- Mar 1, 2006
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i'm still picking my jaw off the floor at just how crazy the last two days have been. here's the lowdown. warning, this might be a long one.
metalcore band rocks up yesterday for an album's worth of bass tracking. Drop C tuning, and they show up on time along with the two packs of DR DDT 55-115's i told them to get. so far so good. the bass guitar ends up being some generic import 4 string neck through (looked like maple/bubinga/ash wings) with MM style humbuckers that sounded pretty decent, so I get down to setting it up.
restring,tweak truss rod, adjust action, the usual. its all going splendidly until i detune the lowest string to set the intonation - bring it up to pitch...and BAM! the 115 snaps right at the machine head. cue WTF's all round. i examine the string, the core's still intact but the windings gone.
so fine, could've just been a bad string right? i ring up the shop the band got the strings from (i'm friends with the guys there) and no worries, they'll give us a replacement next time. I then take out the 115 from the second pack and start putting that on, while simultaneously joking with the band about how funny(not) it would be if it happened again.
you know what comes next of course: SNAP. right on cue, barely 2 seconds after the words left my mouth.
we're all in utter disbelief at this point and im instantly ruling out 2 bad strings in a row. a closer examination of the machine head revealed that the edge of the tuning post was noticeably sharper than the rest and was shearing the string once it got brought up to tension.
so off we go in the van to the music store, where we manage to get a replacement string and brand new machine head. the van gets rear ended on our way back to the studio , but it was pretty minor, and we make it back to change the machine head and string - gingerly bringing it up to pitch (we're obviously paranoid as fuck at this point). everything goes well, we track 6 songs with two more scheduled for today.
shit hasnt even gotten weird yet.
i get into the studio this afternoon, plug the bass in, and despite our best efforts the previous night to preserve the strings (wipedowns,string cleaner, AC left on), no dice - the strings are completely dead, no zing, nothing. I ring the band up telling them to pick up a new set. they rock up 4 hours late citing work and traffic etc..im slightly irritated but hey whatever, we've only got 2 more songs to do.
my assistant takes the strings off to start restringing, and the fucking nut falls clean off.
fine, its not exactly a top class bass, and a fairly simple fix. i send someone out to find some superglue, i glue the sucker back on and start stringing up.
you guess it. snap. same thing - sheared the winding at the tuning post. mind you, this is a brand new machine head which was checked to be perfectly smooth. everyone (me included) is completely shitting ourselves at this point, having already spent more than a hundred bucks on strings in two days and we're utterly convinced the bass is cursed.
by some miracle, the winding was broken but not the core, and we actually managed to get the string up to pitch. very, very slowly.
here's where it gets weirder. the brand new 3rd string (higher C in CGCF) is now completely dead and muted from the open string to the 12th fret. it simply wouldn't resonate at all, but from the 12th fret upwards it sounded relatively normal. checked and filed the nut, raised the action to no avail. i've never seen anything like it in more than 10 years of playing and setting up guitars.
we say fuck it, that string only gets used in a few riffs anyway (hey it's metalcore) and we can just transpose those riffs onto the G. at this point all i want to do is to finishing tracking those 2 songs and be done with this fiasco.
start tracking, all the while barely touching the low C tuning peg for fear of the string totally snapping, i'm dreading the melodyne job i'd have to do on the bass (C was noticely sharp).
we're about halfway done, working on punching in a pesky riff, and out of nowhere, my signal drops to basically nothing.
i check the connections, all good. i pull out the studio bass and plug it in, no dice - at least its not that cursed bass this time. im scratching my head wondering what the hell is going on, until i glance at my API A2D which we had been running the bass through a PSA1 into.
the digital level knob, which was setup at 12' o clock for the recording was now turned down to 8' o clock. by itself. the rack sits next to me on my right, barely a foot and a half away, and there was no one around it at the time.
seriously. wow.
we're just utterly gobsmacked at this point of the time and the bassist is pretty shaken up. i just flip the knob back to 12 - told the bassist to keep going and lets fuckin finish this shit. finally got it done, and the guys all bailed without chilling out after the session like we normally do. can't blame em really.
