Bass for playing deep house/nu jazz

[FbassDave]

Honestly, It's mostly in the magic dust the engineer sprinkles
over it... This is some of the most heavily processed bass you'll hear in modern recordings: I love it, and you can get yourself almost there - I play this kind of stuff out with a (mostly) live band, as well as recording samples for DJ's around town, and I've found that my Fbass BN5 naturally fits with how this kind of music is often mixed: fills a track, big, warm, supportive, clearly defined with a bit of "vintage" around the edges, clean but not too modern, and not too assertive. Dubbier house stuff and Gene Perez-style brightness/presence are within reach too if you need it.

A nice compressor and it's tasteful use will get you a long way, regardless of what instrument you play. don't overdo it and make sure you put it before your DI to the board in venues. A really, really clean amp with a lot of headroom will get you further.

I have a handful of basses at home and, realistically, this is the only one I need. I play in a covers band and a contemporary funk/soul thing as well. It's all covered.

Listen to anything with Gene Perez on bass for some serious schooling: older stuff is jazz
bass/sadowsky or ken smith...

 

[Chef]

The G&L 2500 neck is more or less C shaped in profile, they have narrow string spacing...

Sounds like a Jazz bass to me, if you consider a L-2500 make sure you play one first, the necks are MASSIVE...

 

[phishaholik]

That's pretty much exactly what my Jazz sounds like with the Z-switch on the Audere in the up position.


Michael

 

[guroove]

Both clips just sound like high end 70s style jazz basses. Alleva Coppolo, Fender Custom Shop Jazz basses, and things like that can get you this sound. I think it starts with a very stable neck, and a good setup with low action, and pickups that have a strong low-mid punch.

 

[Floridabwoy]

Bartolini pup's & pre... play near bridge.

 

[Jamie_Funk]

Thanks for the replies !

I still can't get that tone with my jazz. Here's the problem : to get that nice slight growl, I have to add some mids. But when I do it also adds some sort of "zing" to the sound, which is not what I'm looking for. Even when rolling the highs off it's still there.

Here's another example of the tone I'm looking for :


It's basically the same as the tone from the first video, with some sight nuances.

Randy Hope Taylor did that track - definitely a J bass - a a killer track!

J

 

[guroove]

Thanks for the replies !

I still can't get that tone with my jazz. Here's the problem : to get that nice slight growl, I have to add some mids. But when I do it also adds some sort of "zing" to the sound, which is not what I'm looking for. Even when rolling the highs off it's still there.

Here's another example of the tone I'm looking for :


It's basically the same as the tone from the first video, with some sight nuances.

All basses are different, and they are all going to have different nuances. Also, the term 'mids' is really imprecise. I've noticed that the word means something different to almost everyone. Your mid sweep may be a lot wider than what you need to get what you want to achieve. A lot of the 'growl' comes from putting the bridge pickup louder than the neck pickup, and boosting lows to compensate. Noiseless pickups help uneven pickup levels.

 

[bh2]

I love that stuff... I play D&B with a fretless Jazz, J-Retro preamp.