(R&B) My new album, Romine and Ellis

[jzquantum]

Hello Reasoners,

I wanted to share my new album and get your thoughts. It was composed and rough mixed 100% in Reason 10. I mastered it in Reaper 6.0 with iZotope and Waves plugins. If you review my stuff, let me know if I can return the favor for you! Rock on!

Bandcamp

My website
https://gbassproject.com/

[teddymcw]

Wow, this is an awesomely varied album I'm encountering here on first listen, some realllly great jams! I esp loved "In a Minute." So cool that type of track was done in Reason. I didn't totally love the rapping track being the second track on album just bc it sets a diff mood. Really like how heartfelt and upfront it was tho. Great work, I'm still absorbing but thank you for sharing and building such great skills into wonderful sharable music. I feel like you had a great, fun and just valuable time and experience creating this.

[jzquantum]

Wow, this is an awesomely varied album I'm encountering here on first listen, some realllly great jams! I esp loved "In a Minute." So cool that type of track was done in Reason. I didn't totally love the rapping track being the second track on album just bc it sets a diff mood. Really like how heartfelt and upfront it was tho. Great work, I'm still absorbing but thank you for sharing and building such great skills into wonderful sharable music. I feel like you had a great, fun and just valuable time and experience creating this.

Thanks, Teddy. I appreciate your review. Yeah, I tend not to stick to a certain "style" and usually feel that I'm all over the place. I just write whatever comes to my head. It was hard to call this only R&B, but the industry makes you call it one type of music.

The second track is my life in words, and I just chose to make it a rap because I was targeting an old school vibe to the whole album. I wanted the album to reflect the kind of music I grew up on in the 70s and 80s.

It was so much fun doing this and was a total blast.

[MannequinRaces]

Super impressed! Sounds great. Awesome bass playing! Thanks for sharing.

[jzquantum]

Super impressed! Sounds great. Awesome bass playing! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks!

[teddymcw]

Wow, this is an awesomely varied album I'm encountering here on first listen, some realllly great jams! I esp loved "In a Minute." So cool that type of track was done in Reason. I didn't totally love the rapping track being the second track on album just bc it sets a diff mood. Really like how heartfelt and upfront it was tho. Great work, I'm still absorbing but thank you for sharing and building such great skills into wonderful sharable music. I feel like you had a great, fun and just valuable time and experience creating this.

The second track is my life in words, and I just chose to make it a rap because I was targeting an old school vibe to the whole album. I wanted the album to reflect the kind of music I grew up on in the 70s and 80s.

Listening again, this is going on the short list of great albums on this site and just in general. The second track is great, again it just shifted expectations from first track as this is the first time I've experienced your artistry and the first vocal track of the album. I just thought that feedback from first time listener is valuable, though it's neither positive nor negative, just experience. I absolutely love the percussion patterns you create for your rhymes on that title track, it's a very creative take on a 70s rhythmic guitar in some ways. The whole album has a very apparent energetic swing. Really glad I chose to randomly check out this project, inspiring in many ways. Ride on my friend.

[jzquantum]

The second track is my life in words, and I just chose to make it a rap because I was targeting an old school vibe to the whole album. I wanted the album to reflect the kind of music I grew up on in the 70s and 80s.

Listening again, this is going on the short list of great albums on this site and just in general. The second track is great, again it just shifted expectations from first track as this is the first time I've experienced your artistry and the first vocal track of the album. I just thought that feedback from first time listener is valuable, though it's neither positive nor negative, just experience. I absolutely love the percussion patterns you create for your rhymes on that title track, it's a very creative take on a 70s rhythmic guitar in some ways. The whole album has a very apparent energetic swing. Really glad I chose to randomly check out this project, inspiring in many ways. Ride on my friend.

Wow, thanks for the kind words! Much appreciated!

[MannequinRaces]

Did you record your bass direct? What kind of interface are you using and what’s your effect processing on the audio track(s) for the bass? Please and thank you.

[jzquantum]

Did you record your bass direct? What kind of interface are you using and what’s your effect processing on the audio track(s) for the bass? Please and thank you.

Hi,

I'm a bass player by first choice, so I think I tend to favor bass in my mixes unconsciously. I mix bass differently on each song, but here is what I did on the third track on my album, the song "I'mma Get Away." I try to let the song tell me how to treat the bass as opposed to having a set way to do it every time.

I played a Musicman StingRay 5H with everything flat on the bass. I went direct into a Focusrite ISA Two pre amp and then into a Focusrite Scarlette 18i20 usb interface and then to Reason. I sometimes use an Exotic EP booster pedal in front of the ISA Two, but I do that mostly when I play my P bass. The EP booster just adds some nice saturation that wakes up the P bass. The StingRay needs no help in this area, though so I didn't use it.

I generally record bass direct into Reason until I like what I played; no effects at all. When I have a good take, I generally sweeten it by sending it through an outboard rack compressor and EQ at a later time (when I am done with composing and tracking, and then move on to the mixing stage). Then I'll add simple insert effects, like EQ or sidechain EQ with the kick to best fit the mix.

After I was happy with my performance, I took my recording from the Direct Out on the back of the audio track (usually just connect one wire to audio output #3 of the Hardware Interface in the Reason rack). I then sent that signal to my hardware gear by connecting TRS or mic cables from the Scarlette 18i20 to a Distressor Compressor, then a Warm Audio Tube EQ (Puig style EQ) and then back into the 18i20 to a new audio track. I used light settings, just to get the notes as even in volume as I could with a little more low end, warmth and sustain of the notes. The Distressor is awesome. You just can't make it sound bad (even with 15 db of compression!).

After printing those effects into the new audio track, I stacked the following in the new track as inserts in the rack: an iZotope Ozone 8 EQ (a 1 db bell bump at 130 Hz for better sitting in the mix), Cakewalk RE-2A leveling amp for sidechaining to turn down the bass by 3-4 db only when the kick hits, and then an iZotope Neutron 2 to identify and fix any frequency masking that was happening with the kick. It took a couple of simple 1.5 db bell cuts at 420 and 680 Hz to fix the issues I was hearing with the kick and bass. Lastly, I used the "DRM Kong Drum Room" preset as a send effect from the Reason effects to add a little room reverb so that it's not so dry sounding. If I didn't tell you I had room on the bass, most would have no idea it was there.

I didn't do the following on this song, but most times I will use a Waves RBass plugin to get my bass to come through on small speakers and cell phones. Most people I know listen to my music on their iPhones without headphones so I have to make sure you can hear the bass and kick on a cell phone speaker. The RBass has a preset called "small speaker prep" that helps. When I use that plugin, I'll create a parallel channel of my bass in Reason, insert the RBass in the rack, and then blend in the paralleled track using a single Avantone speaker to judge the result. I have found that if you can hear your bass on that speaker at low volume, then you can hear it on a cell phone speaker or other small speaker with no issues.

I don't always do bass this way. I trust my ears to guide me to the best way to get the bass to sit well in the song. Thanks for asking and I hope that helps!