Recording - May 2011 - 63

What’s your setup, bass and amps that you used on the recording of “Unleash the Beast”? It was done in the back room of a record company office in Tokyo, Japan, on bass and guitar PODs from Line 6. We had no choice at the time; we needed another song for a single release, so we hustled this up. Sometimes being under pressure and having to make do with substitute gear makes you work harder—I like the way it came out. Are you currently working on a new project or album? Yes, my third solo CD. I’m recording it in my home studio using my regular gear. I’ll also be doing a record with Tony McAlpine and Virgil Donati, along with several other projects this summer—no rest for the wicked!

Stanley Clarke
In the 1970s Stanley Clarke redefined and reshaped the way bass players approached their instruments. He took Larry Graham’s (Sly and the Family Stone) slap-funk technique and pushed it to the next level. He was also one of the renowned members of the progressive jazz-fusion band Return to Forever with Chick Corea. In addition, he invented the piccolo bass and tenor bass. I had the pleasure of speaking with Stanley and asked him about the Larry Graham song, “Hair”, that he recorded with Joe Satriani on the CD Guitar Masters, Vol. 1. Stanley Clarke shared the story of how he stumbled upon the song: “I think it was

before they even recorded it. I was standing in a club in San Francisco with Carlos Santana. Carlos had on this trench coat with all these tape recorders underneath his coat—Santana is a real fan of music and loved to make recordings of live shows. He said, ‘Man, you have to check out Graham Central Station. It was in this little club.’ I knew Larry with Sly and thought he was an amazing bass player. When I heard ‘Hair’, I said, oh, S@#$!” So as an homage to Larry, Stanley Clarke recorded the song with Joe Satriani. Stanley has a home studio where he does most of his solo projects for albums and film/television scoring. For the recording of “Hair”, Stanley told me that he used his famous Alembic basses and F2 preamps. He recorded using two SWR amps and cabinets. One cabinet had 2 x 15” speakers and the other cabinet housed 4 x 10” speakers. He then miked each cabinet separately and took a direct signal out of the amps themselves. This gave him the flexibility to blend during mixdown. Stanley recorded using the Fairlight hard-disk recorder, which at the time was similar to Pro Tools. Interestingly enough, he used an analog mixer to monitor and eq the signal. During mixdown, his engineers still liked having something physical to work with and used the analog board. When mixing in digital, such as Pro Tools, many old-school engineers like the feel of actual faders underneath their fingers to control the mix and use the onboard eq. (Speaking from experience, I know that feeling—I have a vintage Trident 32x16 console and the eqs are so musical I want
RECORDING MAY 2011

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Recording - May 2011

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