Motown P Bass Tone Figured Out!?

[john nam]

I've always wondered how to get that old school, punchy Jamerson P bass tone and I think I accidentally figured it out last night. I was recording some riffs with my practice amp (Fender BXR 25) on my iPhone which was apparently too close to the speaker and it slightly overloaded and distorted the recording. When I played it back, voila, my MIM jazz bass with the neck pickup favored sounded like an old Motown P bass that was thumpy, full, and super punchy!

Maybe that's what they did back then, they mic'd bass amps with mics that really weren't made to handle bass frequencies. This makes me think that for those of us who want this type of tone, that we shouldn't spend the extra bucks on the fancy amps with really low THD percentages. Also that we should all mic our amps with cheap radio shack mics, haha.

[matti777]

The early Motown recordings were from a mic'd Ampeg B15.

[NKUSigEp]

No offense but nearly everyone knows how to get the old Motown sound...Ampeg B15 + Fender P + flats + a little style.

If you're talking about just finding that sound with different gear, then congrats.

[HolmeBass]

I read most of Jamerson's recordings were direct, not miked, but that they'd very slightly overdrive a Pultec EQ to bring in some warmth. P-bass and flats with muting foam stuffed under the strings near the bridge is also a big part of the sound.

[john nam]

It's personal opinion, but I don't think a P with flats through a B15 alone nails the Motown P bass sound. Still too clean sounding when compared to Jamerson's recordings.

[john nam]

NKUS, do you know what type of mic they used for Jamerson? I'm sure it wasn't a mic meant for micing bass amps, right?

[Febs]

Originally Posted by john nam

NKUS, do you know what type of mic they used for Jamerson? I'm sure it wasn't a mic meant for micing bass amps, right?

Actually, many of the Motown recordings were recorded direct to the board. See Bob Olhsson's post here, for example:

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/ind.../0/#msg_432574

[mambo4]

"Jamerson played through an Ampeg B-15 amp, but this wasn’t brought into the studio because of space constraints. Instead the bass at Motown was usually run into a custom made direct input (the first of its kind, in fact)"

any over driven sound is form the preamp and tape saturation, most likely.

[john nam]

Maybe they turned up the gain too much on that channel on the board, causing distortion?

[sanderic]

I think the B15 and the flats had more to do with the sound than whatever brand of bass. I remember using my EB-1, nylon tape wounds and all, through my B15 back in the early 70's. I sounded like motown whether I wanted to or not. Then along comes Chris Squire, but that's for another thread altogether.

[stiles72]

I love my B15, but the B15 really had little to nothing to do with Jamersons recorded sound. For the vast majority of the Detroit era stuff, he and the other guitarists plugged into a tube mixer/interface that sat by the stairs and they listened to themselves back through a monitor. That feed went to the board where some EQ and compression was also added. I used to have a really good photo I took of that home brew mixer / interface, so I'll have to see if I can dig that up.

[ugly_bassplayer]

Jamerson recorded direct, I'm not sure about the signal processing before going to the tape machine.

[brad houser]

the overdriven pultec is the one I read about, makes sense.
I feel that the biggest part of his sound was flats, high action, he always plucked right where the neck joins the body, a very "fat " spot. Also, from own experience, strength of conviction on every note is probably the biggest factor in tone production, and Jamerson was known for having tons of that. strong concept=strong tone

[Zoa]

Jamerson recorded through an overdriven B15 until after '64 ir I remember correctly. After that, he recorded through a one-off tube preamp/DI that took Motown's guitars as well, which he would turn all the way up to distort the sound. It's pretty obvious that the sound he was going for with that DI was his sound with the B15.

[Febs]

Here's a thread from Bob Babbitt's forum explaining the DI they used:

Mr. Babbitt, I have a question about recording at Motown

And a picture of it from that same thread:

[smperry]

I'm not sure if this belongs in Amps or Recording Gear, but it's not Basses. Let's try Amps.

[armybass]

Originally Posted by brad houser

the overdriven pultec is the one I read about, makes sense.
I feel that the biggest part of his sound was flats, high action, he always plucked right where the neck joins the body, a very "fat " spot. Also, from own experience, strength of conviction on every note is probably the biggest factor in tone production, and Jamerson was known for having tons of that. strong concept=strong tone

Are you THE Brad Houser?

[JimmyM]

While Jamerson may have used that preamp shown above for recording, his recorded sound was entirely based on the sound he got with his B-15, which according to most sources, he would dime the bass knob and put treble at half, then crank it. Absolutely overdrive is a major part of his sound. It sounds clean in a mix, but if you hear the soloed Jamerson tracks on Youtube, they are quite nasty sounding.

But I agree with Brad that the important thing about copping the Jamerson tone is being Jamerson

[Marty Forrer]

JJ would have sounded like that whatever he was playing. It's HIM, not his gear.
Keith Richards was interviewed once about gear, and shrugged it off with " Give me any guitar and any amp, in a few minutes they'll sound like me". So true.

[puremusic]

When I visited the Hittsville USA Studio AKA Motown Museum last summer I wanted to take the DI with me and everything else in the snakepit as studio A was known as. I was shocked to be told by the staff there that everything is still operational. I wish they would rent it out the way you can still rent Abbey Road studio that would be Killer.