Getting the Dirt for a Post-Grunge Session
09/23/2023
I spent the other day recording a another song for a TV score. This time it was a post-grunge ballad, in the style of Alanis Morrissette. Talk about "out of my wheelhouse." The sounds and the playing style are quite different from what I am used to. The clean sounds... aren't (not a problem) and the grind sounds are, well, a jagged little pill. For some reason I was up against the clock more than usual - probably because the composer's computer melted down while he was trying to deliver the materials to me so I didn't get the guide tracks until well into the session. Once again I used the Line 6 Helix for all my amps. With update 3.5 they rebuilt all the cabs with IRs and I am really loving them. My amp selection this time was a Fender Deluxe Reverb and a Fender Twin cab with ceramic speakers to cut the mids a bit from the standard Deluxe cab. Funny thing: I left the U-47 mic model on the patch, mostly because it was the selection built into my preset and I didn't have time to go that deeply and rat things up with a sharper mic. Note to self: maybe next time.
Basically, I did the clean sounds with the Carvin TL60T with the bridge pickup split to single coil. Having a maple neck-through-body and alder body wings, it is a fairly bright instrument. When you compress it and gain it up just a little it gives that chimey cleanish sound that was popular with the movement.
For the grind I went with the Gibson SG Standard '61 Reissue. Post-gunge liked the guitar sound splattered but not hi-fi, so the limited low-end bandwidth of the SG was great. Despite the high-ouput '57 Classic Plus in the bridge position, I haired it up pretty good with the Price of Tone model set to high gain and distortion to get that grunge sound.
I played mostly rhythm parts on this session but the, um, rhythm of the song was a bit eccentric. Between having just been exposed to the song and being under deadline, getting clean takes was a chore. In the end, I was pleased with my results. The session was remote, meaning the composer wasn't there, so we'll see how the parts go down with him.
But darn, at the end I was flagged, probably due to the time pressure.
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