i've never had so much weird shit happen before..wow...just wow.
metalcore band rocks up yesterday for an album's worth of bass tracking. Drop C tuning, and they show up on time along with the two packs of DR DDT 55-115's i told them to get. so far so good. the bass guitar ends up being some generic import 4 string neck through (looked like maple/bubinga/ash wings) with MM style humbuckers that sounded pretty decent, so I get down to setting it up.
restring,tweak truss rod, adjust action, the usual. its all going splendidly until i detune the lowest string to set the intonation - bring it up to pitch...and BAM! the 115 snaps right at the machine head. cue WTF's all round. i examine the string, the core's still intact but the windings gone.
so fine, could've just been a bad string right? i ring up the shop the band got the strings from (i'm friends with the guys there) and no worries, they'll give us a replacement next time. I then take out the 115 from the second pack and start putting that on, while simultaneously joking with the band about how funny(not) it would be if it happened again.
you know what comes next of course: SNAP. right on cue, barely 2 seconds after the words left my mouth.
we're all in utter disbelief at this point and im instantly ruling out 2 bad strings in a row. a closer examination of the machine head revealed that the edge of the tuning post was noticeably sharper than the rest and was shearing the string once it got brought up to tension.
so off we go in the van to the music store, where we manage to get a replacement string and brand new machine head. the van gets rear ended on our way back to the studio , but it was pretty minor, and we make it back to change the machine head and string - gingerly bringing it up to pitch (we're obviously paranoid as fuck at this point). everything goes well, we track 6 songs with two more scheduled for today.
shit hasnt even gotten weird yet.
i get into the studio this afternoon, plug the bass in, and despite our best efforts the previous night to preserve the strings (wipedowns,string cleaner, AC left on), no dice - the strings are completely dead, no zing, nothing. I ring the band up telling them to pick up a new set. they rock up 4 hours late citing work and traffic etc..im slightly irritated but hey whatever, we've only got 2 more songs to do.
my assistant takes the strings off to start restringing, and the fucking nut falls clean off.
fine, its not exactly a top class bass, and a fairly simple fix. i send someone out to find some superglue, i glue the sucker back on and start stringing up.
you guess it. snap. same thing - sheared the winding at the tuning post. mind you, this is a brand new machine head which was checked to be perfectly smooth. everyone (me included) is completely shitting ourselves at this point, having already spent more than a hundred bucks on strings in two days and we're utterly convinced the bass is cursed.
by some miracle, the winding was broken but not the core, and we actually managed to get the string up to pitch. very, very slowly.
here's where it gets weirder. the brand new 3rd string (higher C in CGCF) is now completely dead and muted from the open string to the 12th fret. it simply wouldn't resonate at all, but from the 12th fret upwards it sounded relatively normal. checked and filed the nut, raised the action to no avail. i've never seen anything like it in more than 10 years of playing and setting up guitars.
we say fuck it, that string only gets used in a few riffs anyway (hey it's metalcore
) and we can just transpose those riffs onto the G. at this point all i want to do is to finishing tracking those 2 songs and be done with this fiasco. start tracking, all the while barely touching the low C tuning peg for fear of the string totally snapping, i'm dreading the melodyne job i'd have to do on the bass (C was noticely sharp).
we're about halfway done, working on punching in a pesky riff, and out of nowhere, my signal drops to basically nothing.
i check the connections, all good. i pull out the studio bass and plug it in, no dice - at least its not that cursed bass this time. im scratching my head wondering what the hell is going on, until i glance at my API A2D which we had been running the bass through a PSA1 into.
the digital level knob, which was setup at 12' o clock for the recording was now turned down to 8' o clock. by itself. the rack sits next to me on my right, barely a foot and a half away, and there was no one around it at the time.
seriously. wow.
we're just utterly gobsmacked at this point of the time and the bassist is pretty shaken up. i just flip the knob back to 12 - told the bassist to keep going and lets fuckin finish this shit. finally got it done, and the guys all bailed without chilling out after the session like we normally do. can't blame em really.
i've never had so much weird shit happen before..wow...just wow.
