For those who know our bass player, Andy Horstead, they will know he is both a unique character and a unique bass player.
It is this latter facet of his personality I will discuss here.
Andy has a fast, funky bass sound filled with high-end mids, and often moves between musical sections via swift and melodic bass runs – many of which I end up stealing for my own guitar lines!
Day Three of the session began with us trying out various sounds for the bass – all of which sounded terrible.
The rest of us were gobsmacked, as on previous recordings (and in general) Andy has always achieved a monstrous bass sound, as he possesses a really top end instrument, a Music Man Stingray.
But then came a sudden revelation: while discussing what on earth the problem could be, Andy mentioned that he had forgotten to put new strings on his instrument . . .
Once Jason Wilson, the producer, heard this, he called an immediate halt in proceedings and sent Andy rushing off to find a music shop.
For a fat lad, he did well: Andy was back in about 20 minutes with a brand new set of RotoSound strings, which he quickly slapped onto his Stingray.
Then we got down to work.
As always with recording, it takes a while to warm into the process, especially when you have a producer who is as exacting as Jason is – it is not uncommon to do seven or eight takes of the same section in order for Jason to get what he wants.
Once Andy got one song under his belt, though, the others came more quickly, and he did all of the bass in about three hours, which is very good going.
Tomorrow, we will start on the guitars and vocals.
The 109s Blog 