so, i've been spending the last few days playing with mixes. part of the problem is that the song sounds very different out of my mixing devices (alesis mixer, pod amp simulator), out of my soundcard (m-audio audiophile) and out of my laptop (some cheap integrated hd chip). every time i change something to sound better on one, something breaks on the other. i've come to the conclusion that i'm going to need to compromise a little...

i want to put that aside for the day and get most of the parts finished.

i think it's ultimately a render issue. for some reason, the out through cubase sounds differently than the playback in real time. i mean, different hardware is going to produce different results, but the changes are largely in the guitar tone and that's beyond natural playback differences. i'm thinking it might have to do with the way it's calculating some filters. that may actually mean that the out i'm getting is the more technically accurate version, but i want it to sound the way i'm mixing it, not as some abstract ideal i can't monitor.

i had this problem once before, years ago, and fixed it by hooking an out from the mixer into the in on the soundcard and just recording it in real time. but, i'm not sure i'm going to be able to do that with this piece because of the vstis. that other track was just all wave files.

but i'm not worrying about this for today, i'm finishing the recording as much as i can. the last thing i'm going to want to add is a bass, and i need to give myself a few days for it to get the tone right. i find bass to be a very difficult instrument to record. it's partly because i don't have any di cords. although, maybe i should take the opportunity to invest in one...

it's the primary reason i use so much synth bass. luckily, it tends to fit the style i'm writing in. but this track needs a bass guitar. the core of it was actually written on a bass guitar...

i actually did a huge amount of experimenting the last time i got to a bass part, which was way back in '08. yeah. well, i haven't done a lot of recording at all since then, and the bit i've done has worked fine with synths or sequencers. i went and picked up a separate bass limiter (boss lmb-3) and compressor (digitech dual band bass compressor) in stompbox format. the compressor actually has an amp simulator in it as well, so the two of these things together are fairly versatile. iirc, i need to connect it to a noise gate, though.

anyways, i think i have what i need this time to get it pretty good directly in, but i know i'm going to need a few days to play with it, too.

i actually ended up converting an old dod fx53 into a bass distortion, too. it was a $5 pickup somewhere, and i didn't know what i was going to do with it when i got it. as a guitar distortion, it's not what i want - i like really fuzzy stompboxes that push sustain and high gain. this is a weaker distortion. but it works well with a bass for exactly that reason - it's subtle enough that it doesn't kill the note clarity.

the bass (it's a mid 80s ibanez roadstar II, black pearl burst) also has active pickups, which is hugely important for recording, and why i bought it. well, that and the neck is small, which helps with my tiny fingers. the pickups in the early roadstars were designed so they could switch between p-bass and j-bass type sounds, but this one has two low impedance active soapbars in it. they're really the bass to look for if you want a playable, versatile and relatively cheap bass, although that factor may have boosted their price a little over the last decade.