Bad Bass Sound, Playback sounds weird Options

[Hugo Cole]

Hi

I've been noticing that when I record real bass parts through my Firebox into Garageband on my G5, despite sounding fine monitored through my headphones, when I play it back there's a weird and unpleasant effect that sounds vaguely like there are two basses playing, and slightly out of tune with each other. Basically totally crappy sound. It seems to happen even when I try different effects (e.g. modern rock bass, edgy bass, etc). So I just tried playing my bass through input 1 on the firebox and it sounds much better. I also tried singing through input #2 and although nothing as bad as with the bass, the sound seems somewhat weaker (?). Any ideas what the problem might be?

Thanks

Ken

[Hugo Cole]

Me again - terribly sorry... this thread probably be called "changing tempo without loss of sound quality."

Having done a wee bit of research on this issue, here's what I've come up with.

GB uses a technique called "granulation" to alter tempos, as opposed to the "beat slicing" technique developed by Propellerhead used by Reason and others. This technique "warps" the segment rather than "slicing" it into very brief segments. With slicing, tempo can be manipulated without as much sound distortion as results from granulation. However, apparently even slicing is limited in its application, as it works best with short loops and "gappy" (as opposed to continuous) instruments such as drums.

One major example of software used to slice loops is Propellerhead's "Recycle" which creates a REX 2 file (a file which contains your sliced-up loop). Reason, Cubase and Logic all support REX 2 loops. However, it seems that the process of slicing is somewhat laborious and possibly not suitable for changing the tempo of a track that doesn't repeat every 4 measures.

This info is a summary of this Sound on Sound article:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun04/arti...beatslicing.htm

Having not tried this, I'd be interested to hear what others have to say about this issue. My problem is that I can't play bass or guitar very well and would like to be able to play parts at a lower speed and then speed them up digitally in a way that doesn't sound like ass.

Ken