Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[steubig]

[Extremely mild spoiler ahead] Three disclaimers: I was "high" on Imodium rather than gummies, I may not be in the best political frame of mind for a "member of a royal family is actually the messiah" narrative, and I have always hated war movies, which is what I think this is, ultimately.

afaik, the over-arching idea is that paul being the messiah is *not* a good thing—this is a cautionary tale.

palace intrigue and battle, yeah, but i still liked it. i imagine that, if you saw it on a small screen, i would be less impressive that it was on a big screen.

i wasn’t high on anything

 

[Spectrum]

MY take on Dune, possibly totally wrong:

SPOILER ALERT:

Paul's not a messiah, and he knows it. It's a sham put up by his mom's organization, the Bene Gesserit, who spread the messiah myth amongst the Fremen for their own political purposes. Paul knows he's not a messiah, but he also knows he's the end result of a long Bene Gesserit breeding program and because of the Spice he also has an almost magical ability to see the future, like a chess player who can see way more moves ahead than his opponents. He goes along with the myth because he needs the Fremen as allies and also because he can't see a viable way to get off the path he's on. Some of the Fremen, such as his girlfriend Chani, don't believe in the messiah thing either, but they will follow him because he's a good leader and they want to rid themselves of the Harkonnen and gain control of their own planet.

My understanding was that Frank Herbert was very cynical about heroes and messiah figures; he distrusted the "royal family" cult of personality surrounding people such as the Kennedy family and others, and that the Dune story was his outlet for expressing those thoughts. I wasn't the only one of my friends who thought that by the end of Dune Pt. 2 Paul was a decidedly less likeable person than he was at the beginning.

 

[scott sinner]

For the textural aspects of note. I used the Empress Zoia in this song. This is a Bjork cover, and if you know the original, in place of a bass part, it has a powerful low keys piano bit. So my original intent was to mimic some sympathetic vibrations of a pianoforte. So octave up and granular octave ups subtly applied.

You'll also hear some mangled voice over, which I mostly did in the box, though there are also some Zoia modulations applying to it for some randomness.

 

[monsterthompson]

For the textural aspects of note. I used the Empress Zoia in this song. This is a Bjork cover, and if you know the original, in place of a bass part, it has a powerful low keys piano bit. So my original intent was to mimic some sympathetic vibrations of a pianoforte. So octave up and granular octave ups subtly applied.

You'll also hear some mangled voice over, which I mostly did in the box, though there are also some Zoia modulations applying to it for some randomness.

Nicely done!

 

[monsterthompson]

I just caught a clip of this on IG and found the full video on YT. Seems like someone needed a Soma device or two before they existed.

 

[lucas303]

I just caught a clip of this on IG and found the full video on YT. Seems like someone needed a Soma device or two before they existed.

Speaking of Soma, at the Electrowave Festival I got to see Nireus perform and Anton Riehl absolutely shredded the Soma Terra. Really great stuff. Here's a recent performance I found online (they start at 48:05):

 

[J-phatt]

Every now and then, a "bass reverb" thread pops up and dies fairly quickly, but I wanted to create a slightly more permanent area for those of us who play bass in ambient, post-rock, or similar bands so that we can discuss technique, gear, pedals...all that fun stuff.

I personally love bands like Hammock, This Will Destroy You, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Stars of the Lid, etc. and have always taken a great deal of influence from their ambient stylings. I treat the bass less like a "bass guitar" and more like a "low frequency audio source." I would love to see what you guys are creating and how you're going about doing it. My board is always in flux so I'll hold off from posting a picture now, but feel free to post yours here. It would be nice if there was a little bit of explanation or insight provided to go along with it, though.

Here is a recent video I put together featuring ambient bass chords; I also have some other demo videos up showing delay and reverb usage:



Here is a track with a good bit of reverb, delay, and high-passed bass guitar: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

And the other music I make can be found in the links in my signature if you ever feel like listening.

Cheers!

My wife says it sounds like Thai massage music.

 

[J-phatt]

This isn't quite up to your level, but here is a small sample of me using SA Dimension Reverb, SA MWBD, TC Flashback, POG2, and the HH3 sensor for some textures. I use this sound a great deal in church. I can't wait to see the ideas other people post.

It sounds expensive. I read a book about psycho-acoustics and the aural image of the wide-open spaces of the American West in American films, simulated by reverb and echo to illustrate empty, lonely amd vast landscapes with echoey canyons, etc. The author introduces the idea of echo as an aural image of lofty subeterranean caverns, the primordial sacred space of deep antiquity which first impressed our ancestors with the sound of the sacred, which gets imitated through the epochs of architecture with construction of large edifices with echoic interiors made of marble, etc. — expensive temple and civic buildings which not only impress the eye with their scale and solidity, but also reflect sound to recall the primordial caves of early religion before architecture.

