if you had to recreate this bass tone, where would you start?

ishouldbeking · #1 03-13-2008, 12:45 PM

long story short: the singer of my band wrote and recorded all of our original demos himself before finding the rest of my bandmates and I. Since then our sound has changed a bit -- naturally we each bring our own sensibilities to the table -- but on occasion my singer will tease me about not ever sounding anything like the bass on one particular song. It's all playful teasing... live I play it my own way and it works just fine, but I'm curious what you guys think.

Keep in mind it's just a bedroom recording by someone who primarily sings and plays guitar so we can spare the "he doesn't know how to play bass" comments. But I'm curious what kind of bass you guys would use, or amp, EQ settings, pedals, strings, style, whatever. I could tell you what he actually used, but since the bass has already been sold (and i don't have access to another one), I'd prefer to leave it a mystery for the moment so as not to affect your feedback. C'mon, this oughta be fun!

The track is called 'Nostalgic' and it's the last track on my band's myspace page. (the only track with me on it is 'Don't Be Fooled', but it's a very "studio" creation... very little of my actual tone in there... but it works for the song.)

http://www.myspace.com/theflyingtourbillon

Steve · #2 03-13-2008, 03:14 PM

I'd take any bass with 2 pickups, fresh roundwounds and a medium pick and get that tone.

A heavy pick would probably be better but, I'm not that good with a pick.

The tone doesn't sound like it was beat to death with EQ or effects so it shouldn't be all that hard to cop.

Smallmouth_Bass · #3 03-13-2008, 03:24 PM

I think a P-bass would do the job and fit really nicely.

ishouldbeking · #4 03-13-2008, 04:09 PM

Yeah, those are the two things I tried... Jazz bass and P bass respectively, but neither had -- in his opinion -- the requisite level of "bright but not harsh" which he seems convinced that only his particular recording can achieve.

He recorded that with a Gibson Ripper with completely dead roundwounds (we're talking 5 years dead... seriously) into a vox tonelab (?!) set to the AC-30 model and then used a pro-tools plug-in to recreate some of the lost bass frequencies. I'm pretty sure he claims to have played that with his fingers, but i don't believe him.

I'm pretty sure the reason I can't get anything to sound *exactly* like that is because it's recorded in such a weird, overly complex, mickey-mouse kind of way. When I play my P-bass it always seems to sound too thick, my stingray can come close but the sound is just a bit weird (too stingray-y), closest I've come is with my old beat up jazz with the bridge pup solo'd... I just think the whole thing is funny. My singer's convinced that nothing will ever get that Ripper sound. Lately I've been using my Guild JS-2 (similar to a Gibson EB3) for this song, and it sounds nothing like that recording, but hell, it still sounds good.