Justin Meldal-Johnsen has performed as bassist, guitarist, and keyboard player for Nine Inch Nails and St. Vincent, and has worked as a bassist and music director for Beck. As a producer, Justin has worked with acts such as M83, Paramore, and Wolf Alice. Here he shares his bass processing workflow in Effect Rack – it might just inspire some new colors for your bass tracks! Enjoy.
“I have a little setup I use for processing bass sometimes: After recording an amp and a DI track of a bass performance, I sometimes like to get a separate parallel track going to add interest and some unique presence to the bass. To do this I’ll either make a duplicate of the DI track or simply create an aux, on which I’ll throw an Effect Rack preset with the following components set up in this order:
Firstly, I’ll use Decapitator. Usually I’ll set it to the E model, use a little bit of low cut, and then a low to moderate amount of drive with Punish disengaged. The mix amount varies but it’s usually well above 75%, because obviously I can adjust the master mix on the Effect Rack.
From there I’ll add some Radiator, and use it both as a broadband EQ with its own special character, and as a secondary gain stage that has a distinct flavor versus the Decapitator. If there’s plenty of bass already happening with the original amp and DI tracks, I’ll often reduce the bass on the Radiator to create space. And with Effect Rack, it’s easy to have them all in front of you so you can compare the input of the Radiator with the drive on the Decapitator, adjust the separate mix balances, etc.
Then I’ll bring in some MicroShift. Even if I’m not specifically going for a chorus effect, I love using this – it sounds counter-intuitive, but I enjoy modulating the bass at least a little… makes it stand up in a unique way, even if it’s not a full-on chorus-y effect. A little goes a long way, but I often like to go a long way.
Lastly I’ll occasionally add a Sie-Q for a last stage of overall EQ, and usually as a presence boost and/or final bass reduction.
Once I have this organized the way I like, I just blend it in to taste with the fader and/or automation, and it can be pretty cool.”
