Essential musical gear
Aside from the instruments, amps and studio software & hardware that I use, there are various bits of gear that really help me in my life as professional musician.
V-Moda Crossfade-LP headphones
I’m honestly not exaggerating when I say that these headphones have changed the way I record the bass.
Studio sessions
When doing sessions, I love to play in the room with the drummer, but the producer doesn’t want a bass amp in there, spilling bass into all of the drum mics.
What’s the solution? Use a D.I. box and listen in the room through headphones.
The big problem is that most studio headphones have crappy bass response. As a result, it’s almost impossible to catch the vbe of what you’re playing. Without hearing the bass properly, you oberhit and lose all of your tone, often ending up with a choked sound and delivery that’s a bit more scrappy than you would typically enjoy 
The other option is often to stand in the control room with the producer…. miles from your drummer. In this scenario, you’re relying on the quality of their monitors and the size and layout of their room. It can also make you feel separated from the band and for those of you who are a little nervous with your producer, you can feel a little exposed playing in the room with him.
Directionality in sound also plays a big role. As bassists, live on stage we are used to hearing the bass coming from behind us, as a mono signal in a large space. Standing facing two moitors with the bass in stereo in a much smaller room can be surprisingly disorientating. (And that’s not me being a diva – it’s just one of the often overlooked facts of why some players find it difficult to play their best in a studio setting.)
I now bring my V-Modas to every single session I do. I’ll have them on and stand in the room with the band (perhaps behind a screen or divider if needs be to control the volume a little), or for a full on rock session, I’ll put my earplugs in and crank the cans right up. It sounds massive, very well controlled and helps me to get totally immersed in the sound. As a result, I can get completely lost in the music that I am recording, with a sound quality in my headphones that is comparable to top quality monitoring, without all of the proximity or directional compromises.
Home recording
If I’m recording from home, I don’t like to blast the bass, as I have an upstairs neighbour and few things could be more tedious than hearing a low rumble of bass being recorded all day long. In an attempt to stop him feeling either suicidal or homicidal urges, I throw on the V-Modas and off I go. The sound is tight, punchy and very full in the low end. I’ve actually come to the point now where I far prefer to have the tight, controlled sound of my mixes right in my ears, rather than all around the room when I record. That goes for playing bass, percussion, guitar, vocals or keys from home.
Recording on the go
I would love to have the time to write, record, edit and mix from my home studio… but so much of the work that I do happens while I’m travelling or indeed in other people’s houses / studios / practice rooms. Editing / trimming and preliminary panning and EQ work all gets done during long train journeys. It’s a great way of using my travel time – rather than being exhausted from driving all over the country, in many cases I can jump on a train and spend 4 hours working through Pro Tools sessions. You need to be able to make out the detail in recorded parts and also have wide enough frequency response to do EQ adjustments. I can I’ve also done sessions with some of London’s top musicians where I go visit them at home or at a rehearsal room. We rig up mics through a my portable recording rig (MBox 2 Pro and Macbook Pro Laptop), monitor through 2 sets of V-Moda’s and hit it. I’ve had nothing but positive responses from players who’ve borrowed my headphones to monitor through.
Thriller Live
When I dep on the Thriller show, I bring my own headphones. The entire show is monitored for us on cans, and I want to hear and feel the drums and bass properly. It’s Michael Jackson grooves – there’s no way I’m gonna accept anything less!
V Moda’s every time. End of.
Learning on the road
The other place where having serious headphones really comes through is learning material when you’re on the move. As a freelance musician, it often happens that you learn material for your next gig while on the road in your current one. The problem with travelling on buses, trains and planes is that they tend to generate quite a lot of low register rumble and this obscures the bottom end. As a result, it’s nigh on impossible to make out the fine details of a bass part, and in some cases, it’s a struggle to even hear the root notes of the chords. Having a set of cans that really deliver makes it so much easier for me to accurately transcribe and learn my parts when I’m out on the road.
Also, as a final note, for those who are into such things… they look pimpin.
ACS ER Series Custom Fit Earplugs
For more than ten years now, I’ve been using ACS earplugs.
Whilst in college, we had a lecture on the dangers of high sound pressure on the workings of the inner ear and as I jammed with drummers in tiny, sweat filled filled practice booths, the volume of the drums was inescapable. I began to realise that day in – day out, I was pounding my ears, either in jam sessions, rehearsals or gigging with my band.
I friend of mine recommended getting custom moulded ear plugs. He described it as ‘the best long term investment a musician can make.’ I’m inclined to agree with him.
For anyone who doubts just how much of a hammering your ears take on a gig, try playing a night with one earplug in. When you go to bed that night, it will sound like there’s rushing water streaming past you on one side. The other side will feel relaxed and quiet. (I dropped a plug at a gig one night and experienced this – not through choice!)
It’s a sobering experience.
Also, for those of you who suffere from stiffness, aches and pains when playing, take note. When you play in a setting that is too loud for your ears, your body becomes tense. Your shoulders rise and you will naturally twist your head or stand at unnatural angles in order to avoid direct sound exposure into the ear. It can be disasterous for your posture and body control over the long term.
Although some people consider these type of plugs too expensive when compared to a cheap pair of 50p foam earplugs… you will know the difference when you try them. It’s a different world.
I HATE using foam earplugs.
It’s like having someone put a blanket over everything – muffled, undefined top end, muddy, over saturated bottom end. Rubbish.
With ACS moulded plugs, you get an extremely even frequency response and with different filters, you can vary the amount of sound reduction. (i.e. – 9 for a folk gig, -15 for a pub gig, -25 for a blasting stadium gig)
I’m so used to hearing music with my plugs in, that I find it uncomfortable going to see a gig without them.
Although high volume can make us feel excited and can increase the intensity of our experience in a gig, we often lose the detail. It’s like looking into a light which is too bright – our eyes cannot adjust and so we cannot see anything near the light source. The eye is trying to adjust to something which is too intense, so it stops working properly.
My ears feel like this in an overly loud situation – overwhelmed and ineffective. For me, that simply isn’t good enough. I want to hear the detail. I need to catch the lyrics, to hear the articlation of the horn section, to hear the colours in the guitarist’s chords.
If you really care about music and you love to really listen, you need to get some plugs and ACS stand alone, without any real competition, as the best in the business.
