Bass looping + human beatbox

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

I was thinking about how the solo bassist concept could be taken further, and wondered if you or any other solo bassist had sampled themselves doing a "human beatbox" vocal percussion effect, looped it, and then looped bass over it.

I'm about to start experimenting with it.........

[maxvalentino]

Yes, at the advice of my good friend (and master percussionist) Rick Walker, I dropped my drum machines from my live solo set-up and put in a live vocal mic. That feeds a Lexicon Alex (or MPX 500) and JamMan....via a Raven labs mixer (with my bass). Had to put a tube mic pre in there before the mixer as it is a line mixer only. Now I can do vocalizations for percussive effect....and I use the body of bass, string muting, left and right hand slaps etc. to add percussive, drum-tones to my bass only looping shows.
If for no other reason, it has helped me to "think as a drummer" and that has been quite a help in several ensemble sessions I have been doing....where I can now lock in with the drummer as if we had been playing together for years! Even if we had only met that afternoon.
Working with loops that way is a great way to increase your rhythmic vocabulary, as well as your harmonic and melodic senses too.
Loop-on
Max

[Steve Lawson]

While we're on the subject of Rick Walker - if you live within a day's drive of Santa Cruz, check this guy out - his music is wonderful - he plays percussion and 'prepared bass', and uses a lot of beat box noises. His current CD is truly inspiring - I've been spinning it a lot recently. He gigs and records as Loop.pooL but doesn't have a web-site just yet. When he does, I'll let y'all know.

Beat box with bass works great - go for it. never worry about ideas being original, just being good. The pursuit of happiness in modern life has become analogous with the pursuit of novelty, rather than the pursuit of meaning. Make music that means something, not just because you have a hip idea that no-one else has thought of. and while you're at it, read 'Man's Search For Meaning' by Victor Frankl for some inspiration... :o)

cheers

Steve
www.steve-lawson.co.uk

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

thanks for the info, guys.

I was pretty sure it had already been done- and from what I've heard, I suspect that Cedric "One man band show" guy has probably done this ages ago already (playing bass with his feet), combined with playing several other instruments at the same time as well.....

I've always conveyed rhythm ideas to drummers using muted pats on my bass strings with thumb and fingers (BTW was Jaco the first bassist to use that in looping with his "Slang" solo?)
so like harmonics which I understand everyone originally limited to using just to tune up, it's something that can be refined and put to a new use.

I've always been jokingly messing about with the vocal beatbox thing, and got some surprisingly realistic drum sounds when I sampled and sequenced my vocal "drum impressions" for a "music concréte" project for a college course I did, so I was wondering about combining it with real bass.

so far it's working well- and it's a lot less hassle than searching for a drum machine pattern or having to program one specifically