I have spent many years searching for the ideal instruments, amps, speaker cabinets, effects and everything else associated with bass playing (it's incredible what a difference instrument cables do to your sound - ever tried that out?). Now I have found  a setup that is extremely versatile and produces the right sound for every musical style, from a HiFi Fusion sound to a dirty Punk Rock overdrive sound.

My three custom made basses from Ritter Basses are an integral part of this sound. I own a five string bass (with a Hipshot D-Tuner, reaching down to the low A) for Rock, Metal, Funk, Reggae and R'n'B sounds, a six string bass for funk and fusion songs and a five string fretless with an unbelievable intensity and warmth. I only use Elixir strings which ensures that I always have a fresh and brilliant sound.

All three basses produce an extremely precise, punchy and flexible sound that easily blends into your mix, with or without any effects. I get the most positive reactions on my sound when I go directly into the recording system, leaving the bass sound as natural as possible. To capture the most natural sound, I am using a Klotz AD 100 DI box that transports the bass signal clearly without any loss of dynamics.

I also have a great sounding upright bass in my studio that I am recording with two microphones; a condenser mic for the presence and the air, and a dynamic mic for the low end. So if you have a song that requires the real upright sound, I am happy to deliver that!

If you don't have any special requests about the sound, (ex. extremely low sub bass frequencies, slap sound, HiFi sound, effects like overdrive, distortion, chorus, flanger, phaser, octaver etc.) I will put some compression on the bass sound and adjust the sound with a little bit of EQ. Here's where I use a channel strip from Solid State Logic. That's it, the rest comes out of the fingers (or the pick).

The result of this combination is an extremely punchy, very low noise and very versatile bass track that will put a smile on your engineer's face. The track will come normalized to -3dB, so you can hear the bass clearly in every arrangement, but it still has enough headroom for frequency adjustments and/or adding effects. I usually record in 24 bit resolution in either 44.1kHz or 48kHz sampling rate, depending on the target media of your production (CD or DVD). It is possible to record up to 24bit/192kHz. I can deliver the track in either AIF and in WAV file format - whatever you like.

If you prefer the real live sound, I can also record the bass track with a microphone, amplified through a bass amp and speaker cabinet from Gallien-Krueger. Again, after many years of research and experience, I've found that Gallien-Krueger sounds punchier and more defined than every other brand I tried, and that I can get every sound out of it that I desire.

Want some effects? Besides having a huge amount of FX plug ins (like the incredibly authentic sounding Ampeg SVX plug in from IK Multimedia), I am very happy to be endorsed by Line 6 which support me with their Bass-POD models, holding the most popular bass FX in the world. If you're a vintage fan, I also have a few effect pedals that I can dig out, depending on the style of the song.

For all acoustic fans: I also have a very punchy acoustic bass from Ibanez, which can be recorded with the internal pickup or by a microphone.

 And if you have special requests, everything can be organized if you want a special instrument, amplifier or effect.

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