Chris, a bass guitar player, was in the control room today to perform bass on some of Alisha’s songs. He plays a bass guitar with four strings. Chris and Jim explained to me that the bass plays more of the single notes while guitars play chords. Jim said the bass player makes the song. Also, it helps the recording process greatly when they are open to suggestions and can respectfully work with others involved. This was helpful because I was only familiar with guitars and could now understand better what the session was revolved around. I noticed that Chris’ bass guitar was plugged into a machine in the control room. I was not used to seeing this because typically, I saw someone playing their instrument in the vocal booth or the other room. Jim explained to me that Chris’ bass guitar was plugged into a preamplifier and he could be in the control room because his instrument didn’t bleed into anything. By doing this, the electronics does it for you and the sound goes through the wire, therefore you could play with other musicians too.
For the first song, Chris tuned his bass guitar and played different things until he and Jim heard something that they liked or felt would work with Alisha’s song. They recorded a few different parts and then went back through it and decided to keep some parts and change others. I wondered how frequent musicians come into the studio not fully sure of the music they want to record. When Alisha arrived to the studio, they asked her for her opinion on the part. She quickly approved and Chris played it so Jim could record it as the final piece, not as a trial anymore. They all agreed that this song had a lot of piano so they didn’t think the bass should be moving around as much.
For the second song, they added bass as well. After figuring out how Chris could play in this song, they were all satisfied. The bass didn’t draw attention to itself in this song, yet it was still important to have it. However, at the bridge, Chris was allowed to drive and draw more attention to the bass guitar to balance it with the tension of the song at this specific point.
Lastly, the third song required bass too. Chris said it was best to keep it simple and not add too much bass. Even though it can be tempting to fill it will a lot of bass, or any other instrument for that matter, it is best to know the sound that you want to achieve, and I observed that all of the people involved in this process definitely knew that. The whole time I am in this session, I can’t stop thinking about how badly I want the songs to be finished just so I can listen to them all the time! I wonder if Alisha’s songs are in the last stage of the process because all of the instruments have been recorded on the tracks and most of her vocals.
