Bass signal chain

I'm staunchly 'no modellers' when it comes to signal chain for primary instruments - I've never used one that sounds as good as high quality analogue chain for drive/grit/presence/balls or whatever you want to call it. Better to have one very good tone than twenty 80% ones.

Current signal change for the bass is Spector Euro LX fretless 5 string with EMGs and Tone Pump preamp into EH English Muff'n (now with 12AT7 tubes...see last post), into a sansamp Bass Driver DI, all controls flat except blend at 50, into preamp of Carvin B1500 bass amp, EQ and drive depending on context, then into DAW where a voxengo voxformer channel strip plugin has a low pass starting at around 5k. Surgical EQ/limiting/saturation during mixing with other plugs.

Tubes

I have a couple of Electro Harmonix English Muffn pedals which are the core of the bass overdrive sound. This is a fantastic sounding pedal and is really a 'proper' tube preamp in disguise - has enough level to drive a power amp, proper 18v supply to the tube. Compared to most if not all solid state pedals I've tried its much more 3 dimensional, ballsy and flat (no bass rolloff).

Its possible to easily pull the 2 tubes out (it comes with 12AY7) and put others in. So, essentially out of curiosity and to get higher gain for guitar work, I order a pair of EX gold 12AT7 and Tung Sol 12AX7s.

Quite a difference. The AT7 has more gain and a sharper more forward presentation. The AX7 has (as one would expect) the most gain, and even more cut in the upper mids. By comparison the AY7 is much flatter or duller sounding - and even with eq, a different presentation/sound. The AT7s are enough gain for the spector I use (that has very hot EMGs) and the mid structure is an improvement in a mix situation so these are keepers.

Cranked, both AX7's with medium output guitar humbuckers give classic super saturated sounds for metal with plenty of 'chug'. Noise is a bit of an issue. Not that I really use that tone on CA albums but its fun for funs sake.

General Update

The next album 'Earth Divided By Zero' will be out in the new year (the best time of year to sell anything, right?). The music is all finished. There are some previews on the myspace page. I think its the most focused CA album yet. Pretty intense with a sort of psychedelic feel - there are quite a few 'dub' like approaches (delays etc) which I've normally avoided. Elaines parts are pretty abstract this time round.

I've written all the bass/drum parts for a new-new album (no working title yet) and have sent the files off to Martin who will be assembling a larger team to do some larger scale hornwork. This should be interesting! The songs are quite fast and its really pushing the Meshuggah like aspects this time round... lots of heavy grooves, cross rhythms and thundering riffs which cycle such that extra beats or two get added at certain points: this completely messes with the time sigs but actually is logical and elegant structurally - you can 'feel' it. Its works below the neck.
Elaine will not likely be one this one - I'll be assembling tunes for a longer term project with her again.

Oh and I reworked the homepage!

Migrating blog from myspace.

This is the official blog for Combat Astronomy, migrating from myspace blog.