Hey guys,

The new Six Minute album has been chuging along nicely, even though (much to the label's annoyance) we are behind schedule pretty badly.

I'm using both of my NS/Sticks on this record exclusively (no other basses). I have a newer one with the graphite neck and an older one where the neck is wood. The sound is very differant. Have any of you other guys tracked with both of these before?

I've been running everything clean straight into protools, and am planning to send it out through my rig for reamping at a later date in the big studio. I'm trying to decide how many tracks I should have...should I keep a direct along with the reamped? What did the rest of you do?

I am tracking the two handed parts sepertely...though I play them together live. What is your thoughts on this?

Thanks, between this, the guest apperances on the Eumeria record and live dates with Helstar...it has been a busy year for me and the NS. And the thing that I hear the most when I take it out... "What the hell is that?" immediately followed by "It's awesome."

I agree...it is.

Hey there,

I only have one of the older, wood neck ones. When recording , I sometimes have a hard time getting a clean bass signal without hiss/distortion. I guess it's output level is quite high.

How does the sound of the graphite neck differ from the wood one?

I would definitely keep the direct signal to mix with the amp'ed one. You could even add a third channel, and just use the direct signal with any kind of distortion on there, and later on mix a little bit of that channel with the other two to add some dirt.

Btw, I also track both hands separately. Fewer takes

I noticed on your live photos that you use a wireless transmitter on your gigs. Does it affect the tone? Do you run the instrument in mono? Do you know how it would work if you run it in stereo with two separate effect units? Also, do your melody string cut through the heavy guitars?

Sorry for all these questions...

Thanks!

I've never had a need to reamp with actual "amps". This sounds ridiculous I know. I am totally sold on amp modeling software. I use either the Sansamp plugin, amplitude, Guitar Rig, or my Line 6 Bass XT LIVE. For the record, I think the Line 6 Pod for guitar sounds fake. But I really like the Bass Pod XT for Bass. Nothing beats Grig for a huge stereo sound because you can essentially reamp your direct signal with a bunch if different sounds and pan them L R. Low bass frequencies are not very directional but with NS you could get some great results due to it's extended range. I have a wood NS and find the lowest string to be very "springy". As if you plucked a low piano string.

Hello,

I use two Line 6 G30 Digital Wireless units. Since they are digital, there is no tone loss at all, even on a low B string tuned down a whloe step to A. I can't tell a differance between wired and wireless when using the G30's and I reccomend them highly.

On songs where I do not need the melody strings to be processed differantly from the bass side, I keep the NS in Mono. I am using a Line Six XP Pro that can process two signals in one unit so when I need distorted melody side I just throw the NS into stereo and presto, good to go. It is a complicated rig, but I am about to shoot a video here at the house of me playing with the looper here in a bit and I'll post it so you can see what I have done.

And yes... the melody stirngs can cut through a wall of distroted guitars with the right processing. Don LaFon and I traded fours the other night during the bass solo portion of the SMC gig and I was able to keep up with him Bwahahahahaha.

Best of luck,

Dr. Froth

Oh yeah...forgot to answer your question about the graphite vs wood neck in the previous post.

I like the feel of the graphite neck better, but to be honest I think the wood neck sounds a hair better for anything that will not be mixed in with distorted guitars. I have been playing all the realbook tunes and classical pieces on the wood neck and all the heavy goodness on the graphite.

Now I gotta buy a damn bamboo one and see what that sounds like...haha.