Barry Bales

[spaceboy]

I'm interested in Barry Bales and the equipment he uses. He's the bass player for Alison Krauss and Union Station. He claims to use a Meisel E-size bass. What exactly is an "E" size bass? Here is the context:

"In the studio Barry most often relies on his Azola and his “workhorse” Meisel, a e-size plywood instrument of uncertain vintage. Bales strings the Meisel with orchestral-gauge D’Addario Helicores and uses a “medium-low” action, “depending on who you’re talking to. For bluegrass players it’s low. For jazz players, no.” As 2005 approached, Barry was planning to put a set of D’Addario Helicores on the Azola, replacing the Thomastiks that had been on the bass since 1994. In addition to the Meisel and the Azola, Bales sometimes records with one of his two gut-strung American Standard basses—fitted with a David Gage Realist pickup—for that “Roy Huskey kick-drum type of sound,” as well as a ’70s Fender Precision and a Jerry Jones Danelectro-style “tic-tac” bass. (For details on Bales’s Azola, see Barry’s Baby.)

Onstage Bales amplifies the Meisel via a Fishman BP-100 piezo pickup and runs his signal through an Ashly 7-band parametric EQ and Demeter preamp on the way to the house board. For recording the Meisel, Barry says, “I defer to our engineer, Gary Paczosa, on whether I should use the pickup. His mic of choice is a Sony G800 plus some kind of pencil mic, like a B&K, to get articulation from the fingerboard. The Sony normally goes eight or ten inches from the bass between the treble-side ƒ-hole and the bridge. The other mic often goes a third of the way down the fingerboard between my hands.”

[Jake deVilliers]

That should be "3/4 size bass".

I believe there's been some discussion of Barry and his gear in the 'Bluegrass' Forum.

[M Ramsey]

Barry's Meisel is a pretty non-descript plywood 3/4 bass. He's had it for probably 20 years. It is not the loudest or best bass I've ever played, but he can run it through his "goody box" of pedals and equipment and get a really good, even, easily amplified sound out of it when playing all the larger venues that Alison Krauss or The Dan Tyminski Band happen to be appearing in.

I heard it a few weeks back near Burlington, NC, at the Lil John's Mountain Music Festival and it sounded glorious as usual.

Most of the bass snobs that say you have to have this and you have to have that would be pretty disappointed in playing Bales' Meisel acoustically.

Visit his house and check out the Grammy section.

[Jake deVilliers]

Originally Posted by M Ramsey

Visit his house and check out the Grammy section.

[Paul New]

Wow. I thought he always played an American Standard.

[swmmojo]

I was lucky enough to spend a semester with Barry at ETSU last spring. He's a great guy. I'll send him this link and see if he can comment for us...

[M Ramsey]

Originally Posted by Paul New

Wow. I thought he always played an American Standard.

Paul, he's had this Meisel since before I met him in February of 1990. He was then a member of the band Dusty Miller, which also included Adam Steffey-mandolin, Tim Stafford-guitar, Bryan Fessler-banjo and Tammy Rogers on fiddle. Barry had been in a couple of other local East TN bluegrass bands prior to that and he was just a kid in 1990.

He's had a few American Standards. I do know he has a carved bass now (can be seen on the recent Alison Krauss DVD "A Hundred Miles or More") and at least one American Standard. I think it's number 169 and I helped him to find it here in North Carolina back in 2005.

[M Ramsey]

Originally Posted by swmmojo

I was lucky enough to spend a semester with Barry at ETSU last spring. He's a great guy. I'll send him this link and see if he can comment for us...

Barry has been known to lurk here on Talkbass from time to time, if he ain't fishing or shooting ducks or turkeys. I think he may have posted ONE time a few years back.

[swmmojo]

I emailed Barry the TB link last night. Here's his response:

Barry Bales to me
show details 9:23 AM (10 minutes ago) Reply


Hey Steve,
I hope things are well and you are playing a lot. That bass looks sweet. I know you're excited about it. Thanks for sending the link. I checked it out and for anybody who cares, here's my current list of "stuff".

*For smaller bluegrass gigs, including the Dan Tyminski Band:

Meisel 3/4 plywood bass
D'Addario Helicore Orchestral strings
Fishman BP-100 pickup (on the top, not the bridge)
Fishman Platinum Bass EQ/DI

*For miscellaneous small gigs requiring gut strings

1955 American Standard
various new and old gut strings - plain G & D, wrapped A & E
Fishman Full Circle pickup
Warwick Sweet 15.2 combo amp


*For the last Alison Krauss tour:

100 yr old +/- German carved bass
D'Addario pizzicato strings
Fishman Full Circle pick up
Avalon U5 D.I.

I also used an Azola Lightening Bug upright electric bass. I've retired my other Azola. The info in that article that was quoted is really old. And some of my quotes are not exactly quotes. Hope this helps a little. Thanks for the interest.
- Show quoted text -



On Jun 9, 2009, at 10:34 PM, Stephen Marshall wrote:


Hey Barry,

I hope your summer is going great. Here's a thread on talkbass.com about you: http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showth...=1#post7514834. Thought your ears might be burning.

I ordered an Upton Standard. I should have it in 8 weeks or so. I'm way pumped. http://www.uptonbass.com/UB-Standard...n-Double-Bass/


Peace,
Steve

[M Ramsey]

Barry Bales bass rig:



Some of you tech heads may know what all of these pedals are and how they use them but I heard him say he had very high praise for the ToneBone box at the upper right of the pedal board. When playing live with Alison Krauss, he uses it to run his Meisel through as well as his Azola (if he still uses it) and some slab bass (I'm not familiar).

Just thought you'd like to see it. This was from the gig he played with The Dan Tyminski Band at The Red White and Bluegrass Festival in my hometown of Morganton, NC, last weekend. Next year's dates are 1st thru 4th of July, 2010.

[MR PC]

Looks like he might be using the Tone Bone and JDI direct for his electric basses, and the Tonebone with the Fishman Preamp for his acoustic direct. (Tone Bone is a 2 channel switchable preamp) The white box is a Boss Chromatic tuner, the Pedal Power supplies current to everything so he doesn't have to worry about using any 9 volt batteries.

Of course, I am probably wrong.......

Very nice pedal set up, Barry always gets a great sound amplified!