Hey Janek,

In a thread about tour work, you mentioned having to play synth bass. I suppose you meant keyboard synth bass ?!? Is that generally a position held by a bass player ? Or do they hire keyboardists for that mostly ? Can you pull that kind of stuff off with a synth bass or some sort of midi thing ? Have you done such things ? (I thought I had enough work laid out for me between the bass and db - though I guess R&B and Pop touring are not really in my career plan).

Just wondering ! Thanks for all the great input in your posts !

Best regards,

NL

NL,

how's it going? thanks for your post.

The synth bass thing is a very important part of pop/R&B touring.

Bass players are the ones used to play synth bass when there's real bass on the gig too. Sometimes entire gigs will be done with two keyboard players and one of them will take the bass duties. But the gigs I have been on playing synth bass are generally split between electric, acoustic and synth playing.

I just changed my synth bass rig this week actually so it's fitting that you should post about it right now.

I'm using my mac laptop, running REAKTOR, the native instruments stand alone soft synth and efx module. I have a new Juno 6 Ensemble that have out and it's killing. I can program just about any synth bass sound I would ever need just with that one unit.

I used to use a Nord lead keyboard, but it was more of a pain in the ass to program. I would get to a gig, and find they had backlined a nord just as I had asked, but then I would have to go and program it for all my sounds. sucked. I would use a motif also, and a couple of different Roland boards if the Nord wasn't available. but having all my sounds in the laptop and just giving the sound guy a stereo output is killing. I can program one sound once and have it with me always.

I'm actually in the studio this week in NYC working on a japanese pop production and am playing almost all synth bass with the same setup as my live one. It's been amazing. i have my little two octave m-audio keyboard and the laptop and I'm banging out trax like crazy with it.

Synth bass is just yet another facet to being a working bass player in the modern touring world. It's an art in itself and there are cats like Kenr Brentely, who has all of my respect and then some, who play more synth bass on the road than anything else. He's a bad ass electric player too, but his synth sh*t is amazing.

go check him out on the Chris Brown tour.

easy,

Janek

Hey Janek,

Thanks for your reply. I guess I need the piano skills for other things anyway... it's just one more incentive.

When in the studio doing that kind of stuff, do you sequence the midi bass you're playing, or do you just track the audio as if it was a normal bass ?

I'll make sure to check Kenr Brentley out.

Take care,

NL

NL,

first of all, there was a typo on that name. It's K-E-R-N Brentley.

my bad.

in the studio I always like to track as if it were a real bass as I hate midi so much.

I'll track two passes of things, pan them out and get an amazing stereo sound on a fat synth bass. I'll be doing it all this week. It's so much fun.

Easy,

Janek

Thanx !

I asked Janek if he would send me a file of one of the lines he's working on, but he couldn't for legal reasons. He kindly gave me this list of tracks to listen to, to get an idea of the kind synth bass work he's talking about :

The albums :

Usher - Live,

Mary J. Blige - the tour,

Brian McKnight - Anytime,

The tracks:

Chaka Khan - What cha' gonna do for me

Chaka Khan - And the melody still lingers on

Craig David - "Ennie meenie" and "Fast Cars"

Janek said he had more to come and would post it here. So for those interested... keep an eye on this thread.

Many thanks Janek.

NL

NL,

you da man, thank for posting that up in here.

Some other stuff you might want to check out that's been very helpful to me is: (all traxs not albums)

Britney Spears - "Toxic" WICKED BASS TRACK!!!! learn it!

Jamiroquai - "Deeper Underground" not really a synth bass part, but a wicked layered part with Electric bass, distortion and maybe even a little bit of synth underneath. Wicked to play on the synth though....

Justin Timberlake - "senorita"

Justin Timberlake - "Right for me" - one of my fav synth bass lines.

Michael jackson - "heartbreaker" super ridiculous production and synth bass playing from Rodney Jerkins, one of the masters of the artform.

Alecia Keys - "A woman's worth"

Chaka Khan - "I feel for you" and check out that Harmonica!!!!! DAMN!! some of sickest sh*t you will ever hear in any genre!

So there are a few I think are key.

post some more in here if you know some good ones, I'm always up for shedding some new stuff.

Easy,

Janek

This is kind of a side note:

What about reliability of the computer equipment?

I've worked on projects where the easiest solution would have been a computer (for sequencing or synths) but there were people that would "never work with a computer live on stage".

