The most complimenting Guitar/Bass guitars

[Redoubt9000]

ORIGINAL POST
I know this can end up as incredibly vague and subjective, nonetheless I'm gonna post it. Strictly from a tracking/mix engineer's perspective - what have been the most complimenting stringed instruments for you, in simple natural tone (and if you had a choice) what are your two goto string woodies to shoot for if and when you had control over the choice of both instruments.

My bass guitar is just incredibly clunky deadwood and simply clashes no matter what processing is done to it. I can def hear it working for other pieces/genres/etc, but it never quite satisfies me for what I want out of it in comparison to other bass guitar DIs I've come across and processed.

And I can understand that with a guitar being run through a amp/cab and the mic/room will impact your guitar tones drastically, versus DI'n a bass guitar being pretty straightforward... Still - if you had to choose an electric guitar, and a bass guitar - which two would you choose that you know would greatly compliment each other the most? This is in the perspective that if you could only have a few instruments available in your studio at any given time.

It's something to consider in the future for those not heavily invested into actual instruments just yet. Or maybe it doesn't matter at all (and if you think that, by all means post it goddamnit)

Feel free to expand this to amps/cabs in conjunction to DI'd bass guitars (I'll probably never see myself mic'n a bass cab )

March 2014: Necro bump, not sure of anyone else but I've found the input so far interesting enough to warrant a bump - here's to hoping that others will chime in!

Sept-2013 Necro Thread Revival!
No, I don't wish to revive a necro thread - however I'm sure there are still others out there that can provide some more insight to what they believe to be the most complimenting instruments they have ever worked with. Despite that Ermz is certainly looking for a particular sound, his descriptions and explanations were exactly what I was looking for in terms of what one thought to be a great combo of guitars and their make, and WHY that was the case. Others have made some excellent points and detailed their experiences of what they know works and I'm looking for more - for both myself and for those that have had the same question roll through their head.

And yes, we all know a talented musician with a well setup instrument could blow one out of the water - that's not up for dispute, nor was it the question asked. Think of this as if you're running a studio and you want to have that pair of instruments in the case you have bassists/guitarists coming in to track, but they wish to use the studio's gear. What would be the instruments you know would work in context of a mix and in conjunction with one another, based on their build/components.

 

[lolzgreg]

Guitar: Mahogany body, maple neck, hardtail bridge, Duncan JB or EMG 81 pickups

Bass: Fender Jazz Bass (ash or maple) with either EMGs or stock pickups.

Those two instruments will blend well and can be used across multiple genres.

 

[amarshism]

My best results were my ESP viper with 81s an a music man stingray.

 

[StefTD]

guitar wise, the ESP MII neck through the lead guitar player from my old band owned was awesome.
Alder body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, EMG 81 and a floyd rose, awesome for tight metal
sounds, his playing might have helped alot
For clean and crunch stuff, I loved the Gibson ES335 a friend of mine owns and his old squier telecaster.

About basses-the bass player in my new band plays a Steinberger 5 string (forgot the actual model,
not one of the pedal ones an older one) with EMGs-that thing sounds incredible, he plays with the his
fingers with a clean tone most of the time, so no distorted bass sounds like most modern metal productions
and it's just awesome.
Besides that bass, a Music Man Stingray seems to work for my almost always, played with a pick and
some distortion you can get really nice and grindy sounds out of it and they're really cool for funk, too.

But in the end, the tone has alot to do with the player and especially if he "feels" the instrument.
The ESP MII for example sounded awesome, but I just don't get the right feeling playing that guitar so
it's pretty hard for me to play it the same way (even if it's nice to play) as a guitar I am really into.
Imho it's pretty funny that the Ibanez SZ seems to have a little revival here, especially after reading that
Ermz is into it-always thought that this guitar just sounds really great and rich even if it's unplugged.
That's a part I test at first nowadays, the unplugged sound of a guitar, how well the harmonics sound
and so on-if it sounds dead unplugged with new strings, it possibly may sound dead through an amp.

 

[Jind]

I'll go with the same bet - a Fender Strat with Fender Precision bass. Do you know how many hit rock records have been recorded with that combination? Probably more than I can imagine. Seriously - I do think it's way to subjective for any combination to guarantee success. If it works it works, if not ... well you know.

 

[mr.L.]

