Check this printed toy out. It doesn’t look like all that much for the first minute but the thing actually moves.

Recorded “scratch tracks” for “Supervillain For I Love You” yesterday, prep work for the big show at Conflikt in January. It’s basically so the other people who will be in the band for that show can learn it.

Also comped the bass tracks for “Thirteen.” This time bass tracks doesn’t mean multiple bass lines, tho’ you certainly know I’ve done that before. This time, it means one “dry” (no-effects) track and one “wet” (effects) track, which I then mix together in a ratio.

Normally the “wet” and “dry” are in one track, generated live via plugins. But in this case it’s actually two separate performances, because the effects I’m using – a really crunchy bass amp, an overdrive box, a little bit of old-school chorusing – are all external to my computer. So I’m treating the recording of that external-effected performance as an effect in and of itself, putting it in a separate recording track, and mixing with the “dry” bass guitar recording.

One neat side-benefit is that since once they’re both in the DAW they’re basically just two recordings, I can edit how long it takes each individual note’s instance of the “effect” to show up. It’s kind of like being able to set the pre-delay on a per note basis. I’m not doing much of that because in practice it’d be weird to do so, but there are a couple of places where it makes aural sense to loosen and tighten up the crunch timing. So hey, extra work, but bonus nonetheless!

Best part of this bass line tho’ is – well, there are two things. One: first recording of the Godin A5 Fretless that Anna got me for Bassmas last year. Two: crunky as fuck. Okay, so, three. Three things. Three: So goddamn deep. I am using all of this fifth string. Seriously, this entire bass line is being played on the bottom two strings of a five.

aw yeah. deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep bassing.

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