I'll take that compliment
I definitely got into some cooler places, but wanted to keep it short until I felt like I could control the changes. I'll probably work with it more this week and see if it develops.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread
- Thread starter ttasselm
- Start date
I'll take that compliment
I definitely got into some cooler places, but wanted to keep it short until I felt like I could control the changes. I'll probably work with it more this week and see if it develops.
That’s an OG pic of Too $hort
Dope
- Mar 8, 2011
- 12,232
- 51,187
- Disclosures
- Authorized greenboy designs builder/Owner of BNA Audio
Thanks. That little Bloom sequencer is pretty impressive. I'm trying to envision how to trigger chord/root changes to play along with. What just dawned on me is that I could create a Zoia keyboard and send that CV to the root control on the Bloom...
Now I have a plan for tonight
I'd really like to be able to "jam" with someone at some point and handle things like chord changes.
My Bloom isn’t in the rack at the moment, but it will be soon enough. Great idea generator
So, as much as I want to apologize for droning on about Tangerine Dream, they are really having a big effect on me so I can't help it.
I've been listening to the first four albums - I had never heard the very first one (Electronic Meditation), so have been seeking it out - found a new copy of the 2018 "pink years" box set compilation (the first four albums in mini-LP sleeves - I am finding again the value in physical media - don't tell my wife!) - they are worlds apart from what came next (Phaedra, Rubycon, etc.) I'm realizing, it was always a band, Edgar Froese obviously the most key component but who he had with him had profound effect on the music. I went digging for articles and discovered that Sound on Sound magazine had done some, in the context of the technology, that came out when a box set came out in 1994:
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/tangerine-dream-changing-use-technology-part-1-1967-1977
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/tangerine-dream-changing-use-technology-part-2-1977-1994
It's like a history lesson in musical synthesis that you can listen to and learn about the band at the same time! I'm listening to the first track from the third album Zeit - cellos being processed by Florian Fricke's Moog modular synth! I have also been surprised to hear a lot of glissando guitar - I didn't know what it was until I saw Daevid Allen & Makoto Kawabata doing it live with Acid Mother's Gong in Osaka - I think Daevid Allen got it from Syd Barrett? Anyway, there's quite a bit of that on the first four albums, it's almost like a color that Edgar Froese utilizes sometimes. That's one of the things I'm learning from listening to this stuff now - Using colors that I can produce with what I have. Painting in broad strokes and relaxing into it. Finding a way to express myself with the colors I have available. My main brush is the bass guitar - what kind of painting can I make with just that?! Fortunately I've got synths and electronic processing devices. There's always something else I could get, but I've actually been enjoying working with what I have accumulated over the years - though that's part of my issue, I started this project almost 20 years ago and didn't carry through, so it feels good to finally be digging in again, and digging deeper...
tl;dr I really dig Tangerine Dream and they are helping guide me in my musical journey
Other peoples' thoughts on Tangerine Dream or the creative process as an ambient/post-rock/textural bassist welcome as always!
Great find on the SOS articles. I actually bought a boxed set of the early records in the mid or late 80s sometime. The instrumentation on those early records was a real surprise to teenage me. But it’s the Phaedra period that really did it for me. Last one I bought — also on vinyl — was Underwater Sunlight.
i want to make sure i understand what you mean. i’m hearing you say that the bass guitar has limited resources for sounds, is that correct?
i get that it can’t do synth washes without processing, etc., but (imo) there are a lot of things that a bass guitar can do that are not normal techniques that a synth can’t do.
imo, (most) people haven’t scratched the surface of where the instrument can go.
I'd love if you would elaborate on that. (Not that I disagree or anything...I'm interested in your perspective.)
I think I may not have expressed myself the way I intended. I find bass in its normal role to be lonely without anyone else. So I have always been inspired by people that could make it one of the main voices - Jack Bruce, John Entwistle, Chris Squire, Geddy Lee, Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke. But they are all virtuosos - I took on some of the virtuosic space without necessarily being a technical virtuoso (especially in the harmonic realm). Having played bass now for almost 40 years, I feel like I am finally finding a space where I can express myself with the bass as the main instrument. The past week or so, Tangerine Dream has been a big piece of the puzzle - taking inspiration from the various aspects of music that they continue to reveal to me. From the big swatches of sound of the early albums to the economy of expression of the most recently released single "You're Always On Time." I love using the bass as one of the main voices, and in the past few years (if not this past year) finally become comfortable expressing myself in that way, with the aid of synths.
And I think you may have been one of the people who expressed one role of the bass as an oscillator in a synth setup - that's definitely how I like to approach it sometimes.
Last edited:
got it.
"normal" is often decided by outside voices. i guess my thing has been trying to have a somewhat (or radically) different way of playing in music that i design or co-design.
my saying is " the bass player is not your b!tch."
yeah. the "message" i get from those people is not that the chops were important, but that they built the music around *their voice* (arguably less so in the case of enwistle, as he wasn't a main writer, but he was critical). i think you can throw mingus in there as well—probably adding wooten/manring/thundercat.
i think the challenge is to figure out how to write music so it's satisfying to you while also showcasing some of your ideas about the instrument.
pretty sure i'm guilty of that.
sure.
none of the following is likely to be useful if you're playing in a super-loud band with no dynamics or if you're called on to do a blues or country gig (i've done my fair share, so it's an observation, not a critique). however, if you're gonna do a duo gig with a vocalist who doubles on another instrument, or a saxophonist, it's nice to have a few things you can pull out to be the "orchestra behind them."
imo, ebass players can learn a bit from how our double bass counterparts wield the bow: legato playing, marcato playing, etc., mixing them up. i got a lot out of trying to emulate the bowing exercises in the back of simandl book 1.
