That is pretty swell! You still mapping with the Bassman?



That is as hott as very hott shit indeed.

Because I am an idiot, I bought another Warm Audio TB12 Tonebeast. So now I have a pair of them.

I haven't been recording a whole lot of very much recently, but dammit, I have a nice stereo pair on the front end.

Mapping at the house exclusively with the bassman. Live I am using the Bogner excelt when I play with the casual thing, there I use the singer's AC15, I bring a small board in front of it.

Todge the bass looks great. Nice purchase.

How's the AC15 hang with a drummer, if I may ask?

As if to continue my recordinggearfoolishness, I just snagged an Audient id22 off the 'bay for a decent price. I am not lacking for inputs or quality mic pres these days, it seems. Now if I could just get around to actually recording something...

My dawgs; were you to record a one guitar player stonerdoom band who wants a big, stereo guitar sound what would you do? I am going to be doing this on Saturday.

Obviously going for the two-mic thing, but would you do anything particular? I've heard about people using a very, very slight delay to thicken things up a bit, but I am not quite sure how that works. Would that be a delay pedal with stereo dry/delay'd outputs deal or some shit? Or maybe one of them "doubler" Van Halen type shits? I don't really have any experience with this.

I'm kinda thinking my new SE ribbon + condenser or PR40 and just panning them. I suppose what I am asking is: is there any other fun, weird shit I could try?

Just looked up one of them Audients, that looks simultaneously fun and convenient.

(P.S. on the subject of AC15s and drummer mine could sort of hang with a hard hitting drummer in a two-piece, if not for want of a little more juice.)

What ribbon mic did you pick up, if I may ask?

Re: what I'd do, I'd just have the dude/lady/other in question double their part. Outside of that, I wouldn't even bother with multi-micing one cab; I'd probably just set up another amp and use a tuner or DI box as a splitter. A delay could be cool, but it will always sound like a delay, or Van Halen.

Alternately, pan the bass on one side and the guitar on the other. It's not what they're going for, but it works well enough for Sabbath/Zeppelin/Cream/etc. inspired things.

(Oh shit, I should have mentioned we're using two amps.)

It's gonna be an Orange of indeterminate model and the Hovercraft that lives at our house.

The ribbon's an X1r. Not one of their crazyass ones, but it sounds pretty darn cool. I got one of them and a Magneto, as well. Both are cool. I really, really like the X1r on my annoyingass squawky voice particularly.

Also, I should mention we're doing it all live and they do not want to double their part. We're very much going for a raw, band in a room sort of vibe.

Two different amps hardpanned, a dark amp and a bright amp, or blend the guitar amps and pan the guitar and bass L/R with the drums up the middle, would be my suggestion, then. You could probably get away with mostly or entirely mono drums for this kind of thing, which will make your guitars appear bigger.

I was looking at the X1R myself recently. If you wind up with clips at some point, I'd be interested in hearing how it compares.

Speaking of, I'll mention the original Latvian-made Blue Baby Bottle (you have to look at the nameplate on the back; it's black and says "Bottle" in large letters, along with "Made in Latvia") is a hell of a mic. Dark and fat and warm. Very sensitive to the room; I can't use it at home because it picks up my goddamn computer fan. It wants a booth for vocal duty. This was a thousand-dollar mic in the late '90s. You can find them on Ebay for around $200 if you're patient, as they don't sell for any more than the current made-in-China one, which uses a different capsule, different circuit, and is by all accounts a much lesser piece of gear and the price reflects that. I am looking for a second, myself, to have a pair, particularly for overhead use. It works well on my gritty goth baritone voice to sound bigger/better than I am, so I'd imagine it would have the same smoothing effect the ribbon does.

I've heard it's a great mic for guitar cabs, too- and I can see why- though I haven't deployed it for that yet.

Mono drums totally sounds like the ticket, I would have never thought of that.

