WHAT’S ON YOUR HARD DRIVE?
Frontman Jean-Paul ‘Bluey’ Maunick and programmer Richard Bull pick a few jazz-funk-friendly plugins from their hard drives
PRO TOOLS HD 10
Bluey: “I guess most people see Incognito as a live band. If you go to a show, we’re up there on stage playing real instruments. When it comes to recording, it’s a different story. So much of the process is done inside the computer. If I’m sketching out ideas, I might use anything from GarageBand to Logic to my iPhone, but once we’re in the studio, Pro Tools is the daddy! It’s the closest we’ve got to an old tape recorder. My sharp old ears aren’t easily fooled, but we have mixed down for vinyl on Pro Tools and I have been gobsmacked by the results. I am an analogue producer – that’s where I come from – but I now exist in a digital world and I feel very much at home.”
WAVES SSL COLLECTION
Bluey: “I used to use the real SSL gear in the early days, so I know what it’s supposed to sound like. There was a point where software was struggling to match what the hardware gear could do… we’re going back a few years, here. Some guy would bring his digital compressors and channel strips into a session and they sounded awful. So harsh. We analogue producers used to sit there with a smug smile. ‘They’ll never match the real thing’. Look at where we are today. This does it all. In most interviews about software, people go on about the ease of use. Doesn’t interest me. I use software because it does what I need it to do.”
SCARBEE BASS BUNDLE
Richard: “Creating a realistic-sounding bass part is way more achievable than it was 27 years ago when I programmed the bass for Incognito’s Colibri [ Check out the drums and bass for this Incognito classic. Both are programmed and the bass was all done on
an Akai S950!]. Most decent libraries include multilayered, round-robin sampling with automatic legato, hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, x-notes, release samples and trills. Even fret noises, buzzes and pick-up slaps. I spend time on editing note lengths, but only because I manually draw in notes directly to the Key Editor in Logic Pro. I quantise with grooves which are randomised, but not too much. X-notes, or dead notes, add realism, and some sample libraries can optionally add unobtrusive noises and miscellaneous artefacts that you’d hear with a live player. I usually don’t use full velocity unless creating an accent. With any of the Scarbee basses, the bulk of the part would be centred around a velocity of 100 to 110. If you don’t have access to a library with hammer on/off articulations, you can mimic them with a hard pitch change where the new note occurs. A series of pasted in pitch changes
can also simulate trills, but the results aren’t always… convincing. In a proper trill you hear the string hitting the fret or fingers sliding across the fret in a buzz trill.”
ARTURIA V COLLECTION
Bluey: “When you’re an old-school musician like me, it’s nice to see an interface that you recognise. There are some synths I’ve looked at and… you need a degree in rocket science just to get a decent bass sound. That’s no good for me. At school, I failed basic maths! With this lot, what you see on screen is more or less what I remember from the synths I used to own 30 years ago. If I pull up the Jupiter, I know exactly what to twist and what to slide.”
NATIVE INSTRUMENTS GUITAR RIG 5
Bluey: “Even after all these years, there is still something about the sound of a guitar being recorded through an amp. Mic’d up… the movement of the air. But using Guitar Rig isn’t about trying to replicate that. It’s about choice and opportunity. I might have an idea for guitar and maybe it needs a bit of Fender Twin or an old Orange amp. Try it out. Does it work? On the last album, I reckon that 50% of the guitars were recorded via software effects.”
XLN AUDIO ADDICTIVE DRUMS 2
Richard: “This is my go-to drum software. A well-thought out interface and some excellent samples. I’ve used other software in the past and never liked the way the drums were hit. They felt… clunky. That means you’re spending time trying to get the snare sounding like a snare when you should be programming. When writing, I’ll get a basic eight-bar groove, then add realism later. There’s no point messing about with velocity and note-positioning until you know the groove works.”
SCARBEE CLASSIC EP-88S
Bluey: “We’ve got a lovely, well-maintained suitcase Rhodes in the studio and, yes, there are times when that is the tool for the job. Some people might even argue that, if you’ve got a genuine Rhodes, you don’t need software. I disagree. The beauty of digital is that you’ve got a huge, new palette of sounds to play with. One song might call for something that sounds like a Rhodes, but it’s more of an alien Rhodes. You could spend all day processing the real one, trying to find the weird sound that you’re after, or you could use software. And I’ll tell you something: not many people will be able to tell the difference. I’ve had respected session musicians collaring me in the studio and saying, ‘I love that you still use all the old gear. The Rhodes on that track. It’s real, innit?’ I have to say, ‘Sorry, bro. Hand on heart, it’s a plugin!’”