Bad bass players...

Fuck him ...track it yourself......Don't let that loser fuck that doesn't even care about his own craft come and fuck your shit up

 

I was this ( ) close to doing it myself just recently.
Was painfull to record, but I just turned my brain off, smashed the result with comps and distortion and hey, presto! No-one complained!

 

I was tracking a very talented band the other week. Now mixing it.
They kicked their bass player before the recordings and the guitar player tracked the bass.

He used the shittiest squier bass with old strings, and realy didnt know how to play bass.
Result:
I am fucking struggling with the mix because I am missing the punch

It sucks because the band is great...

 

Just retrack it man, no harm done. Just say you edited it.

 

Either have a guitarist that can play bass properly do it.
You track it yourself
and for me as a last resort, I always have Trillian waiting for things like this

 

did it countless times. most bass players aren't worth shit. but every once in a while you get to track someone who really knows what he's doing, and that's where the real fun starts
bass is incredibly overlooked. most bass players also bitch and moan about how the bass is so low/inaudible in the mix, probably the reason why they don't give a flying fuck about their playing....which consequently is the reason why it's so low in the mix in the first place.
the problem is, even if it's pretty loud in the mix it will often just support the guitars, and while mixing you're trying to blend the guitar and bass tones into one giant mass. on the other hand, this goes at the expense of having the bass stand out. it's either one giant sonic wall that blends well, or two distinct different tones...pretty difficult to find a middle ground here. but thats off topic anyways.

 

Yeah, just do it yourself.
Bass isn't even my main instrument yet I play it better than many people who play it as a main instrument, quite sad really.
You'd think people would know the basics such as fretting the notes properly and picking hard and consistently, but seems a lot don't.

 

sorry, I'm no help, just dropped in to say I'm working with a FUCKING INSANE Bass player right now

 

throwing some salt in the wounds, eh?

 

Or you could say that their takes are really not that good and have him re-track it.

 

I guess you haven't recorded bass players who are truly hopeless at playing well? I'm all for giving the musician a chance and investing patience and so on but there have been cases where it is absolutely pointless with some people.

 

Two options:

1: Edit and work with it and make more money assuming you did by hour pay
2: Replay it yourself and edit it to perfection. A good bass tight with drums can make a recording wonderful

I've replayed plenty of stuff, one project I replayed everything but drums. You gotta do what works best for the product.

 

I'd convert to midi and humanize, not only the velocities but also timing.
It takes me around an hour to do that. I don't know what DAW you're using. In my experience Cubendo and PT rocks in terms of 'automated automation' features. Never went through Reaper's midi features. Anyway, I've got no right to stereotype other DAW's as I'm a PT-only guy.

IMO overdriving tad more than neccessary gets rid of the 'programmed' feel.

Also, I'd run in notes into another. Can't explain because of my bad english.
It should look something like this on the sequencer.

D D D D D D D
------------ E E E E E E E

^See how they overlap?

I'd be careful with that though. Maybe overlap by 32nd or 64th grids?

 

hahaha...I track myself bass a lot of times.......

 

At the end of the day you gotta remember that your name is going on the CD, so if it sounds like ass - people might blame you, and not the band. It might be beneficial to just retrack the bass, make it sound tight, and maybe even tell the other guys privately that you had to re-record the bass yourself because it was simply unworkable and it wasn't something you wanted to put your name on.

 

Retrack that shit. I'll be the first to admit the majority of bass players don't seem to understand what the role of the bass is in a band or how to play it.

 

My place, 4 days, and still hasn't finished tracking 5 songs. Engineer hell? This is it. Fortunatly I'm not the one in the hot seat. Honestly, I could have walked in there cold, learned the songs and tracked all of them in less than a day. 4 days??? For less than 5 songs??? The shame alone would kill me.