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Laptop Recording Studio Logbook

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09-04-22

BASS

My bass patterns are pretty simple. The track I am working on is a 12 bar Blues standard, so I have taken my cues from that genre. I began with an octave step moving through 12 bars with a I V IV shift. I knew the vocal and keys would fill out the melodic space, and didn't need to get too carried away with a busy bassline. I wanted it to be straight and driving in this slomo dancey vibe.

I had intended on using my Sequential Split-Eight analog synth to get a bass sound. However, I started playing around in soft synths and never went back to the hardware.

bass Willow 12bars

Sharyn Brand

bass DX7 12bars

Sharyn Brand

I added a DX7 using the same midi notes. The DX7 patch adds some stereo width, some more bottom end, and some delay, hopefully giving it a bit of movement.

bass both 12bars

Sharyn Brand

I used a simple Logic ESP bass patch and tweeked the resonance to make it a bit more gritty. This I sent through to the vocalist to practise the track and get a feel for the timing I was after.

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I added this 8 bar Juno line to give the bass section a bit of funky swing and interest.

12bar bass beat 8bar bass swing

Sharyn Brand

Here is the bass and beat together.

bass JUNO 8bars

Sharyn Brand

ESP Bass

Basic patch bass patch that was tweaked by attenuating the Resonance knob

ESP bass midi part

ESP bass effects chain

Sidechain compression
FabFilter EQ, boosting the resonant frequencies
Kramer Tape saturation
Vintage EQ warmth

Sidechain trigger

I trigger the side chain compression with a metronome tick.

JUNO

JUNO bass midi part

JUNO bass effects chain

Direction mixer, reduce width making it more mono
Fabfilter EQ boost resonance

DX7

DX7 effects chain

Fabfilter EQ boost resonance

Bass Bus and effects sends

The 3 bass sounds are routed to a Bass Bus. Here I can control the level as a whole and further process.

Reflections

In putting this blog together this week I have realised I would like to change the tempo of my track. I had initially set out to compose at 105bpm. This was the tempo of the toppling vocals I want my vocalist to sing. However creating the baseline and working on the drum pattern, I feel it needs a bit more speed. This seems to lift the energy of the walking blues bass feel into a more slomo dancey vibe. It is also closer to the inspiration tracks I have been referring to. I also need to pay closer attention to the bass frequencies. My monitors are a pair of M-Audio BX5s, they are a nice little powered speaker. However I know they have a lot of colour in the low frequency range to compensate for their small size.

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