Carol Kaye tidbit

[MEKer]

Latest issue of RECORDING magazine did an article about Carol playing bass on Barbara Striesand's "The Way We Were" single (she did not play on the movie version of the song). The interesting thing was that those who were there (including her) said she griped about strings being too low and she preferred really high strings and shimmed and tweaked to get'em high. I thought that was really interestingly weird as a picker.

Also she mentioned she hated the chart for the song and finally did her own thing for the bass line and that's what they went with. Marvin Hamlisch never had anything more to do with her after that (nor she with him as she thought he was a dork).

Hmmmm, it was a cool article and may be of casual interest to some of you....or not <shrug>

[Number27]

that is strange... why wouldn't she just bring her own bass?

[Sartori]

Originally Posted by Number27

that is strange... why wouldn't she just bring her own bass?

A good question, indeed. That's sort of the point of having one's own bass... to have it set up exactly how it's most comfortable for the player.

[20db pad]

Carol was a big proponent of high action back in her busiest years. She mentions that she doesn't keep her strings at that sort of height anymore.

My memory is hazy about the details, but I remember a story like this where a bass she was playing wasn't set up to her liking. She had either just bought it or received it as a comp from a manufacturer and had no time to adjust it before the session. She also reportedly had a habit of just getting another new bass when the strings got dead and flat on the one she was playing at the time, and it may have been a new bass day for her when the Streisand/Hamlish date occured.

[Sartori]

Originally Posted by 20db pad

Carol was a big proponent of high action back in her busiest years. She mentions that she doesn't keep her strings at that sort of height anymore.

My memory is hazy about the details, but I remember a story like this where a bass she was playing wasn't set up to her liking. She had either just bought it or received it as a comp from a manufacturer and had no time to adjust it before the session. She also reportedly had a habit of just getting another new bass when the strings got dead and flat on the one she was playing at the time, and it may have been a new bass day for her when the Streisand/Hamlish date occured.

Lol, that's pretty funny. Buying a new bass instead of new strings.

[JimmyM]

She says she literally didn't have time to change strings. Plus she totally doesn't understand about the need for proper intonation, so all she'd have to do is raise the action and she was fine. I guess they cut nuts higher in the 60's than the 70's.

[62bass]

Originally Posted by Number27

that is strange... why wouldn't she just bring her own bass?

There's a lot of misinformation being spread in topics like this, not out of spite or ignorance but simply because the person posting hasn't researched enough and most importantly, hasn't gone to the source.

This is from the source, Carol Kaye. I asked her about this and this is her reply which I received a few minutes ago--

"I never "borrowed any bass" for any recording date, that's ridiculous....every top pro has their own gear they have cartage for to haul to every record date! You set your strings high because pickups weren't that great back then, neither were the strings, and I played hard because I loved to play hard, no problem. Everyone back then used Flatwound strings with a pick on about 90% of recordings coming out of Hollywood in the 1960s with muting on their strings.

I traded in my 1 Fender I recorded with (I had 1 spare only) every 2 years as I had no time to put on strings, and on some Fenders, you even had to put a shim in the neck for better action on them....coming from playing Gibson L-5s and Epiphone Emperors, you quickly noticed that the Fender Bass was not a "great instrument" like those fine top pro guitars, and so you had to do what you had to do to make them playable for studio work, which required the finest of sounds and technique.

As a first-call studio musician, I always found strings to be the critical factor in getting the right sounds as well as the muting I placed on the bass. You can get muting very cheaply. Use a doubled up piece of felt on taped on top of the strings when playing with a pick, or a 3/4" wide piece of foam underneath the strings, barely touching the strings if playing with the fingers.

Mutes work wonders in eliminating the over-tones and under-tones that destroy your sounds - mutes give you the finest in clarity of sounds, you don't need expensive outboard gear (that doesn't work anyway!), mutes work, are cheap and available and these makeshift mutes last at least 2 years before you have to fool with putting another one on.

Strings, the right ones, are crucial to a great sound, a highly responsive sensitive yet powerful sound when you hit the strings are important as well as durability.....they should require heavy hitting to get a strong big sound. I've always played hard but have lightened up a little bit these past years because the pickkups and strings are so great, there's no need to pound the bass to get the power you want out of it.
Basses are simply built better these days, and the great generic pickups on my Ibanez...what can I say? They're perfect. Always were but the Thomastiks just brought them out even that much better when I quickly put the Thom. Jazz Flats on. I don't care for the electronic sounds of Bartolini pickups, but love the generic warm and powerful sounds of the pickups on the Ibanez 690SWX bass (used to be the 700, they've changed numbers recently).

Most of the recordings of the 1960s were recorded on flatwound strings, whether it was me or whoever else playing bass...the flatwounds got the sound, were the dynamically-easy and great-sounds you needed for a powerful definitive bass sound and didn't wear out quickly. Most of the recording from Hollywood was with a pick too, flatwounds were necessary back then and were THE strings to use, everyone knew that.

I always used my own setup on my own basses in recording (used 1 and had 1 as a spare bass). Playing day and night in the studios of the 1960s, I traded in my basses every 2 years just to get the strings I had no time to change strings back then, recording day and night 12-14 hours a day -- I did clean them off tho' after every 3-hour record date....the Fender flatwounds lasted 2 years that way of day and night recording (you play 2-3x harder than playing live) - normally the Thomastik Jazz Flats last about 5-6 years or even more.