Some combinations that seem to work really well to me:

Les paul type guitars with basses made out of maple (rickenbacker, some Gibson Grabbers, Spectors, high end Ibanez basses)
All mahogany thinner bodied guitars (for example Gibson SG) with basses made out of ash with bold on maple neck and fretboard (MM Stingray, Sandberg JM/TM, Precision bass)
Fender strats, guitars with p90's, gretsch type guitars with Precision basses or something like a Gibson Thunderbird

Fender jazz works with a lot of sounds and genres. If you want a sound that stands more apart from the guitars I tend to like ash bodies more. I you want a more even, less cutting sound alder works better. When the guitar sound is a bit on the thinner side I much prefer precision basses over jazz basses.

 

[Machinated]

so subjective. guitars, generally expensive ones i try and change things about as much as possible, makes it more interesting. les pauls, telecasters, strats, SG's, PRS's etc have turned out well for me in the past.

bass, jazz bass is my kind of go to, generally great for anything rock.

 

[Shinozoku]

From a live sound perspective...

Gibson style guitars (LP, SG style) with an ash bodied, maple necked bass. Specifically, a Dean Mach V w/ Nailbomb, Les Paul DC Special with a 498T, and a stock Peavey Patriot bass with age-old strings on it. The band I work with gets such a huge sound that meshes so well together, it's crazy! Of course, haven't had the chance to properly record them yet, so we will see.

 

[Chainsaw Calligraphy]

Guitar: Mahogany body, maple neck, hardtail bridge, Duncan JB or EMG 81 pickups

Bass: Fender Jazz Bass (ash or maple) with either EMGs or stock pickups.

This.

 

[Clark Kent]

Well to be honest while I do think that the instrument itself is very important, I wouldn't say that the instrument itself is responsible of how the guitar/bass tracks sit in a mix. Well the bass matter more if you ask me since it's usually a clean sound. Guitars... anything that sounds clean and unclammy really. Music Man guitars are a good example of this. Bare Knuckle pickups with the extended dynamic range... yeah. Bass is more about the player than the bass itself. Usually a Fender jazz bass sounds amazing in a mix. Music Man basses once again.. they rock.

 

[Ermz]

Guitar: Thick mahogany body, set mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard. Essentially the darker the woods, the better, as you're trying to naturally attenuate all those christ-raping high-frequencies that distortion produces. Seymour Duncan JB as the bridge pickup is hard to go past for a huge cross section of workable tones. It has a natural scoop across the mids where guitars usually need it in order to clear up the muddyness of the wood-tone. It's also not as compressed or abrasive as the EMG pickups, so it can handle processing much better, and is applicable to a wider range of styles.

Bass: Brightest tone woods possible. AFAIK two builds are valid:

Bolt-on build: For maximum transient clarity you want an Alder or Maple bodied bass. Maple neck with a rosewood or ebony fretboard. Maple fretboards are valid too, but might cause the fret clack to be a touch too abrasive.
Neck-thru build: Maple/Wenge neck, Alder wings, Maple top. Rosewood or Ebony fretboard.

35" scale, always. Huge amounts of gloss and paint are preferable, as we want to reject as much wood-tone as humanly possible. All it does is contribute to mid-range mud which needs to be subtracted from the bass tone down the track. What we're aiming for is something as close to a pure sine-wave as possible, with some fret-grind to distort and unify the tone with the guitars. AVOID Ash. AVOID Mahogany.AVOID darker woods in general - all they will do is build up your useless low-mids.

I would also advise avoiding J-bass pickups like the plague. All they add is the finer points of mid-shit and farting, especially if you play any harder than a fairy. P-bass pickups are valid, but for most metal styles dual coils like the EMG DCs are advisable. The DCs love to grind, and they want you to play harder, which for a bass is absolutely crucial. I'm still looking around for the perfect bass pickups, as I know there has to be something better than EMGs out there in the passive realm. I've yet to find it though.

 

[Fifth_Horseman]

Ermin, have you checked out Delano pickups yet? They might be just what you are looking for.
http://www.delano.de/

Best bass pickups I have come across so far (SBC series), they are transparent, balanced, and overall just great sounding. It's a german brand, so a lot of german bass builders use them on their highend basses.
An ex-bassist of my band also swears by them and puts them into every bass he gets (Warwicks, Sandbergs etc.) with great results.