Did you ever have problems? I see lots of musicians using laptops on stage -- what's their backup plan?

Thanks!

A question I kind of know the answer to already: Are those bass synth pedals by Digitech and such a feasible alternative to playing the lines on a keyboard?

Computers are getting more and more reliable.

I guess my back up plan is my electric or acoustic bass which are available to me at all times on stage. And while they might not be the right sound for a song, they are a great fill in should there be some computer glitch.

I make sure I'm running a seperate boot partition for just the music software when I'm running a computer live. There's nothing else on the machine except the files and software needed for the music. That ensures that my laptop won't suddenly decide to check email halfway through a song and jeopardize a show. They're not 100% stable I guess, but I make sure I don't push it to the max, and that I'm using a MAC which are incredibly stable.

On the last Jem tour my laptop was the backup to the hard drive that was running the click and all the backing tracks. I had mixes of the songs in protools that were booted up in order of the set list with a marker bewtween them that scrolled as the show went. Had the main hard drive gone down at any time (which it didnt' in 2 years...) i could have jumped straight to the version in the laptop and not missed more than a bar or so. I wasn't playing any synth bass on this gig, so the laptop ended up being used for that.

On the next tour I'll run two laptops just for the backing track. A main one, and then one synced to it with time code or something as a backup. Then a third laptop with my synth bass rig in as I think the production of the new record is going in that direction as to require about half the gig being played on the synth bass.

As for the pedals.....

I've heard about them, but never seen or used them. Unless I was seated at a keeyboard playing chords and pads etc, i would never want to use them. I like freedom of motion when I'm playing and a pedal board would tie me down too much. At the keyboard bass, I can roam around a little more and check out what's going on around me more. And dance of course. Which, as silly as it may sound, is a huge part of being on a pop gig. You can't just stand there stone cold every night, you have to move around.

Easy,

Janek

Janek,

I've been reading through your posts for a while now. Great stuff. Thanks for sharing your experiences here at TalkBass.

I have some synth bass questions for you.

I'm playing in a dance/cover band and currently use electric bass to cover synth parts. I'm getting ready to make the switch to a synth to cover these parts. I have some piano/keys experience, but don't know much about using a synth.

What type of synth would you recommend for someone just starting out? Should I go with a dedicated real-deal synth with all the knobs and buttons like a Roland JP-8000, Korg MS-2000, Alesis ION/Micron, etc, or should I go with the laptop/controller setup?

My aim is to learn to really work a synth, not just use pre-sets. Is one setup better than the other when it comes to learning the ins-and-outs of synth?

zac,

For a dance/cover band, I'm guessing you don't have roadies and techs for you at each gig. So simplify that synth bass rig as much as you can. Even on gigs where I do have a roadie and a tech I'm trying to simplify. The laptop is a great way to do that. I have all my sounds programmed and organized so I can dial them in instantly. Also I find the user interface on the software I'm using very easy to program and dial in new stuff when needed.

Right now I'm using an M-Audio O2, two octave keyboard to control Reaktor, Logic, Live, Battery and Absynth. The only thing I don't like about it is the pitch bend. It's a button instead of a joystick which sucks so I'll probably change the keyboard at some point. I've only just gone completely digital with the synth bass rig. I got sick of taking a rack of gear on the road, or backlining keyboards that I had to re program on every one off hit I did.

I would start with Reaktor and a small midi controller with a good pitch bend. Remember that you want to keep as much lyrical expression as an option in your playing. Using the pitch bend is something that needs shedding like crazy. Control over that little sucker is essential and will put you a cut above the rest of the field if you have a good control.

I'll post something in here when I get a new board with a good pitch bend. The O2 is pretty killing right now cos of it's size. I have the M-Audio "studio pack" which is a backpack purpose built for the keyboard, laptop, external hard drive and bunch of other crap. Perfect for being on the road. I'm going to see if M-Audio do a similar size board with better controls.

