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Two MP3's posted - your critique please...


Gruuve

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I took someones advice from another post and dumped two of the songs I'm learning for church this Sunday onto my digital recorder, cut all the lows thus removing about 90-95% of the original bassline, then added my bassline. These are both a little sloppy in a few places and have a few mistakes, but I just started on these yesterday (plus 3 other songs)...I'll have them nailed by Sunday.

 

 

This first one is done with my new fretless. This is the Dean Edge 5-string fretless, Digitech BP8 using tube preamp with a warm/bright voicing, hi-pass compressor, and a thick chorus, direct into an Zoom MRS-1608 digital recorder...no post-processing on the mix.

 

You guys please give me your opinions on how well I'm playing in tune on this one. (Plus any other suggestions, of course.)

 

www.ipass.net/davesisk/music/YourNameIsHoly_DaveFretless.mp3

 

 

 

In this second tune, I've replaced part of the finger-picked bassline with a slapped bassline over the verses and at the end of the song (after the guitar-only break). This is a grooving tune and just screamed "Slap me!". This is done with the Musicman Stingray, Digitech BP8 tube preamp with warm/bright voicing, hi-pass compressor, and a 15ms delay, direct into the Zoom as well.

 

The original bassline was all finger-picked. Tell me if you think the slapped basslines I've added are tastefully done or if you think they detract from the song.

 

www.ipass.net/davesisk/music/LordReignInMe_DaveBassline.mp3

 

 

Since everyone on this board is highly respected by me, I'm also interested in any other comments or suggestions on my bass playing. I'm always looking to improve, so don't hold back any constructive comments.

 

TIA and enjoy the music!

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Hey, good on you for posting examples. As regards the second tune i don't personally think that the slapping adds much to the song. This is because you tend to feel that you have to add a popped octave each time you play the root which is messing up the groove. Slap doesn't automatically mean you have to add more notes IMHO.
Derek Smalls: It's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water. http://www.myspace.com/gordonbache
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Why are all the good singers in church? J/K, both sound great to me, very professional.

You can stop now -jeremyc

STOP QUOTING EVERY THING I SAY!!! -Bass_god_offspring

lug, you should add that statement to you signature.-Tenstrum

I'm not sure any argument can top lug's. - Sweet Willie

 

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Also you need to make sure that you are solidly on the beat. You seem to be missing it quite a lot which gives it a bit of a push pull feeling. Time to get that metronome out and make sure you are hitting it on the beat each time.
Derek Smalls: It's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water. http://www.myspace.com/gordonbache
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Originally posted by greenboy:

Perhaps better to say, "It's time to become more aware of the pulse going on around you..."

I absolutely agree with that. Somewhere along the way, someone got the idea that any particular song must be played at exactly the same tempo throughout the entire song. Not the case...music can "breath" through variations in tempo for whatever reason.

 

That said, "breathing" is not the same thing as sloppiness, which is the case in quite a few spots on these two tunes. These samples obviously aren't intended to be finished productions though...they're recorded practice on two songs I'm working on. I've very rarely recorded myself practicing...I might make a habit of this. I listen to something that I'm not playing differently than I listen to something I am playing...if that makes any sense.

 

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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I absolutely agree with that. Somewhere along the way, someone got the idea that any particular song must be played at exactly the same tempo throughout the entire song. Not the case...music can "breath" through variations in tempo for whatever reason.
I have no problem with letting a song breathe but having a rock solid foundation slap bang in the middle of the beat is where you need to be before you start playing around with it IMHO. I think that as a bass player you usually don't have that many notes to play so you should get the ones you do play exactly right.

 

However I would agree with what I think Greenboy is saying which is that a band develops its own pulse from the interplay between musicians which is more than mathmatical correctness. However if this is a sloppy one I don't wanna listen to it :D

Derek Smalls: It's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water. http://www.myspace.com/gordonbache
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Bearing in mind that these are rough takes I think you've done a pretty good job. I wouldn't be afraid to take the fretless to the Church gig - you may make some mistakes and your intonation may not be spot on but I doubt it'll be so significant as to upset the groove or congregation. And you will learn a lot from playing the fretless in a real world situation.

 

Go easy on the popping - think of the slaps as the meat of the bassline and save the pops for the accents. You'll find that you sit much better in the groove that way. And don't be afraid to slap the high strings and pop the low strings - there's nothing worse that octave slap-pop robotics!

 

Whilst we're on the critiquing thang, here's an impromptu duet (I guess!) from a session a few weeks ago:

 

A little bass and drums jam

 

I quite liked the lyricism and rhythms between us on here, despite the very simple harmony. Shame the tape ran out - it really started kicking later on!

