Guitar: Bluetus
Amp modeler: Positive Grid’s BIAS AMP Desktop ~ 1969 Ampeg SVT head through an 8 x 10″ Fender Super Bassman cabinet (mic-ed with a SHURE SM-57)
Videocam: Canon EOS 550D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens
Video editing: iMovie
Year: 2016

Whilst I still prefer to record my guitars with an actual amp that is mic-ed, I’ve begun to warm up to the idea of directly plugging my guitar into BIAS AMP, a fantastic amp/effects modeller by Positive Grid, and recording this on GarageBand. I have BIAS Desktop now, which means it exists as a plugin in my GarageBand and I can pretty much choose whatever amp/cab combination I like and tweak it to my liking. And if I like, the Tone Cloud option allows me to download any preset created by other BIAS users, some of them artistes.

I chose an Ampeg head for this one just because I can’t imagine what TIMO’s tone would sound like on, say, a Gallien-Kruger. For the cab, I wanted an 8 x 10″ and one option was the Fender Super Bass. As for the tone, I can’t really explain it very well but suffice to say, I just used my ears for this to match what TIMO sounds like on the actual recording. The bass was dialled up and the treble down, as Bluetus is somewhat light in the tone department due to its basswood body. I originally tweaked it for the Bluetus on the neck pup only, but as I wanted more rumble in the tone (which is already accentuated by tweaking the gain up a tad beyond 12 o’clock), during the recording, I had both bridge and neck pups on. Despite the ballad-y nature of the song, TIMO’s bass on this almost growls.

One thing I’ve learnt about recording the bass is how the volume fluctuates due to variability in my finger picking strength. So, I was advised to add compression to minimise this fluctuation. Actually, I went all out, using the compression plugin on GarageBand.

I started to learn this tune by ear by back in November of last year, as there was no official tab out yet. I have intended this to be another two or even three-guitar cover, but finally got around to do the bass cover at the end of March. I’ve the YELLOW Band Score now and I hope to at least do MAMI’s guitar on this.

By the way, this video was done in one shot. Heh.