Striving for that neo soul sound.

[Kitschead]

I'm wondering if anyone can help me out here. I really dig the tone of the bass in a lot of hip hop, and modern soul stuff. An example is the bass sound is this video of Corinne Bailey Rae:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRzDW...eature=related

Right now I'm playing on a Squier standard Jazz bass and I'm thinking about maybe upgrading the pickups. Can anyone recommend me some good pickups to achieve this sort of sound? Would I need to go for active circuitry? Would I be better off keeping my passive pickups and going for an onboard preamp set up? Any feedback is appreciated (feedback on the thread, not from the bass )

[Basshoofd]

That kind of sound has more to do with feel and style than actual tone I think. It's often a modern dual pickup bass with roundwounds but there's plenty of old Fenders with flatwounds aswell. I can't think of a set of pickups that would get you to sound like a neo soul player. Try playing with a soft touch and mimick the feel of the great players.

[kevcooke]

Originally Posted by Basshoofd

That kind of sound has more to do with feel and style than actual tone I think.

Agreed.

I saw Corinne Bailey Rae live a couple of months ago. The bassist used a Spector 5 string for the majority of the set. He picked up something else for a song or two, but can't remember what it was...

[Kitschead]

Ok thanks. I guess I've been having a bit of pickup distortion issues with my stock squier pickups at the moment and I was looking to upgrade.
I know with everything that its 90% feel and technique but do you have any recommendations for pickups which might get me closer to this kinda sound?
Cheers

[brianrost]

Stuff some foam under the strings near the bridge.

[Andy_D]

Originally Posted by kevcooke

Agreed.

I saw Corinne Bailey Rae live a couple of months ago. The bassist used a Spector 5 string for the majority of the set. He picked up something else for a song or two, but can't remember what it was...

Yeah, I can get some pretty good tones out of my Spector ReBop 5 that are somewhat similar. Usually by boosting the bass EQ on the instrument, and boosting my treble on the Amp and not on the bass. For some reason boosting the treble on the bass make it sound harsh. One Funny thing is that I'm never really satisfied with how it sounds all by itself but when I listen back later I'm amazed at how good it sounds in the mix. I think that I might have a hard time getting the same sound on my Squier VM J. It's just such a bright bass.

[pstyle]

Looks like he's playing a... Warwick RockBass?

[Keldur16]

Alot of his tone is from feel it seems like. Alot of neo-soul is like that. look at pino palladino's neo-soul work. he gets the same same from his P-bass. You gotta feel it in your pelvic region

[Rano Bass]

Originally Posted by brianrost

Stuff some foam under the strings near the bridge.

Yeah but you loose all the sustain and you need it for this song

Its more a practice and feel thing than the brand of pickups he uses IMO.

[Kitschead]

Originally Posted by Keldur16

Alot of his tone is from feel it seems like. Alot of neo-soul is like that. look at pino palladino's neo-soul work. he gets the same same from his P-bass. You gotta feel it in your pelvic region

Good point actually. It was his bass playing with D'Angelo which pretty much got me so inspired about the genre. I guess I'll just go for whatever pickups then.

[4Mal]

Nice cut. The bass tone is pretty crisp on top. Nice & full down below. Somewhat compressed, mildly scooped. It's a tone I used in my smooth jazz days a bunch. If it were me, I'd be thinking bart 9J's and some amp tweaking - your rig needs some real balls to pull that off unless you have strong FOH support. I ran those Barts through one of the John Suhr era preamp's from a MIA Jazz deluxe.