 

Alex

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Originally posted by C. Alexander Claber:

Go easy on the popping...there's nothing worse that octave slap-pop robotics!

Alex

Thanks Alex. Good point...as I've mentioned before, I tend to fit pitches to a rhythm rather than fitting rhythms to a pitch, so I do find my myself often popping octaves, 5th's, or 12th's (???, octave + 5th) by "default". I'll likely rework some of this bassline a bit before Sunday (this was the bassline that essentially first popped into my mind and hands).

 

Thx,

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Originally posted by C. Alexander Claber:

Forgot to say: Nice tones. You're using that gear well!

 

Alex

Thanks. I generally don't like going overboard with effects. The 15ms delay on the song with the slapped bassline seems to work really well. It's short enough that it's not blatantly obvious that it's a delay (or that there's an effect at all). It makes the notes last a little longer, which interestingly enough makes the bass line stand out moreso than no delay. The lows seem lower and the highs seem higher, and there's no loss of attack. That whole patch is hi-pass compressor + tube preamp (warm/bright setting) + 15ms delay...that's it, no EQ mods at all. I'm very please with that particular patch. I've still got a little tweaking to do on the chorus patch I used on the song with the fretless (same as above except chorus rather than delay).

 

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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C Alex - Not my sort of thing but there is nothing particulrly bad about it. I don't think that an audience would want to sit and watch something like this but what would i know.

 

I'm coming off as a bit of an arse here i'll have to get some samples of me recorded that you guys can rip :D

Derek Smalls: It's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water. http://www.myspace.com/gordonbache
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Originally posted by Gord -B:

I don't think that an audience would want to sit and watch something like this but what would i know.

No, I think you're absolutely right. I just liked the tone, feel and dialogue between the bass and drums. More of an improvised 'clinic' piece which gives an insight into the Drop Kick rhythm section than something to listen to for pleasure.

 

Post some stuff up - it's cool to hear what everyone else sounds like!

 

Alex

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Dsisk. listened to both songs. IMHO, I think your approach on the first song is exactly what the song is asking for. Your tone is great to boot.

 

I noticed that people didn't like your slap on the second song. My impression was 'meh'...maybe a little bit too busy.

 

I played it and i found that i barely popped.

 

I also added in the (3 note chrommatic up to the) Bb (played on g string) in place of the f# then right down to the one on the next beat.

 

figured it'd be best to let you hear what i'm talking about.

 

Dave Sisk Click here

 

C alex, the drag feel to that groove is on point. Good stuff.

 

edit: The recording is terrible. I forgot my usb cable at school...so i recorded through a bad microphone onto my computer using my mp3 player's headphones as the source.

 

jason

2cor5:21

Soli Deo Gloria

 

"it's the beauty of a community. it takes a village to raise a[n] [LLroomtempJ]." -robb

 

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Alex: Nice job on the jam...very cool! It's always nice to get stuff like this on tape...sometimes you listen to it later and "wow, were we doing that?"

 

Jason: Nice interpretation of this song as well. Turns out the music pastor really liked the modified bassline, except asked that I do the fingerpick part over the chorus rather than the slap/pop part (my reply of course was "no prob!").

 

This has been a really interesting thread. I think we should all post more stuff for critique. It's really nice to put ego's aside and get real unfiltered opinions back on stuff. Very cool.

 

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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I am not in the same league as most that post on these threads, but I am a life long music lover and have enough knowlege of the bass, that I felt I could add my two cents.

 

I felt that what you did on the first song was most appropriate. You were in command of the groove.

 

As far as the second song, I agree with the earlier posts that the slap play was a bit much for the early verses, but really enjoyed the slap/pop towards the end of the song, as it really made it climax.

 

Nice job.

"Some people are like "slinkies". They're not really good for anything;

but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a

flight of stairs."

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Actually, the finger-picked bass line in the first song is a little busier than I'd normally do a finger-pick line to be honest. I tend to do busier slap/pop bass lines, and more drawn out, non-busy finger-pick lines. I guess one thing I could work on is how to do the opposite...more rhythmic finger-pick lines and more melodic slap/pop lines, eh?

 

The original bassline in that song was just straight eighth notes, and I'm finding myself getting sick of just playing straight eight notes. (Bass = rhythm + melody, right?) The major thirds, fourths, and fifths thrown in where there more to serve the modified rhtyhm (I threw in some rests, believe it or not!) On some of the other finger-picked songs, I've actually replaced straight eights with straight quarter notes...kind of interesting in that a simpler part gives it more "pulse".