The heavily researched and quality-controlled Thomastik Jazz Flats will last you years of heavy playing....it costs a LOT more to manufacture these strings than any other strings on the market, and the quality shows. They're musical to the extent that you can hear the sound of the strings when putting them on without an amplifier, and you can record with them immediately tho' yes, a week later and they're even better, and they stay in tune from the gitgo....they're expensive strings, but cheaper in the long-run because they last so long."

Re the Streisand date specifically and why she altered Marvin Hamlich's written bass part, I'll find the proper quotes and post them in a bit.

62bass

[62bass]

Originally Posted by MEKer

Also she mentioned she hated the chart for the song and finally did her own thing for the bass line and that's what they went with. Marvin Hamlisch never had anything more to do with her after that (nor she with him as she thought he was a dork).

This is from a post by Carol on her forum some time ago.--

"The Streisand date was the first time we all worked a record date together as a full orchestra in years as they had been layering for quite some time...it was nice to see all the string players I missed working with on record dates....(outside the movie studios), with strings, horns, in the big upstairs studio room at TTG with the great Ami Hadani at the engineering controls (he was in-between his trips to Israel to fulfill his Air Force comitment there, which astounded and impressed me! He was a fighter pilot)..

Marvin Hamlisch wrote the elaborate arrangement for the full orchestra, all in place but he wrote a very simple bland bass part - boom de boom , really nothing on bass, and that was it. He specifically asked me (he knew what I'd automatically do to his simple part) to ONLY play what was written and was very adament about that! So I did - for 32 straight takes which included Barbra singing on every take.

We did 32 straight takes in a row on it, it was frustrating as I knew what to do, but did his bass part per his request which was just awful imo.....it wasn't happening....

on the 33rd time, I just tho't to myself "to hell with it, I'm going for broke - I gotta get up in the morning, and this had taken enough hours already" and I started to invent bass lines all over the place, of course just for the tune itself...I wanted a hit too, and the tune was a great song (the songwriters were there Marilyn and her husband, the Bergmans, nice people, who wrote some great movie hit songs

Paul (Humphrey on this one too), as soon as he heard me, looked over and smiled and he changed his playing a little on drums too, and all of a sudden the tune took off and grooved, we knew "this was it" and it was....everyone was so relieved -- needless to say I never got a call again from Hamlisch, but Barbra got one of the greatest hits she ever had. All the string players were crowded around her and I couldn't wait my turn to pay my respects, I had an earlyi morning call and had to run...so that's one of her biggest and finest hits."

62bass

[sevenyearsdown]

No time to change strings, but enough time to trade in and setup a new bass. That makes perfect sense.

[BigOldHarry]

That is some cool shiz. thanks 62bass.

[One Drop]

She's a great bassist and teacher, but her my-way-or-the highway attitude is infuriating!!

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by sevenyearsdown

No time to change strings, but enough time to trade in and setup a new bass. That makes perfect sense.

Made perfect sense to her. What do you care? And as I said before, she (mistakenly) thinks there's no need for proper intonation, so it's not like a setup took a lot of time for her.

[62bass]

Originally Posted by BigOldHarry

That is some cool shiz. thanks 62bass.

Your welcome. There's a wealth of information on her forum, both about recording experiences and music theory. It can take weeks to read through it all.

And thanks for a pleasant and not critical post.

[sevenyearsdown]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

Made perfect sense to her. What do you care? And as I said before, she (mistakenly) thinks there's no need for proper intonation, so it's not like a setup took a lot of time for her.

What do I care? Hmmm...I suppose I don't really care, but I usually find topics about her opinions/way of doing things interesting. Sometimes I even comment on them like everyone else here. Is that ok with you?

[62bass]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

Made perfect sense to her. What do you care? And as I said before, she (mistakenly) thinks there's no need for proper intonation, so it's not like a setup took a lot of time for her.

Jimmy, lighten up a bit.

Can you be more specific and cite some examples from her recorded work where she's playing out of tune?

[62bass]

I think a few people are taking every disagreement with their opinions as a personal attack. I sort of gets in the way of having any meaningful communication. It also gets threads shut down by the moderators.

[JimmyM]

OK, point taken on the lightening up a bit. And no, I can't pick out any examples of her playing out of tune, but then again, I don't recall her playing chords, and there are other more difficult ways to compensate for it. She has said many times that she believes intonation on bass is a myth, and it just isn't so. Maybe it works for her, but I can easily tell the difference between a bass properly intonated and one that's not. So can most skilled bass players.

[BZadlo]

Everyone has their own way of doing things which we can all learn from.
Carol Kaye is an extremely successful studio musician so, I'm sure that she has a good reason for doing the things she does.
There are many ways to get the job done.

[BZadlo]

+1 on the mute.
I just recorded an EP where I used a mute on most of the material. I was against using it at first but, the producer was very persistent. I just heard that final mastered versions of the songs and I was blown away by my tone. I also noticed that I was very high in the mix and I think that it had something to do with the clarity of my notes.

[agreatheight]

Anyone have a link to carol's version of that song - I'd like to hear how it differs from the soundtrack version...