I'm kinda wondering if I should go for the ribbon on the darker amp and whatever else on the brighter amp to further divide the phase smear, but I'm kinda thinking the opposite could maybe even be cool too.. I'm mostly hoping I can get different speakers going between the two. We've got just GT-75s running around here mostly.

What would your thoughts on stereo room mics in a smallerish room be? Not worth it?

Think sludge metal and old riff rock stuff- how often do you hear a drum kit taking up the whole stereo field? Not very. It's totally dependent on the player, but you can have the drums mostly or entirely in mono and not even notice; the stoner/doom style seems to lend itself well to that.

Re: mics, whatever works, I suppose. It's entirely possible the ribbon could smooth out the brighter amp, and a condenser or PR40 would give you a nice full-frequency thing on the darker amp. That's the easy part, though; just shoot 'em out for a few minutes and see what you guys like best. Quicker to spend the time in setup than dicking with it in the mix if what sounded like a good idea at the time turns out to be less than ideal.

Re: the room, if you have the inputs and the mics, why not? There's nothing that says you have to use them in the mix, or even record them if it quickly becomes obvious it sucks.

Stored away in me ol' mental library. I am always looking out for darker sounding gear these days, cause I know I'm just gonna put it on bright shit. I like piccolos, telecasters and have a nasally voice, I might as well lend myself a helping hand.

I've noticed ribbons, SM7s, darker condensers, and the like tend to take EQ really well, too. They don't mind if you add a bit of top end, and you can always roll off the lows and low mids.

It may seem strange to say, but it is nice to get someone else's thoughts in my head. I actually spend an obsessive amount of time thinking about this stuff, but it is more often than not that I am incapable of coming to some of the more simple, but important conclusions.

In regards to inputs I am kinda trying to be mildly conservative. Granted, I have 14 at my access, but sometimes my computer doesn't like to play as nice as it would with 10 or so mics. The conservative elements really comes in when I was thinking two mics on snare, on kick and maybe even on each tom. However, eliminating the other OH is kinda forgiving.

I'm curious as to what bright guitar sound+dark bass sound on one side, dark guitar sound+bright bass sound on the other would be like.

Whenever I actually record something, I probably spend more time thinking about it than actually doing it. I get it; having other humanoids to bounce ideas off of helps the process along.

Re: the bass thing, it could prove interesting? I can say that I did put the bass in stereo here, albeit very slightly, and it opened up room for the drums down the middle. Nobody would ever notice if I didn't mention it, as it's not hard-panned, but it's there if you listen.

I am currently, and have been for the last couple of days, refusing to believe that something shitty i have been trying to record is as shitty as it is.

Anyone else ever just get stuck doing something awful endlessly?

Like, what do you guys do when faced with not knowing if something sucks because it sucks, or because you have to expend a little more time and mental effort to unsucks it?

PLUS: Is there such a thing as something that sucks so bad, that some modification or reassessment might not ever be able to make it NOT suck?

walk away from it for a day or week. Clear your head. I have a lot of suckage. Sometimes it will just always suck and sometimes it turns into something wonderful.

On the AC15 - No problem hanging with the full band and the drummer doesn't hit very lightly. There some video up on FB with me playing with them I could probably link it here... it's on YT so I probably should. The other guitarist, Rick, is using a DSL 40 combo. everything goes FOH.

Had a really good jam/audition with some like minded guys last night, they want me back with some more songs to learn so I guess I passed. We've all been in cover bands before and got tired of the same shit songs so the plan is to do more 90s - current stuff and not the typical cover band fare (no summer of 69 or mustang sally thank god), eventually get some originals going which is pretty much what I wanted. Everything went really smooth, one of those sessions where it all goes together nicely and it sounds good. Now I may need a new lead boost though because my trusty old behringer eq is playing up and not turning on sometimes. Is there really any need for anything more complex than an mxr micro amp in the fx loop to just raise the volume a bit? It's how I'm using my eq now but itd have less faders to get knocked. I have seen the EHX LPB1 is really cheap but not read such glowing reviews as it colours the tone a lot?