"I try to get the sound right from the start. I’m not saying that I don’t use EQ on bass, but it’s far from a flat sound that I have to deal with later. It’s tweaked until it’s right at the tracking or overdub stage; and in-fact, we ended up using a decent amount of the live tracking bass on the record. Justin’s main setup for the album was a Wal bass through an extensive row of pedals, and then into two Gallien-Krueger heads—one is set to clean and the other dirty. The clean signal goes to an 8x10 MESA cabinet and the dirty signal into a 4x12 MESA cabinet; each miked separately. There’s also a DI to fatten the low end, which was usually compressed with the CLA-76 in mixing.

No re-amping either. We just spent a lot of time getting different sounds for the different sections of the songs, and making sure it fit. Sometimes that involved a different bass, a different set of strings or a different balance between mic/DI, even different mics on the amps in different sections."

Found in this interview (please check out the full conversation): 

https://www.waves.com/in-the-studio-with-tool-and-evil-joe-barresi

-Benedikt

PS: If you're looking for an amazing community to get feedback from and provide your own expertise for, check out The Self-Recording Band Community. It's 100% free and can be the growth accelerator you've been missing all the time.

PPS: Downloading one of our free guides and joining our email list is also a great way to connect with your peers, as we will invite you to events and keep you in the loop about what's going on in our community. For example, we host amazing video meetups and help people improve their recordings, arrangements and mixes by listening and giving collective feedback live on the call. Join us now!