Easy,

Janek

hi janek,

sorry to dig up this old thread!

first, i'd just like to thank you for all the awesome (and very generous) input and advise you've been pouring into this forum. As an aspiring session/professional bassist it's been amazing to hear everything you have to offer accross the board from performance, to gear, to session playing, to practice. i've learnt a lot..

which leads me to diggin this up. i remember reading this thread a while back, and after catching one of the shows from Christina Aguilera's latest tour the other day it spiked my interest. the bassist (awesome player, should figure out who that was..) played normal basses for the first half of the show, and mostly synth for the last half.

got me thinking.. i would love to start working some synth bass playing into the covers gig i've got at the moment (dance/funk/disco/party stuff), and i'm sure i could find lots of places it would work great in my R&B band..

basically i was wondering with your laptop - are you running it with an external sound card/audio interface for the midi stuff?? just wondering, because i have a similar setup for my home recording setup... and if i wasn't using my presonus audio interface there would be a massive latency from the midi - especially when running it through the software synths.

look forward to your reply!

all the best,
Andy

Andy,

thanks for your kind words.

I run a few different setups depending on who I'm playing with and what the music is.

One of them being the laptop, using Reaktor from Native Instruments with a USB keyboard and no sound card. Just straight out of the audio output of the laptop. That's the simplest and quickest setup I use.

I also use the Nord from time to time if I have time to sit down and program it. and then there are any number of specific synth bass rigs out there that I use from time to time. Seperate sound modules, synths, etc.... and if there's a moog, or a juno I'll use that for sure. To get some fat, raspy vintage sounds that are all the rage right now.

With any technology based music there is pretty much no limit on what you can spend on gear. There are so many aspects to synth bass playing with all the software stuff for the laptop, and then of course the old vintage machines themselves like the junos and the moogs.

There are a few pedals that I've been using lately too such as the Ibenez Synth bass, the Line6 filter modelar, and the moogerfooger low pass filter. All of which have their own thing. And I made them into my own sound for an electronica tour I just did in Aisia and Europe. It took a while to program what I needed, and I work with the drummer a lot with the programming, but it was really effective in the end. It is a lot of gear to carry around for sure, but well worth it for a more earthy bass/analog sound.

Try and get to a good store and try out as much gear as you can, and find out what feels the best for you.

Easy,

Janek

wow man that was a quick reply!

cheers for the advice! was that tour with jojo mayer?

yeah i've been experimenting with synth and octave pedals lately.. but it would take a lot of work to emulate the sounds that i could program so easily with the midi setup!

i just got off the phone to the keyboard player in my group (who actually rang me out of the blue) and he filled me in on a few other options as in sound modules etc that i hadn't really thought of either.

but yeah it seems my most affordable option would be to do the laptop thing. i like the idea of having so much control over the sound with the laptop - and with the multitude of software synths out there i'm sure i would never be short of a sound!

cheers again,
Andy

It's funny that this thread got revived. I'm currently using a Korg Triton Extreme 61 keyboard right now for synth bass and the sounds are KILLIN'. I don't have to program anything. The sounds I want are already in the presets but the problem is the weight of that thing. I'm actually looking for something that is comparable in sound and feel to that board, along with having the joystick it has, but not be sooo heavy.

Janek, what do you think about the Roland Juno 1 or 2 boards?

I'm also open to the laptop idea but I haven't found many controller boards that have the joystick.

Juno boards are great, but they're tougher and tougher to get on a rider on tour, and I hate travelling with a load of gear like that.

I have the Juno ensemble in Reaktor which is amazing, and is all in my laptop. Using a little oxegen keyboard, it's the nuts.

I'm not a big fan of presets in any keyboards, it's always nice to make something original when you get into a synth bass situation. There are so many things you can do to a sound in the triton to make it fatter and hipper than the factory presets. Lots of fun to be had.

Easy,

Janek

Thanks, Janek. I will most definitely start playing around with my Triton now.

Speaking of laptops, which one do you use, the Macbook or the Macbook Pro? Do you feel there is a significant difference in performance between the two?

dude,

I have a laptop that should be in a museum. It's an old titanium from four years ago and it works great.

I have yet to look into the new macs, but will be doing so in the next couple of months as I do need some more power for my studio right now.

Easy,

Janek

Hi there

I dont really know the general order of bussiness on this subforum so I hope i wont step on anybody's toes by posting this here.

I just wanted to give away my best kept secret when it comes to synth basses. Its a free moog emulator that creates some really good bass sounds. Since i found it well over a year ago it has quickly become my go-to synth when i want really deep warm bass sounds. It also has very excellent filters too. (filters are channel split L/R as well)

http://www.home.no/gunnare/

Again I appoligize if this is not an appropriate place to post, but I felt I had to plug this thing as it has served me very well.

I have used Reaktor many times myself as well, and I am a great fan of the juno emulation you speak of here. Its not QUITE as deep as a real juno in my opinion, but its pretty damn close!