Trance bass on GT-6B effects board

GroovinOnFunk · #1 05-17-2011, 12:33 PM

Hey guys. So, I just started a new band Open Source | Burlington, VT | Rock / Progressive | Music, Lyrics, Songs, and Videos | ReverbNation

Our goal is to essentially become sort of like the love child of Umphrey's McGee and The New Deal. Umphrey's McGee is like prog rock and New Deal is trance.

I have no idea how to play trance bass, but am trying to learn. One of the things that is so cool about The New Deal is because they do electronica/trance but it's all live. The bass player uses some really cool effects to make his bass sound like a synth as well as some other cool sounds.

I have a GT-6B mulit-effects processor and was looking for help on obtaining cool trance bass sounds.

chris lykins · #2 05-17-2011, 01:56 PM

Well good luck as Ive done that and the main problem is that most trance doesnt really have a lot of bass, just a lot of subwoofer goodness filling out the bottom as it throbs away. The other thing is that trance is about repetition which may make the prog rock/jam band hybrid difficult especially if the drummer starts dropping alot of fills which will just about kill a trance groove in its tracks! Ive found drummers have alot of problem playing four on the floor kicks for five minutes at at a time.
The synthier the bass the better so EV microsynth, or filter plus fuzz combos work ok. There are some great sounds to be heard on the xeroform/oxide thread which may give you some inspiration!

GroovinOnFunk · #3 05-17-2011, 04:14 PM

Seriously, if you think that trance doesn't have a lot of bass, check out The New Deal. That's what makes them so amazing. They have an amazing drummer, bassist, and keys trio. The bass player (i've seen them live) doesn't use computers or any of that, he has all his effects right on the floor (or so it seemed). You are correct though, our main issue currently is a drummer who changes beats every 4 measures... Last practice we finally brought it up and asked him to go four-to-the-floor and we had the best jam ever. The band is young - we've only been playing together for a couple of months or so. But I'm working with the drummer on having him just play some steady four-on-the-floor beats, but I figure the best thing to do is lead by example.

wolffman · #4 05-20-2011, 10:33 PM

well there is some information available online to get dan kurtz's sound... i'm not too familiar with the gt-6b but i did have the me-50b once, & although they are different i wasn't able to cop the sounds that dk gets on it. from what i recall synths didnt track well enough, distortions weren't very appealing, octave couldn't dial out the dry sound. im sure the 6b is different in some ways. 2 effects i highly reccomend are oc-2 and low pass filter with an expression pedal for filter cutoff. he used to use a bass with a midi pickup but hasn't for the past few years. here are a few links.

Bass Artists: Dan Kurtz

Navidrome 2.0 | Dan Kurtz Equipment Setup 2006

also

tb user gastric has some awesome clips with an oc-2 in the effects loop http://www.cgraham.com/chris/music/b...atches_001.mp3

GroovinOnFunk · #5 05-20-2011, 10:45 PM

Actually, I think now I'm less worried about coming up with the effects, and more focused on trying to learn what makes a trance bassline. I've gathered that in large part its a lack of syncopation, and emphasis on the 1st and 3rd beats (assuming a 4 beat measure). I get it that simple and repetitive lines are good. But I notice that Dan is also an awesome bass player and awesome plays more than just 3 or 4 notes. I can't seem to figure out how to build cool trance basslines I guess.

GroovinOnFunk · #6 05-21-2011, 07:05 AM

Do you guys notice any key points that I could relay to my drummer to help him further understand the concept of trance drumming? He's struggling majorly with it...

bgmww · #7 05-21-2011, 12:59 PM

i didn't know who "The New Deal" was.. so i checked them out on youtube.
Let me tell you. I have listend to electronic music all my life, and i wouldn't call that TRANCE.
Anymays.. i think you should check out what John Davids of NERVE does.

wolffman · #8 05-21-2011, 03:00 PM

they do get into trance jams at times but wouldn't say it is one of their most prominent styles so it depends on what video you watched- they do a lot of different electronica genres including house, down tempo, d n b, etc.

GroovinOnFunk · #9 05-21-2011, 04:03 PM

They play all kinds of stuff. Trance, techno, electronica, jazz even... I'm not worried about what is and what isn't trance. The New Deal, STS9, Lotus, etc. is the sound I'm going for. Help?

Hector_G · #10 05-22-2011, 01:59 PM

Can you post a link to some New Deal stuff? Having trouble finding it.

EDIT: Never mind. Found it.

