Would appreciate tips on recording/mixing 'bassy guitar'. Think neck pickup, kind of clean but in a rock setting where the notes need to be present (ie not just strum strum or pluck pluck). Treating it like a guitar or bass has so far gotten me underwhelming results, so the answer is probably somewhere between but I'm not sure what that looks like yet.

Teacher's Pet wrote: Sorry, I was not very clear.
I guess what I'm looking for is a light (or lights) that connect to a small solar panel with a wire.
Lights stay inside, solar panel lives outside. No walkway.
My neighbors have some string lights that seem to work this way...

I'm guessing you want to also have light in the evening, yeah? My understanding is that you want the charger to be hooked up to a "deep cycle" battery as they are meant for low power, long release. You could use an inverter or dc lights. Do some googling - there's lots of off-grid folks who do this w/ deep cycle marine batteries.

penningtron wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 1:03 pm Would appreciate tips on recording/mixing 'bassy guitar'. Think neck pickup, kind of clean but in a rock setting where the notes need to be present (ie not just strum strum or pluck pluck). Treating it like a guitar or bass has so far gotten me underwhelming results, so the answer is probably somewhere between but I'm not sure what that looks like yet.

Maybe blending 2 cabs or even amps? like a 12" with a bright mic and a 15" with a dark mic, blend to taste and articulation? I used to play my baritone through a Quad Reverb and a Peavey bass head and it kinda ruled. Could try a multiband compressor to squish the low end of the spectrum too?

losthighway wrote: Thu Jun 03, 2021 11:24 pm Alright, I know one amp's watts do not equal another, but here's a funny idea I've just stumbled on.

I used to play with a 100 watt (or more) head through a 2x12, or a 4x12.

Suddenly I've got a 50 watt head (Traynor Reverb Master). Still plenty of volume there. Then I end up with a 30 watt combo amp as well (Dr. Z Jetta, shut up, I'm old). Then cause I'm a dumb electric guitarist I decide I should run both. At rehearsal with both of their dials set a little left of noon and it sounds godly, but is totally too loud for reasonable humans.

So is a 50 watt, and a 30 watt used in combination, more powerful than a single 100 watt amp?

could be. watts don't equal loudness. you have to account for speaker efficiency. plus even with the same speaker cab, different amps put out different amounts of current depending on their OTs. Plus a Traynor RM into a 2x12 or 4x12 is really freaking loud all by itself. A Vox AC-30 may only be 30 watts, but it can be almost as loud as a Twin Reverb, which, depending on who you talk to and which version you get can be rated at 80 watts, 100 watts or more. (Almost)

penningtron wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 1:03 pm Would appreciate tips on recording/mixing 'bassy guitar'. Think neck pickup, kind of clean but in a rock setting where the notes need to be present (ie not just strum strum or pluck pluck). Treating it like a guitar or bass has so far gotten me underwhelming results, so the answer is probably somewhere between but I'm not sure what that looks like yet.

Could you describe the underwhelming results of each? And are these tracks going to also have bass guitar?

Also, what mics and setup/placement have you tried so far? If that's too broad to bother to type out, I understand. If you tried multiple things, what got you closest?

Garth wrote: Could you describe the underwhelming results of each? And are these tracks going to also have bass guitar?

Between the 2 responses I've gotten maybe part of the solution is to hard pan the 'guitar-y' part of the spectrum and keep the bass-y part centered, then each one can be eq'd and processed accordingly. (there will be a more normal guitar on the other side, and then drums) I think my disappointment lies in trying to make one track/one amp chain/one mic satisfy both needs.

As far as compressing the transients and wide dynamics of the low, bass-y strings, what's a good starting point? I've never been a good gauge of when to use slow vs. fast attack/release, ratios, etc.

penningtron wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:25 pm

Garth wrote: Could you describe the underwhelming results of each? And are these tracks going to also have bass guitar?

Between the 2 responses I've gotten maybe part of the solution is to hard pan the 'guitar-y' part of the spectrum and keep the bass-y part centered, then each one can be eq'd and processed accordingly. (there will be a more normal guitar on the other side, and then drums) I think my disappointment lies in trying to make one track/one amp chain/one mic satisfy both needs.

I did something similar last night while mixing, although the opposite way round (ie bass guitar). Record to two tracks; hi-pass one and low pass the other. Low
(cleaner) panned centre, high (in my case) fuzz and then one side delay of 20 something m/s so the ultimate effect is of almost like wide panned guitars, but with centre bass frequencies. Mono compatibility be damned (or not, depending how lazy one is).

penningtron wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:25 pm As far as compressing the transients and wide dynamics of the low, bass-y strings, what's a good starting point? I've never been a good gauge of when to use slow vs. fast attack/release, ratios, etc.

I usually don't compress guitars much on the top end but I'm usually not going for hyper loud and aggressive. If you use a multiband, you might be able to just do a slow RMS style compression at around 2:1 or something. you can probably comp it kinda hard (a few dB) and blend in parallel to give the bottom end a "floor" so to speak without killing the life too much ( I kinda hate the sound of compression... always), but I'm pontificating, and these sorts of things are usually time consuming rabbit holes. My guess would be that actually splitting your guitar to 2 amps, one set up for a cool guitar sound and the other set up for max best bass tonez and blending the 2 tracks might just be faster easier way to balance it all. Plus you ret a completely different harmonic footprint for the two, which can give you better results than just crossovering the single signal into 2 tracks. Again, guess work. You can pan things around too. Make sure the two sources are as in phase as you can get them to be.

penningtron wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:25 pm I think my disappointment lies in trying to make one track/one amp chain/one mic satisfy both needs.

Can I ask what kind of cab you're running? Quiet/LOUD?
Mic selection and placement?

Cheers

brownreasontolive wrote: Tue Jun 29, 2021 8:51 am

penningtron wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:25 pm I think my disappointment lies in trying to make one track/one amp chain/one mic satisfy both needs.

Can I ask what kind of cab you're running? Quiet/LOUD?
Mic selection and placement?

Cheers

I've only tried this a few times over the years, but the most recent example was probably a Strat neck pickup through a VT-22, mic'd with my usual Sennheiser 421 and/or a Royer r-10. Not really cranked, cuz I wanted a somewhat clean sound and that amp is goddamn loud at home. It sounded ok from a guitar standpoint but the bass-y fullness felt in the room didn't really make it to 'tape'.

Approaching it more like a bass/baritone is probably the answer, where it's not uncommon to feed it into multiple speaker cabs (10"/12" + 15"), or maybe do an amp/DI blend (phase aligned of course). I'm working on a new band and since no one good seems to want to play bass, we're considering using a 2nd guitar in a US Maple-y way.