My Blues on American Standard Strat / Ibanez GSR200 bass / POD XT

For this recording I used a 2008 American Standard Strat (with a Callaham bridge block) strung with 10's, a modified Ibanez GSR200 bass and a POD XT and headphones. The POD is much easier to record with than using a mic in front of an amp and the recorded tracks sound much better and it works equally well with guitar or bass. I have presets on the POD setup for the original amp sounds with no effects except a touch of reverb.

I started with a drum track and a cymbal track from music maker software, then listening through headphones to the drum tracks, recorded and mixed my rhythms, bass and lead using the POD into my laptop. For the rhythm Tracks I used the "50's Gretsch 6156" preset on the POD and position 1 (bridge) for sit down rhythm, and position 2 (bridge and middle) for stand up rhythm on the Strat. There are actually three rhythm tracks; you can see two rhythms in the video and the third was the same "sit down" rhythm, recorded on another day. For the lead track I used the "68 Marshall Plexi Variac" preset on the POD and position 4 (neck and middle) on the Strat, with the neck tone pot turned all the way down. For the bass track I set the POD to "No Amp" and "Manual Mode" with both bass pickups turned all the way up for a basic smooth low-end sound. The video was done with a Canon GL2 Video camera into the laptop via DV cable.