GroovinOnFunk · #11 05-22-2011, 03:15 PM

My favorite New Deal songs are VL Tone, Gone Gone Gone, Home and any improv stuff they do. Call it trance, livetronica, goa, acid trance, house, whatever, these guys are sick IMO

wolffman · #12 05-22-2011, 07:41 PM

It'd be hard to tell you how to play stylistically like those bands because they all approach electronic music so differently. IMO dan kurtz approaches the bass like the most like a computer- he does a lot of work playing on the beat and then off of the beat, jesse miller def plays funkier- a lot of his lines sound like they're derived slap/pop funk roots, and david murphy has more of a hip hop/rap style with longer sustained notes, brownie from the biscuits has more of a trancelike sound with a lot of galloping repetitive lines that outline the chords, clay parnell from brothers past, and felix moreno from future rock are also good. there are a lot guys doing the live electronic thing now and getting great tones. if you listen to what they're actually doing its all very different although its still dance music. the one thing all of these guys have in common is a heavily effected signal- dan kurtz rarely plays an unaffected signal- if youve seen him live he really goes below the 7th fret- and he plays a 4 string... he gets that sound from the oc-2. there are a million threads on synth bass but almost all of these guys are running the oc2, moog mf-101, akai deep impact, source audio miltiwave bass distortion pro- these are the basic building blocks to get the sounds they are using. i find it hard to get that true electronica sound without using a heavily effected signal- it doesnt come across the same way.

wolffman · #13 05-22-2011, 07:45 PM

your best bet to get the electronica sound is to play along to electonica tracks and figure out exactly what the bass is doing. same with your drummer. play along with a song (not live because there can a lot of variation) and try and implement that into your playing. also as far as your drummer goes- the spds is the drum pad that all of the bands mentioned above use for either an electonic kit and or to play pre recorded samples.

GroovinOnFunk · #14 05-22-2011, 08:24 PM

Wolffman, very very helpful. Thank you!

GroovinOnFunk · #15 05-22-2011, 08:55 PM

you know, I've seen New Deal a few times, and I always wondered why Dan only played on the 12th fret and above, or so it seemed (you're probably closer to accurate by saying 7th fret). Does he pretty much always have the OC-2 on? The GT-6B does a pretty good OC-2 imitation. I wont get it perfect, but I think I can come close.

Vlad5 · #16 05-22-2011, 09:39 PM

good luck man! I'm in B-town too.

wolffman · #17 05-22-2011, 09:51 PM

yes he almost always has the oc-2 on. imo hes got the best tone out of all of the guys mentioned above- he is an amazing player too, im going to miss seeing him a few times a year. dk & tnd is the reason i play live electronic music- and inspired me to re-devote massive amounts of time to play/practicing/researching pedals etc. the only jam based bass player that i know of who uses a multi effect stasik- he runs the me 20 b. the main problem i had with running a multi effect is often in a jam i wanted to be able to start with one sound- lets say an octave- then add a filter to kick it up a little higher, then add a distortion, the take away the filter, and octave and only leave distortion and have a different feel all together... i wasnt able to effectively accomplish that with a multi... keeping a consistent sound throughout. but now i sometimes wish i could turn 3 effects on at once hahaha. oh well you cant have it all i suppose. i know i could use loops but i haven't gone down that path as of yet.

GroovinOnFunk · #18 05-23-2011, 06:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vlad5

good luck man! I'm in B-town too.

Sweet man, let's connect! Musicians unite!

GroovinOnFunk · #19 05-23-2011, 06:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolffman

yes he almost always has the oc-2 on. imo hes got the best tone out of all of the guys mentioned above- he is an amazing player too, im going to miss seeing him a few times a year. dk & tnd is the reason i play live electronic music- and inspired me to re-devote massive amounts of time to play/practicing/researching pedals etc. the only jam based bass player that i know of who uses a multi effect stasik- he runs the me 20 b. the main problem i had with running a multi effect is often in a jam i wanted to be able to start with one sound- lets say an octave- then add a filter to kick it up a little higher, then add a distortion, the take away the filter, and octave and only leave distortion and have a different feel all together... i wasnt able to effectively accomplish that with a multi... keeping a consistent sound throughout. but now i sometimes wish i could turn 3 effects on at once hahaha. oh well you cant have it all i suppose. i know i could use loops but i haven't gone down that path as of yet.

Right on man. Personally, I'm not a huge Bisco fan (Brownie cool, but not my fave). I really was never much into the electronica scene. I saw a few New Deal shows, and really liked them every time. Then when I started actually STUDYING this stuff, I realized, at least in my own personal and very humble opinion, that Dan Kurtz is the best (from my limited library/knowledge of livetronica bassists). Like you said from checking out my band's songs, we definitely have the prog-rock vibe going. It's Dan Kurtz, single-handedly that made me want to also go down the livetronica path to make us into a prog rock/livetronica untz, untz band.

For what its worth, with the GT-6B you actually can layer effects like you described. So I'm totally gonna try that. The only thing I would have to choose from in a particular patch would be to either have distortion OR to have the octave effect. But I can still do like: Octave effect, then add an envelope filter (is that what you mean by a filter? like the auto-wah sound?), etc. I'll have to try that.

I think that now that our keyboard player just bought a microkorg synth, I won't have to worry as much about having 50 different cool sounds. I can come up with 1 "in the club" sort of sound, 1 "octave" sound (which would include an envelope filter), 1 "overdriven" sound and 1 or 2 synth sounds (and then obviously have a clean sound)