How To Get This Bass Sound?

[ggalen]

Jun 23, 2008, 2:19pm, milfus wrote:teach side way of doing this, make a softknee compressor and run it through a send return with the uncompressed signal, so itll round out your tops, and still have the diminished decay, I was messing around on an ibanez road gear for a few minutes, and managed to get it really close, id say like 95% there, just helps with the rounding out and leaving the dynamics.Thanks, milfus! I will try it.

[billg]

Glenn, from what I've read there are a lot of LA sessions that are in dispute but by all accounts of everyone involved (except Carol Kaye) the "Reach Out" and "Bernadette" sessions never overlapped into the LA work & all of the other living musicians involved say that it was Jamerson who played on them. It's a pretty strange claim. If true then the whole "Standing In The Shadows Of Motown" thing would be a sham.BTW if you go the compression route for this bass sound you will benefit by using flatwounds (or really dead rounds) & rolling off most of the top end. The compressor can cause the pick sound to get really "clicky" which would not be cool. Like she mentions, a super heavy pick will help too.Good luck & if you unearth any more tidbits about the motown dispute let me know!

[ggalen]

Bill,I don't own a bass; I am planning on using a sample of a P Bass.I've thought of getting a bass and learning because I just love doing funky rhythms on the Strat and figure bass guitar would be enjoyable.But I don't have the time to learn everything and am currently focusing on lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and songwriting.

[milfus]

ah I have my chains set up with sib reducers after the compressors for each one, (got them really cheap) so my rig auto counters that, forgot it, I only play pick tho, and I didn't notice a lot of problem, then again it was allready counter eq'd so *shrug* normally tho, if you are set just for the top of your threshhold to round out the tones, the pick noise wont be picked up, and will be passed through the natural signal, rather than the compressed one, but maybe thats just me.

[mojobone]

Yeah, I think the controversy stems from a lot of Motown hits not just being re-packaged, but sometimes re-recorded; doesn't make Carol Kaye a liar. Try pumping your bass or samples through Aphex' Big Bottom opto-compressor/EQ, it takes off just enough of the front end of the note. Palm muting takes care of the back end.

[ernstinen]

Jun 23, 2008, 8:29pm, mojobone wrote:Yeah, I think the controversy stems from a lot of Motown hits not just being re-packaged, but sometimes re-recorded; doesn't make Carol Kaye a liar.Carol Kaye's claim that she played some of the stuff that Jamerson obviously did always puzzled me. I'm A HUGE Jamerson fan, and that always reeked of jealousy to me. --- I've never heard that some of those hits were re-recorded. When, and by whom? BUT, reading her website, she also claimed to play on some of the Beach Boys' hits, too. Maybe so, but why would Brian Wilson want to do that when he was such a great bass player? Very odd ---Ern

[daniel481]

She definitely played on the Beach Boys stuff. I don't know anything about the Motown controversy, but I know for sure that that's true

[ggalen]

Just look on Google for "The-Wrecking-Crew songs sessions".That was the nickname of the session players who played on MANY of the hits of the 60s.They did Pet Sounds, and Brian Wilson produced the songs he had composed.They did Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn, Turn, Turn. The only Byrd allowed to play on Mr. Tambourine Man was Roger McQuin in the 12-string."During the sixties and seventies, perhaps the most fertile period of popular music our nation has ever produced, recording stars such as the Monkees, Carpenters, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Jan & Dean, the Beach Boys, the Association, the Grass Roots, Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, the Mamas and the Papas, and dozens more ruled the airwaves." "However, most listeners are likely unaware that a good share of these legendary artists seldom, if ever, played any of the instruments on their own records."Check out this article that tells all about it:http://tinyurl.com/2syc5o

[billg]

Ern, I'm a big Jamerson fan also & while Carol Kaye is a teriffic bassplayer she's no James Jamerson. I've never heard her play anything that even approached his style so that would make the claims pretty hard for me to believe. I think the only bass player that has ever come close to Jamerson style-wise is Chuck Rainey.I had known that Carol Kaye played on Pet Sounds. And I knew the Byrds didn't play in the studio, that wouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who had the opp to hear them live in the 60's.Thinking about this made me think of a guy named Sal Detroia. He lived in VA Beach VA for a while & was working in studios producing various projects etc. He always claimed he played on this or that INCLUDING some of the guitar work for the Byrds. I kind of never believed he played or did any of the things he said, I don't know why. Anyway this was in the pre-internet days & writing this post made me think of him so I googled . . . I guess you should just never really make those kind of judgement calls, now I'm going back over everything he claimed to have done & wondering about it. I found this on Melanie's webpage (remember "Brand New Pair Of rollerskates?"). Sal has passed away & she was remembering him . . ."I would try to communicate with trained musicians and this is where Sal came to my rescue, he heard the chord in my head and became a friend for life. He played and created the intro to Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer.” He needed to get acknowledged for that as so many musicians who create the memorable hooks and rifts do. But no one told the world it was Sal Detroia ~ Sal, anyone who matters knows, mostly you, and you know, and you’ll carry that beauty through from life to life because gone is not a place. And I will not miss you because you’ll always be right there."

[ggalen]

Bill,I was a Byrds fan, and kind of deflated to read that they didn't play on their records...except Roger Mcquinn and his 12-string. I never heard them live. I am sure I would have wised up during the first song, eh?Oh well, I keep learning more and more about how the world REALLY works on so many fronts!