[x] Proud Scum/The Terrorways split: "the bass fell off

[ripper-records.co.nz] http://ripper-records.co.nz/terrorways-short-haired-rocknroll/
"The tape was then mixed at Radio New Zealand yet somehow the bass fell off in transit."

I asked a guy who has this record and he confirmed that he can't hear any bass guitar on either side. A case of accidental silent contributions. Should Alistair and Chris be set to ghosts on these entries?

[www.bandtoband.com] http://www.bandtoband.com/band/proud-scum/the-terrorways
[www.bandtoband.com] http://www.bandtoband.com/index.php?PageField=Wiki&ActionField=var&Album...

If it's absolutely true that the recorded bass parts did not make it to the final output, then ghosting would be proper.

But surely this is an exaggeration! I can imagine a bass track on a recording somehow getting accidentally muted, and I suppose it's possible that nobody noticed until after the music was pressed. But it's hard to imagine that happening on two different recordings that ended up on the same split release (unless somehow both bands recorded to the same tape and put bass on the same track). Perhaps the bass is there but too low in the mix to meaningfully hear it?

I think both tracks were recorded in a similar manner specifically for the split, and mixed by the same person. The page about the Proud Scum side says:

"Bryan played Stiff Little Fingers' song Suspect Device to the disbelieving Radio New Zealand engineer to show him the sound they were trying to capture."

It wouldn't surprise me if the guy mixing was so shocked by the job at hand that he forgot the bass tracks completely. Though I guess there's nothing to prove that the bass didn't bleed through to any other tracks, nor that the bassists didn't contribute any backing vocals whatsoever. I'll make The Terrorways side live as-is.

Thanks. In case we ever need to revisit this issue, I added some of this discussion to the notes of each entry.