Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[monsterthompson]

Minidrone (incl. Igor) — Rainger FX
The Minidrone is a stripped-down version of the Drone Rainger. It’s really fun to play over, and is a great foundation for improvisation, songwriting and dramatic live performance.

It’s a deep and huge analogue synth, with modulation, made of up to three low-pitched triangle-wave oscillators mixed together.

Two of these oscillators are always in unison whatever the pitch - this is Drone 1 - though very slightly out-of-tune with each other. This creates ‘beats’ between them, a slow, wide-band modulation that keeps the drone very listenable. The pitch is controlled by ‘Pitch1’.

Add in the other tone generator - Drone2 - and you can make any kind of musical interval between the drones; major and minor thirds, a fifth, octaves, or thick unison.

And all points in between - including tasty discordant chords, modulating fast and strangely…

Drone1 and Drone2 are fully independently tuneable - with sweepable knobs - by tuner, or by ear (low volume is recommended for accuracy), with a range of approximately two octaves.

 

[lucas303]

I think the Cosmos might have some competition from Sealegs and Nautilus which each seem to offer some of what I’m after with Cosmos. I need to see if there’s a Zoia Cosmos patch. I’m assuming there’s some approximation of it by now on Patch Storage.

I have Cosmos and Nautilus. The Nautilus, as much as I like it, is definitely not comparable. Cosmos is in another dimension. I've never used the Sealegs so I can't comment on that. I think, however, that the 4ms DLD (complimented with some interesting cv input, of course) is the closest eurorack module to the Cosmos.

Get the Cosmos. It's one of the most fun and inspiring pieces of gear I own.

 

[lucas303]

Just saw a reminder that Drone Day is this Saturday, May 25.

Here's some BS I made:

 

[Spectrum]

Well, this exists. (End of the video to see the best feature)

 

[monsterthompson]

Well, this exists. (End of the video to see the best feature)

almost grabbed one.

 

[Spectrum]

almost grabbed one.

Thought about it myself, to be honest. It's in the Korg Miku category of funny yet probably useless.

 

[monsterthompson]

Thought about it myself, to be honest. It's in the Korg Miku category of funny yet probably useless.

possibly. But there was a bass demo where the sounds got a little interesting. The effect gets less cat like in the lower pitches. Definitely still weird.

 

[monsterthompson]

This is cool. You can quantize across multiple octaves instead of being limited to within an octave with gets transposed up/down for each octave. Also some interesting and creative ideas for melody and bass lines.

 

[Bob_Ross]

working on a cover of the last section of the song Close to the Edge by Yes (been listening to it for decades but it never occurred to me that he was playing it on a fretless!)

At the risk of destroying any street cred I may have achieved, by revealing what a Chris Squire fan/nerd I am underneath the serious exterior:

Was it played on a fretless? I'd always understood that the first appearance of fretless bass on a Yes tune was "The Remembering" off of Tales From Topographic Oceans.

(It's been a long time since I've listened to "Close To The Edge" so I don't remember what the bass part to the "Seasons Of Man" section sounds like. But I do remember once thinking that the bass line to Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away" sounded like it was strongly influenced by Chris Squire's bass line in the "Total Mass Retain" section!)

 

[hieronymous]

At the risk of destroying any street cred I may have achieved, by revealing what a Chris Squire fan/nerd I am underneath the serious exterior:

Was it played on a fretless? I'd always understood that the first appearance of fretless bass on a Yes tune was "The Remembering" off of Tales From Topographic Oceans.

(It's been a long time since I've listened to "Close To The Edge" so I don't remember what the bass part to the "Seasons Of Man" section sounds like. But I do remember once thinking that the bass line to Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away" sounded like it was strongly influenced by Chris Squire's bass line in the "Total Mass Retain" section!)

It's in this section that you can hear the slides - he does a bunch:



On one of the last albums he played on (Fly From Here) he does a nice downward slide where you can definitely hear each fret. Despite listening to this song many many times, it never occurred to me that it was fretless, but when someone suggested it was, it made sense. A couple of pictures have popped up online of a fretless Guild JS-II - in one pic it's leaning against the wall, but with some kind of attachment on the body - in another live pic it's mounted on a stand! I think the caption said "so that he could play the fretless part in Close to the Edge" but no info on what tour, etc.

EDIT: I tried to include the links, but they show up as "invalid"

EDIT 2: the text for the live pic says "Chris Squire from rock group Yes performs live on stage at Madison Square Garden in New York during their Tales from Topographic Oceans tour in February 1974. (Photo by Richard E. Aaron/Redferns)" so doesn't prove my point at all! It actually backs up the TFTO info better...

 

[Spectrum]

Well now, I've always been a Yes fan but I never knew he used a fretless on anything, either. Learn something new every day.

 

[JES]

Dork mode / I’m not a Yes expert but also was into them back in the day. I feel like I’ve seen concert film of them playing Close to the Edge live and he was playing that part on his usual Rick. /dork mode

 

[monsterthompson]

I got the Cosmos on sale. I liked the Terra so much I thought it would be equally inspiring.
I think I’m returning it. It’s not inspiring and I have fought it every step of the way to get less than satisfactory results. I realize a bunch of this is on me. I should’ve gotten a Sealegs or???

 

[Spectrum]

Dork mode / I’m not a Yes expert but also was into them back in the day. I feel like I’ve seen concert film of them playing Close to the Edge live and he was playing that part on his usual Rick. /dork mode

It would make sense, on stage switching basses in the middle of a song is not simple, but in the studio you can do whatever you want.

 

[hieronymous]

I haven't found anything definitive, but I think he definitely played part of that section of Close to the Edge on his fretless Guild JS-II, and even used it live on the Close to the Edge tour for that section (with it mounted on a stand) and switching back to his Ric when the vocals come back in. It's interesting to find this stuff being whispered on the internet over the past 10-15 years but not entering the more general knowledge-base, though I guess that's probably how the internet works...

And I apologize for bringing Yes into this thread, though Close to the Edge definitely has some ambient moments!

 

[steubig]

It would make sense, on stage switching basses in the middle of a song is not simple, but in the studio you can do whatever you want.

steve howe sorta did it.

i saw yes on the yessongs tour; iirc, squire played a ric on most of it, but then pulled out something that looked like a tele bass.

and don’t forget that he had a bass with like four necks.

edit: three necks

 

[monsterthompson]

Omg. Had a great ambient jam session tonight. My bud played a midi Kontakt instrument and I worked with the Terra. We recorded about 20 minutes of it for a project we’re going to work on. It was a lot of hunting for sounds but we managed to capture a few decent moments which should work as a starting point.

 

[coyoteboy]

2 minidrones in series?

i got an extra input on my C4…

 

[ABrink]

I've always liked Roger Waters bass playing in Pink Floyd during the early 70s, especially Live at Pompeii. I made this video using the same type of delay sound he used - and a black P of course.

 

[monsterthompson]

I've always liked Roger Waters bass playing in Pink Floyd during the early 70s, especially Live at Pompeii. I made this video using the same type of delay sound he used - and a black P of course.

I like it!