, the best tone I've managed was the by accident method basically described by you. Into a cassette machine.
 
ez_willis said:
I have done this before. Now I do this after getting a tone that I like-

And the approach is unconventional. And yes, it's a guitar POD.
Click to expand...
Wow - that is odd!

The Joe Meek unit is nice, so personally I'd imagine going straight into that would be the best option?!
Surely the POD is just adding mud and or noise?

Post up a sample of a simple bass signal through the Joe Meek alone, and then the version with some POD mixed in. I'd be interested to hear it and why you might be doing it!

Cheers :)
 
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