Canadian producer and engineer Garth ‘GGGarth’ Richardson has worked with some of music’s biggest acts, including the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against The Machine, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Ugly Kid Joe and Taylor Swift to name but a few. He currently works out of his own studio facility, The Farm, located in British Columbia. A sonic highlight from his vast discography is the bass sound from Mudvayne’s 2000 track ‘Dig’.
“It took us four days to achieve the distinctive slapping bass sound on this track. Mudvayne’s bassist Ryan Martinie tried all of the amps we had in the studio. We had an Ampeg SVT cabinet, a Mesa Boogie bass head, a Euphonic Audio bass cabinet and a Marshall 444 cab. We also put up foam that was one foot thick by four feet by eight feet between each cab to stop the bleeding between the mics. I did this as it takes the room sound out of the mics.
Garth Richardson: We spent a few hours flipping guitar cables back and forth, as the cables sound better going one way. It always blows away every band when we show them.
“I also used a great trick with cables that I learned from Michael Beinhorn when I worked with him, where we spent a few hours flipping guitar cables back and forth, as the cables sound better going one way. It always blows away every band when we show them. The less resistance gets you a better bottom end. Everyone tells me I’m full of shit when I start telling them about this voodoo thing. Please try it. I was not a believer, but now I am!”
Persistence Pays Off
“For two days straight, we battled to get Ryan’s sound, but he wasn’t happy with any of the sounds he was getting. By day three, he was so frustrated that he couldn’t get the sound in his head to come out of the speakers. He seemed like he was a beaten‑down man, so we sent him back to the hotel for the evening.
“On day four, he came back and began slapping his strings on his five‑string Warwick bass. He was excited and said ‘This is the sound I’m looking for!’ So, engineer, Dean Maher, myself and Ryan put headphones on and tracked inside the control room with all the amps going at the same time. We used an AKG C451 to mic the strings because we had no shotgun mics in the studio. Finally, we captured the bass sound that he was after.
“We also used a [Neumann] U47 tube on the SVT, and Sennheiser MD 421s and a Neumann U87 on the other cabinets too, to get some different textures. I tend to use as few mics as possible because of phase issues. At the end of the day, the intensity and challenge we went through made it all worthwhile. The end result speaks for itself. The bass sound made that record stand out and you can really hear it when it comes through any speaker.
“The entire sound of the band was driven for the most part due to Ryan finding his sound. And that slapping sound is so integral to the track with its distinctive tone. One fun part of the recording was that during the mixing session, I kept telling Andy Wallace to turn up the string mic — and Andy, being a bass player, had a huge smile on his face, which doesn’t often happen.”