 

To put it in a nutshell, contrast is what I try to build usually. Rather than having a two sections of a song that are very similar or only slightly different (maybe straight eight notes or some variation), I tend to simplify one part (maybe sustained whole notes or staccato quarter notes), then retrofit the next section with a blazing slap/pop lick or a more rhythmic finger-pick line that follows the same roots, etc. To me, the contrast adds a lot to the song (assuming it's done tastefully and fits the song and genre, etc.) Just my thoughts here on how I tend to approach this stuff.

 

On the sound, I'm really feeling satisfied with the deep, mellow tone I'm getting out of this new fretless. I'm quite surprised that I'm getting such a deep tone with passive pickups and passive electronics...those EMG's pups are awesome! The output is little hotter than the output from the MM SR5's active preamp. I'm really liking this Dean bass. I was after something that is totally different from the Musicman's tone, and it sounds like I've got it with this fretless!

 

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Thanks for being so bold as to post this on here for public critique. I listened to the first tune.

 

Nice tune. I look forward to hearing it with you playing for real instead of dubbing in a line.

 

I'm not as big a fan of the tone as others here. It is beefy, but sounds a bit muddy and indistinct. Listen to Pino Palladino and Jaco to hear examples of monster fretless tone. ]

 

Regarding the use of the fretless. Watch the intonation, especially in the repeated figure (nice idea, by the way.) make sure the P4 and P5 are really in tune with the octave; stretch between 4 and 2.

 

And does this need to be on fretless? Do we ever have any advantages of a fretless bass? (Remember, I studied URB and I play 3 fretless basses...my question is rhetorical.) Think about it. What are the advantages of the Fretless?

 

To me, the advantages are:

  • The ability to play with better intonation than a fretted bass.
  • Characteristic dark tone, without fret noise.
  • The natural swell that occurs as you do an ascending glissando.

There are others, but lets talk about these three.

Intonation: you will need to do some reading about Tempered vs. pure intonation, to understand the theory which will color your leading tone scale tuning. I did some discussion of that In this thread.

For a better fretless tone, move the fingers closer to the bridge. Jaco did; in fact, he played so close to the bridge his notes sound like nails. It makes the tone less "fluffy" but still have a warm, round character. Additionally, you should finger each LH note with more strength.

Finally, the glissando swell. This is an incredible technique...Pino does it especially well. In physics, any note struck will begin to lose energy (volume) exponentially as it decays. On the fretless, you can defeat this by small ascending glissandos. In other words, strike a note, then slide up a bit...the note will get louder because you are cramming the energy from a longer length of string into a shorter space. (A downward slide makes the note die very quickly...it is not very useful.)

 

Lots of fretless players take advantage of this by playing notes a bit low, then immediately moving them into tune. This also explains the soloistic quality of Pino's fills.

 

It's great that you are exploring this instrument. Never let it just be a "cool substitute" for the fretted. Work hard to learn it's own, unique voice and playing style.

 

Post more tunes.

"Let's raise the level of this conversation" -- Jeremy Cohen, in the Picasso Thread.

 

Still spendin' that political capital far faster than I can earn it...stretched way out on a limb here and looking for a better interest rate.

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Playing fretless only as others have done is only learning some of the possibilities. One is not beholden to [attempt to] play like those players just as one does not need to become an extension of the fretted players before them.
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the note will get louder because you are cramming the energy from a longer length of string into a shorter space. (A downward slide makes the note die very quickly...it is not very useful.)
That's highly unlikely.

 

I'd say that phenom is a function of two items. One is a tendency of rigs to have less low frequency efficiency than they do in midbass and up efficiency. The second tendency is that as one slides upward the string is getting closer to the pickup, which has an amplitude/distance relationship, of course.

.
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Originally posted by davebrownbass:

What are the advantages of the Fretless?

[*]Characteristic dark tone, without fret noise.

 

Post more tunes.

DBB, thanks for the post. What I am mostly after is just that...the characteristic dark tone without fret noise and with minimal mid and hi-freq attack. Many of these songs I'm doing have a really mellow kind of sound to the bass line in the originals (part of that I'm sure is because most of them were recorded live, so you get the "live" sound, which tends to be a bit more mellow for whatever reasons). Anyway, in some of the songs, I really want to emulate what the bassist did because I think it fits really well (speaking in terms of tone only at this point)...some songs I want to do differently and maybe make them brighter sounding, more rhythmic, etc. I can easily and naturally get a very mellow tone with the fretless and can easily get the more growley kind of tone with the MM. (I know I can get the more mellow and dark tone with the MM, it just takes more work on the tone to get it...if it's such that I can choose, I'd rather put that work toward technique like learning to play the fretless well rather than tweaking EQ and patches, etc...make sense?). I really like to generally kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. So, a lot of this is pushing me to learn and master more, but also giving me an opportunity to serve...so, it's a win-win kind of thing. I actually like putting the extra work into a song to re-vamp the bass line in songs where I feel like I can make the bass take the song to a different level than it originally was. The risk there of course is that everyone has different opinions on what's "good" vs. "bad"...so I just have to remember to temper my enthusiasm with sensitivity to what our leader (the music pastor) feels is "good" or "bad" (or more accurately, appropriate for the particular situation or song). I think I'm doing pretty well with that so far... :thu:

 

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Originally posted by greenboy:

That's highly unlikely.