Check out the samples on the website for an impression.

 

[Ermz]

The Delano are the very next on my list to try! German, aiming for fidelity, chunky looking pole pieces, passive... I can't see any negatives.

 

[Uros]

What we're aiming for is something as close to a pure sine-wave as possible, with some fret-grind to distort

 

[egan.]

Bass: Brightest tone woods possible. AFAIK two builds are valid:

Bolt-on build: For maximum transient clarity you want an Alder or Maple bodied bass. Maple neck with a rosewood or ebony fretboard. Maple fretboards are valid too, but might cause the fret clack to be a touch too abrasive.
Neck-thru build: Maple/Wenge neck, Alder wings, Maple top. Rosewood or Ebony fretboard.

35" scale, always. Huge amounts of gloss and paint are preferable, as we want to reject as much wood-tone as humanly possible. All it does is contribute to mid-range mud which needs to be subtracted from the bass tone down the track. What we're aiming for is something as close to a pure sine-wave as possible, with some fret-grind to distort and unify the tone with the guitars. AVOID Ash. AVOID Mahogany.AVOID darker woods in general - all they will do is build up your useless low-mids.

I would also advise avoiding J-bass pickups like the plague. All they add is the finer points of mid-shit and farting, especially if you play any harder than a fairy. P-bass pickups are valid, but for most metal styles dual coils like the EMG DCs are advisable. The DCs love to grind, and they want you to play harder, which for a bass is absolutely crucial. I'm still looking around for the perfect bass pickups, as I know there has to be something better than EMGs out there in the passive realm. I've yet to find it though.

I would hope that anyone who reads this would take it with the understanding that Ermz is after one very specific tone and that stingrays, j basses, ash P's and many other basses that don't come close to fitting this criteria are all over great metal records with great bass tones. I've literally never heard another engineer in any genre say they didn't like J's for example.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

After many years on this forum
i´ve come to the conclusion that Ermz
hears things i will never be able to... D

For guitar :
mahogany guitar with mahogany or maple neck
emgs
or Seymour duncans passives

For bass:

Jazz bass...instant awesome tone no matter the music style.

i´ve played and recorded
aria pro
warwick
ibanez
fender
Ltd
and by far the jazz bass is the best.

and i just have a Squier vintage modified jazz bass and im happy as fuck.
i cant imagine what a "real" jazz bass must sound like...

the bass of my dreams (i wish it was 35" scale)

 

[Ermz]

Well, the OP asked:

Strictly from a tracking/mix engineer's perspective - what have been the most complimenting stringed instruments for you

Definitely speaking straight to that question when I made my answer, and I definitely stand by it. Here's for two recent experiences that go along with it:

I bought the infamous Squier Vintage Modified Jazz Bass in order to get some nice, cheap, clear 'can't go wrong' bass tones. My mediocre BTB705DX totally monstered it. The J-pickups farted like mad, and were otherwise useless for anything other than lightly touching the strings.

Recently had a Spector in here loaded with EMG Js. I think Alder body, maple top, maple neck, rosewood board, the usual stuff. Farting on the raw DI tracks. Great, clean frequency response and punch due to the woods and bolt-on build. Horrible farting due to the pickups... and I mean CONSTANT farting. The clips of Spectors of similar construction I have with DC40s and DC35s improve on it in just about every way I could gauge the quality of a bass tone.

Searching for ideal tracking guitars has been a huge quest for me in the last two years, so it's all quite fresh in my mind, and I know exactly what I'm looking for as a tracking/mix engineer. Make of it what you will.

 

[decoy205]

I've gotten my favorite Bass Tones from, The Marcus Miller Jazz Bass, and Zon Basses. I have a Spector with active pickups that is not far behind.

Zon makes amazing stuff: http://www.zonguitars.com/zonguitars/index.html

Guitars are all over the place. One day an Ibanez will smoke a 3k Les Paul and different Les Paul will kill anything. It depends on a lot more factors imo.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

Would anyone be kind enough to recommend some 35"-scale basses in the <$1k range? (4- or 5-string, alder or maple)

 

[egan.]

I don't know of any off the shelf 35" 4 strings. If you can stand the necks, a used spector rebob5 fits that bill. It's worth looking at the lakland skyline 55 series too but you can't rule out ash. I owned one (which Kev now owns) and it was a great bass.