EQ Magazine - September 2008 - (Page 32)

BASS MANAGEMENT MIKE GORDON’S SELF-PRODUCTION STRATEGIES by Shane Mehling When bassist Mike Gordon—most famously known for holding down the low end for now-defunct Jam Band demigods Phish—began work on his second solo album, The Green Sparrow [Rounder], he knew that he didn’t want to rush the recording process, but he also didn’t want to indulge every production neurosis that may arise. “I vowed not to overthink anything,” the bassist says. Recorded in his recently built home studio in rural Vermont, Gordon’s newest album is truly an all-star offering (the album features exGrateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, keyboard king Chuck Leavell, and Phish alumni Page McConnell and Trey Anastasio). But when it all comes down to it, The Green Sparrow is no Phish-styled trade-off jam. As Gordon says, “This is a bass player’s record . . . I followed my gut on it to make the best songs possible. That’s what was important.” TRACKING For The Green Sparrow, all of Gordon’s bass parts were recorded using an SWR Workingman’s 10 Bass Combo. “It only has a single ten-inch speaker and it creates a very focused, controlled, and punchy bass sound,” Gordon explains. “I didn’t record direct for this album, though I have on a lot of past releases. When going direct I’ll use my [Retrospec] Juice Box DI into a [Universal Audio] 1176 compressor. For this album it was all amp.” Gordon says that his go-to mics for bass recording are the Sennheiser MD409 and the ElectroVoice RE20. “I’ll put the mic about eight inches back from the cabinet and point it slightly off-center to the speaker, halfway between the cone and the rim,” he says. But this time around Gordon experimented with switching up dynamic micsand stumbled upon a new technique in the process that he quickly added to his repertoire. “I had a [Shure] SM-7 set up to record my amp on one song, and after I did my first take I noticed the track was clipping pretty hard,” the bassist says. “I wasn’t paying close attention to the levels and the entire track was just pegged. [Co-producers John Siket and Jared Slomoff] didn’t want to re-record the part because they thought it had a strong vibe, so we just left it as it was. The track ended up sounding lo-fi but that’s what the song needed. Sometimes the best thing you can do in the studio is let something that is ‘wrong’ stay as is.” MIXING When it came time to mix The Green Sparrow, Gordon moved from his home digs to another familiar locale: former Phish HQ the Barn. But settling into this old haunt wasn’t enough to thrust Gordon back into old habits. “With Phish I recorded a lot of intricate parts and songs, and when you are recording intricate music it can seem logical to take a very scientific approach to mixing,” Gordon says. “I stayed away from that for this album. I didn’t pull everything apart. I’ve heard that Brian Eno doesn’t allow you to solo every track when mixing, and that’s a good thing because there is some stuff you don’t really want to solo. It’s all about how a track sounds in context to the rest of the instruments. I may spend a week writing one line in a song, but I don’t need to spend a week recording it. A bassline with a little fret buzz can sound great when mixed in with everything else.” C. TAYLOR CROTHERS © 2008 MIKE GORDON Mike Gordon. According to Gordon, processing his bass signal was an exercise in restraint. “I played this album with a pick and as a result I had to be careful with compression,” he explains. “Too much compression kills the attack. I don’t mind the ‘felt instead of heard’ bass sound, but I don’t like it to sound distant.” Since preserving the bass’s attack was of ultimate importance to Gordon, Siket, who handled mixing duties, broke out the EQ and applied some judicious boosting. “The bass was getting lost,” Gordon says, “so we boosted the mids at 1.5kHz and also at 600–700Hz. I find that if a bassline is missing attack, boosting at 600–700Hz as well as around 1.5kHz really helps bridge the gap and fill in the middle. Just boosting the 1.5kHz range makes the bass sound artificial. You can hear it fine, but it’s not very warm and swimmy—you just get an edginess with a low rumble.” 32 EQ SEPTEMBER 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - September 2008

EQ Magazine - September 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Freak Folk Todd Rundgren Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Sony Acid 6 Ableton Live 7 Portable Recorder Showdown Gadgets and Goodies Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - September 2008

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