there are technical things one can do:
right hand muting technique: i use my third and pinky finger to mute strings because it anchors my hand less to the string than a palm mute and allows alternations of mute/not mute. and i feel it creates a stronger attack.
i have a longer nail on my right hand third finger to get clicky attacks on the strings so i can alternate sounds.
i use my right thumb nail to scrape the strings to get juxtapositions of different texture in a groove.
left hand articulation: i use different left hand pressures to create different percussive attacks (needs to be used in conjunction with a sharer right hand attack). what i can "quarter pressure" (a bit more than you'd use for harmonics) gets a percussive sound with a bit of pitch material. "half pressure" (but not full) gets more pitch, but not the same as fully pressing down on the string.
three- to four-note hammers to get as legato as you can. (legato with string crossing is a really fun challenge.)
then there are implements: slides, drum sticks, chopsticks pieces of metal stuck in the strings (see my avatar), alligator clips on the strings can get a lot of interesting timbres (gongs, gamelon, koto).
there are different possibilities offered by harmonics that aren't portrait of tracy or continuum.
fretted and fretless offer different opportunities when combined with this stuff.
as an aside, i think a lot of ebass players do not pay enough attention to how they approach vibrato.
imo, ebass players have not really engaged with the string in the same way that many other string players have.
okay, there's my sermon . . .
Man. I’ll need to read this tomorrow and get caught up. I was busy spacing out in modular land.
I got a keyboard in Zoia to control the root notes in Bloom. I got the joystick controlling branches and paths. Pam’s clock is driving two clock dividers which are setting independent tempo taps for left and right side. That into a reverb and another stereo delay.
I was also running a looping envelope to modulate the filter cutoff and I was able to get some fun percussive clicks and pops.
I got a keyboard in Zoia to control the root notes in Bloom. I got the joystick controlling branches and paths. Pam’s clock is driving two clock dividers which are setting independent tempo taps for left and right side. That into a reverb and another stereo delay.
I was also running a looping envelope to modulate the filter cutoff and I was able to get some fun percussive clicks and pops.
These last few posts kind of sum up the challenge I'm looking at. (Challenge as in, something to face and be excited about rather than "oh no, not another learning experience")
I'm a synthesist at heart and in reality, and I want to gradually bring the bass into that same world. Why? I don't know, it's a whim. it's an instrument that speaks to me and I feel like it has potential for less conventional roles.
The trick is:
- finding my own path to making it work
- not something I could have done more easily or better by sticking to synths
- (maybe) still kind of distinctively bass, rather than fading completely into synth territory. This is the one I'm least sure about. The very little bit I've done with heavily processed kalimba doesn't sound like a kalimba; the little bit so far I've done with heavily processed U-bass doesn't sound quite like U-bass.
I'm also finding that learning and exploring bass is having its influence on my synth music. I'm thinking more about the usual role of bass, and of fretless sounds, and of jazz. While I'm not changing things consciously, those thoughts are buzzing through the patch cables and adding their own modulation.
I'm a synthesist at heart and in reality, and I want to gradually bring the bass into that same world. Why? I don't know, it's a whim. it's an instrument that speaks to me and I feel like it has potential for less conventional roles.
The trick is:
- finding my own path to making it work
- not something I could have done more easily or better by sticking to synths
- (maybe) still kind of distinctively bass, rather than fading completely into synth territory. This is the one I'm least sure about. The very little bit I've done with heavily processed kalimba doesn't sound like a kalimba; the little bit so far I've done with heavily processed U-bass doesn't sound quite like U-bass.
I'm also finding that learning and exploring bass is having its influence on my synth music. I'm thinking more about the usual role of bass, and of fretless sounds, and of jazz. While I'm not changing things consciously, those thoughts are buzzing through the patch cables and adding their own modulation.
Quick digression that I hope won't sidetrack the more interesting discussion that's underway...
Thoughts on the Meris Mercury7? I've got the Astral Destiny and Light Pedal for weird reverbs (and some that are in the HX Effects), but I'm looking for a reverb that's a bit less niche and can cover more ground. From demos I've seen the Mercury7 seems like a good candidate. Anything else I should consider for that role?
Thoughts on the Meris Mercury7? I've got the Astral Destiny and Light Pedal for weird reverbs (and some that are in the HX Effects), but I'm looking for a reverb that's a bit less niche and can cover more ground. From demos I've seen the Mercury7 seems like a good candidate. Anything else I should consider for that role?
I love my Meris Mercury but it is a learning curve. It is definitely a wide-ranging pedal.
i don’t have experience with that pedal. do you know the reverb thread started by @JES ?
The Great Bass-Friendly Reverb Hunt 2020: Immerse, Ventris, RV-500, Elle, Helix, and H9
I wasn't aware of that. There goes my afternoon...
- Mar 8, 2011
- 12,232
- 51,187
- Disclosures
- Authorized greenboy designs builder/Owner of BNA Audio
I love the sound of Meris pedals but no longer have any. At this point I just don’t want to take a night course to learn how to use a stomp box
- Mar 8, 2011
- 12,232
- 51,187
- Disclosures
- Authorized greenboy designs builder/Owner of BNA Audio
More winter dirge nonsense on the M8. For the size and price, the M8 is kind of a masterpiece bit of gear, I think
Next step (lame pun intended) is to get a real Amiga and an Akai S1000.
Go get that street cred from those Chip Tune Nerds!!!
Respect from strangers on the interwebs is primordial.
btw,
to add to bass players who defined the band sound: les claypool, colin hodgkinson, bernard edwards
to add to bass players who defined the band sound: les claypool, colin hodgkinson, bernard edwards
