Mark Sandman's effects in Morphine?

[Bjazzman]

I know he used a 2 string slide bass. but what were his effects? and was it a bass or baritone guitar that he used?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M34iZH4-qkI

[bongomania]

He made his own instruments, which did not always conform to standard definitions of "bass" versus "baritone". They had one, two, or three strings.

I don't think he used any effects, other than possibly compression and reverb on the mixdown. I could be wrong about that though.

[Jared Lash]

Loved Mark Sandman. Loved Morphine.

I'm pretty sure bongo's right. He gets some grit from his amp and bass, but I don't think he used anything in the way of effects, especially live.

If it helps, most of the time I believe he was tuned in fifths.

[bongomania]

Right- to play "Buena", play each "note" as a root-5th-8ve chord. It's easy when you're playing a 2 or 3 string instrument tuned root-5th or root-5th-8ve... and tremendously difficult when playing a normal bass with normal tuning.

[Grimoire]

There are a few times the sound is slightly overdriven, Buena and Radar spring to mind, I think he used SVT's. Just had a look on youtube and I think I can see something on the floor in one of the clips, not very clear though.
One of the great 90's bands, still two of the stand-out shows I have ever witnessed...

[grygrx]

Huge fan, I think the bases have been covered already. Not a effects driven sound, just unusual instruments and good amps.

[ZombiCrow]

There are a lot of effects on their album "The Night," but mostly concentrated on a few songs. There's definitely some distortion, possibly filter/distortion, but there are also some sounds that are keyboards/synths scattered throughout. Just an observation. Gorgeous, gorgeous tone at all times, and a great overdrive tone on The Night.

The bass he used before he died was a Japanese-made thing, with only two strings, and a single P-pickup split to have half the humbucker at the farthest neck position, and the other half farthest bridge. You can find them used sometimes, but they fetch $500 on eBay, last time I saw one. They have small bodies and small scrolled upper horns. Cool looking, but felt sort of cheap when I played it.

[aluminumbassguy]

As far as I know the only "effects" that he used were gain type. Fuzz or really overdriven. Other than that I would say reverb would be one of the more used ones and always well done. Had a 2 string built for me a few years ago. Used an old Kent from the 1960's. Used a D and a G string tuned D and A. Had the luthier jack up the nut the bridge and the pickups,then I had to put a string tree on because of raising the height. Brass slide works best although Mark used glass. I found DR strings to work really well with the round core they have more flex and the compression winding sounds really good with the slide. Gotta go to work. PM me if ya have any questions.

[ZombiCrow]

Is it against forum rules to post a link to another forum's discussion?

Morphine Gear Discussion at H-C

Interesting excerpt from a magazine circa '97, I think.

[Grimoire]

Originally Posted by ZombiCrow

Is it against forum rules to post a link to another forum's discussion?

Morphine Gear Discussion at H-C

Interesting excerpt from a magazine circa '97, I think.

Brilliant, thanks for that.

[bongomania]

I'll repost the article here to avoid anyone having to go to HC *grimace*:

Originally Posted by article from Musician magazine (May '97)

Mark Sandman doesn't like the term "home-studio." When it comes to his own in-house recording setup (a 350-square-foot third-floor loft in Cambridge, Massachusetts that he's dubbed "Hi-N-dry") he prefers "private studio. It's more accurate because most people think home sudios are just for recording demos, and that's not always true."

Sandman should know. Every one of the four CD's he and his guitarless, low-rock outfit Morphine have released, including the new Like Swimming on DreamWorks, has featured at least one track recorded at Hi-N-Dry. But nobody's ever pegged Morphine as a lo-fi band, or singled out home-studio productions like the moody "You Look Like Rain" from Good, the bittersweet "In Spite Of Me" from Cure For Pain, or the buoyant "The Jury" fom Yes as tech-challenged creations, even though they were all done at Hi-N-Dry, where separating Sandman's home life from his studio work would be a tricky task.

"Sometimes I work at night," he admits. "It [the gear]'s always blinking at me, saying things: 'Hey Mark come here and play.' Wnen I did the vocals to 'You Look Like Rain' my roommate was sleeping so hard I had to whisper the lyrics."

These days he's free to play as loud as he pleases. Whenever he, saxophonist Dana Colley and drummer Billy Conway aren't on tour, hi-n-dry, which doubles as the trio's rehearsal loft, bustles with activity. The Rogers drum kit is always set up and miked with two Shure SM57's (snare and kick) and an AKG C414 overhead, ready for a Morphine practice or for Sandman to work with members of his two other projects-the dark and folky Pale Brothers and the horn-driven funk ensemble Hypnosonics. Other players from the Boston area tend to drop by in the afternoons for informal jam sessions.

