If you play an instrument and own a phone chances are you’ve at least been tempted to record yourself playing one of your favorite songs and post it to the internet. But how to choose the song? How to make it sound good? How do those bigger channels make their videos look so pro? The Bass Channel covers songs all the time, so we thought this would be a great chance to answer some of those questions while delving deep into a playlist of covers of album that almost every metal fan wishes had more bass. I sat down for a Skype call with The Bass Channel’s Cover Master Josh “The Mountain That Rocks” DuBois and The Bass Channel head honcho Chris Caccamise to discuss the hows and whys behind recording one of the channel’s most popular video series- our whole album cover (now with actual bass) of Metallica’s prog-thrash hybrid ...And Justice For All.

Doug- Obviously, we all know that there’s no bass on …Justice. Was that the reason for the cover series or was there more to it than that?

Josh- It all started because of “Blackened”. That was the first cover we posted. The comment section filled up with one of two types of comments- “Lol, joke’s on you. There is no bass on this song” and the more helpful “This is great, do the whole album so we can hear what it sounds like with bass.” Chris emailed me with something along the lines of, “Well, what do you think?” I was down, so we got to work.

Doug- What did you record with and through, and why those choices? Were those choices due to personal preference or related to the sound you were going for that best matched the album?

Chris- We recorded the whole thing using a stock Warwick Corvette Standard 2005. It was the newest bass we had at the time and it was exciting to do something with it. I used the 2018 ...Justice remaster because the sound is great and I was able to cut the guitar low end out to give us space for the bass. The Warwick went through a Darkglass Microtubes 900v1 B3K channel and the settings in the video are based on how Josh likes it. Josh’s tone cuts so well that it fit into the ...Justice tone without any other changes. It was a happy accident on Blackened, then the rest were kept the same. The recording was done all mic, no DI. 

Doug- As every Metallica fan knows, this album has a significant lack of bass in the final mix. Did this make it easier or harder to record the songs? And did you lean on learning the songs by ear, finding isolated bass tracks, tabs, an official book, some combination?

Josh- I learn 90% of my songs from Songster. I find the tab and play to it to check the tuning and how close it is to the actual recording. Then I’ll go to YouTube to watch as many covers as I can to see if everyone is playing the same thing, if they’re using pick or fingers, where on the neck their hands are, and take parts of everything that works the best in my opinion. Because there’s not much bass on the album to follow, I played to Lars or Hetfield because Jason’s bass lines would often closely follow the rhythm guitar. Some of the songs have Jason’s tracks online, which was really helpful too. When in doubt- Follow the guitar. 

Doug- Jumping off that, how comfortable do you feel, when making covers like this, to play parts that aren't true note for note to the original recording? 

Josh- That depends on how I think the internet is going to react and how cool the bass line is. It also depends on the song. Most of the time I’m going to play identical to the song, or as close as I can get because that part is the part for a reason. Sometimes I’ll add my own thing, but only if I think it works really well. 

Doug- Related to the above, was there any temptation to play everything with a pick since that's how Jason played them? 

Josh- No. I’d have to relearn how to play to play with a pick, and songs like “Blackened” are harder to play with a pick in my opinion. 

Doug- Let’s say I just want to learn a song on this album but I’m not terribly confident in my playing. If I wanted to learn the easiest song on ...Justice which one would I learn? What makes it easiest?

Josh- That’s not an easy question because there’s nothing simple about this album. “Eye of the Beholder” would probably be the easiest because there’s not too many crazy changes except for one crazy time change. The parts themselves aren’t that hard but the flow is tricky. Or maybe “Harvester of Sorrow” because it’s not the other songs. That is, it’s less proggy than most of the others, and slower.

Doug- Ok, what if I wanted to really flex on everyone? What’s the hardest song on …Justice?

Josh- *pauses for a good fifteen seconds while he mentally cycles through every song on the album* I didn’t think I could do “Dyer’s Eve”. I got a blood blister from learning that. It’s brutal. The hardest to learn and play both mentally and physically, though, is “Frayed Ends of Sanity”. It’s fun as hell but there’s a million changes and the bridge riff is quick triplets and the solo follows the guitar the whole time. It’s easily the most progressive song on the album and probably the most progressive Metallica ever got. And I actually learn the song, I don’t try and read parts as I’m playing, because I think that takes me out of the feel of the music. My brain hurt after “Frayed Ends”.

Doug- How many takes does it take to make one of these videos? Are we seeing a cut together version of multiple takes to get the best single video, or are we seeing one best take straight through? 

Chris- We recorded this album the old way, which was to first track the audio by having Josh play until he makes a mistake, then pick it back up and get through it right. Then we shoot video three times because we’re shooting with one camera and Josh mimes to the song. We do it this way so Josh can focus on the song and not how he looks playing it when we’re getting the audio. Occasionally mistakes will still slip through, but if they’re barely noticeable and, this especially, if the mistake doesn’t take you out when watching the video, we don’t go back and go over it again. Music is played by humans, and even a beast like Josh makes the occasional mistake.  

Doug- How long did you work on these songs before they were ready to record? Did you have any in the bag already?

Chris- “Dyer’s Eve” took two weeks.

Josh- *visible pain*

Chris- The whole thing took quite a while. Josh learned one song at a time and then we’d record it, then he’d go back and learn the next one. We averaged one song a week with occasional breaks for other songs. In total it was a 12 week process.

Josh- I knew pieces of “One” but that was all. Every bass player learns that fast part at some point.

Doug- Let’s say I wanted to learn something off ...Justice. Are there specific parts that I should look out for, like "The chorus of x is way harder than I expected" or "Your right hand will fall off half way through, so build slow when learning"?

Josh- If you can play “Blackened” you can play nearly all of the rest of the album. It’s all remembering where everything goes.

Doug- What full album covers can The Bass Channel viewers look forward to? And do you take requests? “Livin' La Vida Loca”?

Chris- We’ve got some some Avenged Sevenfold, Iron Maiden, Pantera, and KISS coming*. As far as full albums go we are thinking about Powerslave, Reign in Blood, Ride the Lightning, and Shogun. And Death Magnetic because we have all the stems so we can remix it. Maybe we’ll get to certain pop songs with Josh’s tone, or 70’s hard rock or heavy metal. 

Doug- Anything else you want to say about ...Justice and your covers of the songs?

Chris- I’m thinking about doing a Patreon tier to vote for covers for Josh to play. And maybe we’ll record some behind the scenes videos and put them up there too. I’d like to do a “YouTube Covers ...And Justice For All” type of thing with some of our fellow YouTubers as well. 

Josh- When you learn a song you learn more about the player, and you grow both your appreciation to the player and to the instrument.

*to see all our covers, and everything else we put up, before everyone else join our Patreon

***

Doug Robertson is the editor of The Bass Blog, the blog component of The Bass Channel, your one stop YouTube channel for all things bass. His number one is a Mexican Geddy Lee Signature Jazz and his boomer is a BEAD strung T-Bird. Find books by Doug here. If you’re interested in contributing to The Bass Blog please reach out to Doug at doug@thebasschannel.net. We would love to hear from you.