 

I'd say that phenom is a function of two items. One is a tendency of rigs to have less low frequency efficiency than they do in midbass and up efficiency. The second tendency is that as one slides upward the string is getting closer to the pickup, which has an amplitude/distance relationship, of course.

Well, the effect happens on URB as well, although not as pronounced. Probably not as pronounced because of the P/U proximity you mention.
Yep. I'm the other voice in the head of davebrownbass.
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Originally posted by Bumpcity:

That first song sounds a lot like another song. It's killing me that I can't place it.

There's a song called "Sing to the King" that has almost the same vocal melody at the beginning. Could that be it?

 

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Dave,

 

I'm going to agree with others regarding the first tune, but not the 2nd (for the most part).

 

I too really, really liked the line on the first tune. I wouldn't hesitate to record that line. It's perfect for the song. I also liked the tone, although I agree with Dave Brown that it's not an obviously "fretless" tone. But that's OK; some people want a "Jaco" sound, some want big & dark; I'm sort of in the middle, I guess. I have a friend whose fretless tone doesn't sound fretless to me at all--but that's just it, it doesn't sound that way TO ME, & we're not all looking for the same thing from a fretless bass. So, fair enough.

 

I also liked the 2nd song. I liked the fingerstyle figure, which has a good groove but is subtle & unobtrusive. And I liked the slap sections, which didn't seem to me too busy (but see below). Of course it's all going to depend on what the rest of the band is doing, which probably won't resemble the recording very much, anyway. As my band plays this song, the slapping line probably wouldn't work. But I think that if the arrangement tends to be fairly open, with some subtle but tasty drumming, then the slap could make a nice rhythmic centerpiece. It's about context. More than once I've been forced to abandon a pre-conceived approach once I sit down with the others, or inspired to do something totally different than I'd intended.

 

Only two reservations about the 2nd tune. One is that I'd recommend playing less at the part that takes the level down, beginning around 1:50. Songs need levels, & it really annoys me when people insist on filling the more "down" levels with stuff. Again, it's all about context, & what the rest of your band is doing at that point, so this might be moot.

 

The other is that I found the slapping on the outro a little less convincing than in the rest of the song. It seems like it's trying too hard. I'd probably prefer something that moves less & keeps a really deep, tight groove; and I'd probably prefer fingers over slap there.

 

All in, good job on those!

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DCR:

 

You made a great point about context. In the case of the second song, I knew that the more chop-oriented drummer would be playing with me that Sunday, so I pretty much knew from having played with him twice before that he'd catch on and follow right along, which he did. One thing I think that worked well in this particular case was the live vs. recording fullness. In listening to some board recordings of music we've performed, there some fullness missing (expected of course). The thing the board recordings have in a lot of cases that the original versions might not have had was a particular energy and level of excitement that's hard to reproduce on tape (or disk as it may be). I guess what I was trying to accomplish was to help bring up the excitement level of this song at the end and fill in some fullness that's missing live vs a polished recording. I *think* I accomplished that. I'm hoping we got a board recording of this, because I really want to evaluate myself in terms of how this came across live. That's feedback to me for future self-guidance, if you follow me.

 

I probably should have re-recorded that outro, btw...it was really sloppy, and fit much better after I'd actually practiced it sufficiently. I may roll that into trying to scientifically figure potentially better intervals to pop rather than just octaves, per the other post about choosing which interval to pop.

 

Regardless, I've learned a lot from this discussion (and not all of it technically musical)!

 

Thx,

Dave

Old bass players never die, they just buy lighter rigs.

- Tom Capasso, 11/9/2006

 

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Im diggin the tone dave, nice and bright but still big and musical sounding. The others have brought up the little things like the slight tempo drag in spots but its all good. One thing about your thumps though, its kinda hard to tell that its a good thump, it almost sounds like an aggressive fingerstyle groove, good or bad depending on how you look at it.

 

Now I dont mean to jack this thread from dave, but I thought id do some of my own albeit crappy recordings. its some solo bass stuff done on an acoustic bass guitar recorded through my crappy computer mic, couple different techniques like two hand tap and what not for some extra spice, tell me what you think. :)

 

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/3/solobass.htm

 

click on the music link on the page. Thanks in advance for any comments.

THE ace of bass
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