The Byzantine choir Capella Romana made a recording a few years ago called Lost Voices Of Haghia Sophia, where they made an acoustic model of the Great Church of the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople by capturing its peculiar reverberation signature (12 second delay) and modeling an algorithm with computer analysis of recorded balloon pops in the empty church. The choir recorded a suite of hymns from the celebration of the Elevation of the Holy Cross (Sept. 14) and the reverberation algorithm was applied to the dry recording very expertly. The result is a record of the group as though they had sung in the Great Church, a sacred concert that is impossible to perform in Erdoğan’s Türkiye where the temple has very recently been rededicated exclusively to Muslim worship.

 

[J-phatt]

I just caught a clip of this on IG and found the full video on YT. Seems like someone needed a Soma device or two before they existed.

I used to have a SOMA Lyra 8 and made a lot of live recordings of playing it in an ensemble of other electronic instruments, most of them pitched freely. The Lyra 8 is a powerful, visceral instrument with a distinctive voice and intuitive interface that lends itself to intense improvisation. I found my recordings a puzzle, a riddle without an answer. I don’t know what to make of this music. The more I played on the Lyra 8 the less I could recognize my results. It was kind of disturbing.

 

[steubig]

huh.

seems more a guide for people who don’t know much about this. weird chronology too (seemed to slot beefheart after 90s metal?).

 

[steubig]

Dilla, man I can go on for hours on him.
Definitely imo one of the greatest musicians in the last century.
Yeah I said it.
If you’re at all interested about Dilla get the book “Dilla Time”.
Essential reading

what’s you take on how scientific he was versus being about feel?

 

[J-phatt]

huh.

seems more a guide for people who don’t know much about this. weird chronology too (seemed to slot beefheart after 90s metal?).

The music of Trey Spruance is pretty wild across his whole career beginning with Mr. Bungle through Faxed Head, Secret Chiefs 3 and composing for Kronos Quartet.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

what’s you take on how scientific he was versus being about feel?

I think he went a bit too far with the math of it all.
The way Dilla made his “time” wasn’t as calculated and was all about groove and what sounded “dope” to him.
He used a wide variety of techniques to get to that desired effect.
From free playing on the pads direct to DAW or tape such as on Runnin by the Pharcyde.
The kick is all over the place and never repeats. Dilla did that one free, no clicks only the pads and the main pattern.

I am vehemently opposed to the supposed quintuplet feel, too rigid and mathematical.
If you play with someone imo, ime this is NOT the way to play it.

His way behind the beat is almost like a flam with the click (D’Angelo feel and a lot of neo soul heavily used this). When one player (bass or drums) lay back against multiple feels of quantization and shuffle.

He also used different quantized on each part of the drums.
For example example.
Snare not quantized
Kick quantized to the 16th
HH quantized to the 32nd or even 64th.
So there are multiple ways he got his signature feel.
same with different shuffle feels on each percussion track to get some bounce.

And that’s not even mentioning how and what he chopped melodically.

Am I making any sense or am I still having difficulty explaining as usual?

Anyways from years of listening to Dilla and a lot of reading, I can say for sure that he wasn’t thinking in terms of 5 against 3 feel on HH and 5tuplet skips on the kick.
Feel, groove and make them booties shake.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Here is a good visual example for the Book Dilla Time

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Also this one

 

[steubig]

@ugly_bassplayer


thanks for that.

make sense to me.

maybe the “science” is the incredible granular attention to detail to make it “right.”

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

@ugly_bassplayer


thanks for that.

make sense to me.

maybe the “science” is the incredible granular attention to detail to make it “right.”

That’s one way of putting it, and I agree.
Dilla was definitely an extreme perfectionist, so nothing was “slop” as we tend to say in the funk realm.
He was OCD level perfectionist.
Friends say in his fridge all cans of beer or sodas where aligned in a specific way, same as his record collection to get samples.
So I agree with you in the sense that the “quirky” choppy feel/ bounce was definitely something calculated but in a “feel” and not mathematical way.

 

[monsterthompson]

That Dilla video got me thinking about timing and micro timing. I started to RTFM for my Erica Black Sequencer and looking into the timing functions it has; ratchets, repeats, micro timing, swing. I’m starting to think about the sequencer in a fundamentally different way. Some of tonight’s experiments are showing promise.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

That Dilla video got me thinking about timing and micro timing. I started to RTFM for my Erica Black Sequencer and looking into the timing functions it has; ratchets, repeats, micro timing, swing. I’m starting to think about the sequencer in a fundamentally different way. Some of tonight’s experiments are showing promise.

Since Dilla seems to has picked your interest,
Buy the Book, it’s really worth your “time”.
Pun definitely intended.
It’s very well written explained and has historical/biographical content.

The book is called Dilla Time

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

John Cage piano préparé, mixer, pedals and even arco bow hairs on the piano strings
yes please.