Our World Come True is the first full band (minus vocals) track that I've recorded guitar using my amps rather than amp simulator VST plugins, and for it I used a JMP-1 preamp & Strategy 500 power amp setup for the rhythm and some leads, and used a JCM 800 for the remaining leads. On Our World Come True, I used amps for all guitar apart from one lead part, which is the lead during the first chorus section in the track.
The tracks Minotaurous and Superblast! were both done using VST plugins for both the guitar and bass, with no direct input signal for the bass mixed in (mixing in a direct input signal alongside an amplified signal is a common technique for building a thicker, bigger bass sound).
I wasn't satisfied with the final EQ shape of Minotaurous and Superblast! when I first did them, having a huge drop-off in lower bass response, and I tried to compensate by using a mastering plugin suite called Ozone 4 to semi-conform the EQ's of those tracks to ones from professionally mastered tracks. The result still left a bit of drop in the lower end of bass response of the full mixed track, but it was an improvement.
For bass on Our World Come True, I spent a lot of time trying to get what sounded like a good bass sound to me. This image shows exactly what I ended up doing for a bass sound setup:
I think this has got to be way overkill in effort to get a good bass sound, and this still was far off from the zone of sound that I ideally wanted. That said, when I mastered Our World Come True, mixing in a direct input track with the bass amp plugin track, I didn't have the same issue as I had with Minotaurous and Superblast!, where there was a big drop off in bottom range bass present in the mix.
I expect that every track I record might require something slightly different with the bass, but I'd like to figure out an improved bass sound foundation that I can save as a preset for future projects.
C~ Soundscapes