"It's easy to come here," offers Sandman, "and I know a lot of good players. Plus, something might end up on a Morphine record. I did the basic tracks for 'Miles Davis' Funeral' [from Cure For Pain] here with Ken Winokur playing coconut bongos, and he has no recollection of that session. And the version of 'Like Swimming' that ended up on the album was done here when Larry Dersch dropped by-he doesn't remember playing on it."

Sandman's tape machine of choice is the Tascam 688, a cassette 8-track recorder with a built-in board, as well as a MIDI hookup that Sandman's never even turned on. "With this format I get 20 minutes of 8-track time on a 90-minute tape. I started on with the Tascam 488, which was a cheaper model with less features. All the Hi-N-Dry stuff on the first two Morphine albums was done on that. Then I got the 688 and it's twice as good. The people I know that have the 688 love it. And probably, like me, they can never get anyone to believe that they're using an 8-track cassette."

Sandman also owns an impressive collection of Electro-Harmonix effects. Right now he has a Memory Man analog delay and a Poly Chorus set up, and onstage he uses the Electro-Harmonix Microsynthesizer multi-effects unit. "The think I like about Electro-Harmonix boxes," he explains, "is that the knobs always go way past any sound that you'd consider normal. Plus they have really big knobs so you can work the dials with your feet while you're playing."

Sandman is also used to operating his 688 while playing guitar, bass, or organ, which is one of the reasons he favors a simple setup. He's not adverse to overdubs, but he does like to capture the feel of bass and drums grooving together for the basic track of a song. To compensate for gain boosts and other level problems, he has two Aphex Easy Rider four-channel compressors, which give him eight separate channels of compression. For digital delay and reverb, he relies on a new TC Electronic 2290 and his trusty old Lexicon PCM-70. "I love the PCM-70. I used to bring it to all the Morphine gigs when we were playing loft parties and small clubs. Everything always sounded better with it. I also have a PCM-41, and I've got a PCM-42 in a different rack." Topping it all off is the latest addition to Hi-N-Dry, a Tube Tech stereo tube compressor, through which Sandman runs all of his final mixes on their way to his two Panasonic SV-3700 DAT machines. "With the Tube Tech," he admits, "everything sounded about 20 percent better."

Sandman's main Morphine ax is a brown sixties Premiere bass with only two strings on it. He plays it with a slide through a big Ampeg SVT amp. The original Morphine one-string bass hangs on the wall, along with Sandman's self-customized Tritar, a no-name bass adorned with a tulip-print wallpaper finish and outfitted with three strings. (A white back-up Tritar, originally a suro four-string, stands next to the two-string.) The Tritar is also played with a slide, though Sandman sometimes runs it through his Ampeg Reverbrocket instead of the SVT. The collection's rounded out by a '59 Fender Esquire (Sandman's "low guitar" in his pre-Morphine band Treal Her Right), a Silvertone, a red, sparkle-finish, vintage Premier guitar that says "Monza" on the headstock and old basses by Hagstrom and Univox.

Minimalism has always been an important part of the Morphine aesthetic; on of Sandman's favorite quips is "less is best." That's clearly part of what makes home recording attractive to him. "When you go to a real studio, they say things like 'Well, the first day we'll mostly just work on drum sounds,'" he says with a laugh, "The drum sounds I get using two or three nicrophones are great, and the drums are always ready to go."An inventive spendthrift with a penchant for bargain hunting at garage sales, flea markets and second-hand music stores, Sandman has amassed a colorful collection of odds and ends, from two plastic toy saxophones that sit on a shelf with his Octavia pedal behind the drums, to a couple of vintage Eighties drum machines; a Casio RZ-1 and an Oberheim with a Stretch DX. He recently acquired a cheap plastis set of Kawasaki drum synthesizer pads, manufactured by Remco, which he's quite proud of. And one of his best garage-sale finds was an Argosy taxicab-dispatcher microphone, which he uses onstage and in the studio. "You can never have too much stuff," he jokes as he picks up a Transformer toy microphone. "I did the vocals to 'You Speak My Language' with this.

Sandman has been mixing with only one working speaker, a Radio Shack Minimus-7, for the past few months. But he's finally decided to order a pair of high-end Meyer Sound powered speakers to replace the broken set of old Ohms that he bought with his still-functioning Nikko NR-819 receiver over a decade ago. The Technics dual cassette deck with an HX-Pro unit and Admiral CD player are newer purchases.
"That last few years it's been sounding consistently good," Sandman concludes. "But I'm definately going to go out and track down anotherTascam 688 before this article comes out."