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Carol Kaye tidbit

#61
Well she did work her ass off in those days...5-6 sessions a day, 18 hour days...seems unbelievable to people not from that era, but there was actually a time you could make a living from sessions only, but you had to work your ass off. I could easily see it. That's why I don't have a hard time believing it.
 
#62
Going back to "Bernadette" and without casting aspersions on anyone's claims (I've read enough to know that several musicians may cut the same track at different times, and not know that others cut the same part, or which got used)...

Can you point me at some Carol Kaye tracks that show some of the stylistic traits on Bernadette (like the bouncing between the octave and 5th, etc.)?
 
#63
JimmyM said:
I once told Carol that I thought TI strings were too loose for me, and she said just move the saddle back. I replied, "Won't that throw off the intonation?" And she replied that intonation for bass was such a myth and definitely used the word "myth" in her reply. Of course, she's basing it on upright players not needing proper intonation, so I'm guessing her opinion comes from that.
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And not having frets. :eyebrow:
 
#64
JohNLA said:
She bought them because the strings were already broken in on the display models.:help:
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Could this be what she really meant? Not that she didn't have the 20 minutes to physically change the strings, but that there wasn't the time to let them break in? If you were doing 12 hours of sessions every day for the next 30 days before your one day off, when would be the best time to let your flatwounds settle in?

I am breaking in a new set of TI's now and after 2 weeks they are still not settled to where the previous set was. Granted, I haven't played 12 hours per day those 2 weeks, but you get the idea. And I would imagine since she was completely freelance (they all were, as she said, it wasn't considered a "group" until it was looked at historically, so there was no "wrecking crew" at the time) that one bad session, in terms of sound not happening, could affect the ability to get other work. Especially since the way most of those records were being made you couldn't recut a bass part that wasn't working, or when you could, are you going to wait another 30 days or whatever for the player to be available again. So, a very long way to say maybe she means that? I don't know, but I'm sure if someone asked she would answer- she's always been very courteous in any replies to questions I have asked via her site.
 
#65
JimmyM said:
And please tell me what is so complex about the basses today as opposed to 50 years ago. Extra knobs? A couple extra strings? Bah...the strings still go on the same way ;)
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I was speaking in terms of caring for the bass. The ENTIRE bass. Someone mentioned trading basses instead of maintaining them. Obviously strings still string up the same way. But BASSES :), albeit depending on which you choose, can have way more variables than a standard passive p or j. The basses, not the strings.
 
#66
mrufino1 said:
Could this be what she really meant? Not that she didn't have the 20 minutes to physically change the strings, but that there wasn't the time to let them break in? If you were doing 12 hours of sessions every day for the next 30 days before your one day off, when would be the best time to let your flatwounds settle in?

I am breaking in a new set of TI's now and after 2 weeks they are still not settled to where the previous set was. Granted, I haven't played 12 hours per day those 2 weeks, but you get the idea. And I would imagine since she was completely freelance (they all were, as she said, it wasn't considered a "group" until it was looked at historically, so there was no "wrecking crew" at the time) that one bad session, in terms of sound not happening, could affect the ability to get other work. Especially since the way most of those records were being made you couldn't recut a bass part that wasn't working, or when you could, are you going to wait another 30 days or whatever for the player to be available again. So, a very long way to say maybe she means that? I don't know, but I'm sure if someone asked she would answer- she's always been very courteous in any replies to questions I have asked via her site.
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I think you are exactly right.

There sure is a huge fuss being made out of such a tiny thing, isn't there?
 
#68
62bass said:
I think you are exactly right.

There sure is a huge fuss being made out of such a tiny thing, isn't there?
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I think that because she has been so public about things that she rubs people the wrong way, and there are people that are out to prove she is an idiot, which I think is far from true. Motown credits aside, she did a ton of work and was great at her job.
Interestingly, John Entwhistle said that during the recording of my generation he kept breaking strings and needed to get new basses because you couldn't buy new strings at the time where they were located (London I believe?).
But yes, in the end it is a very minor point and if what she did made sense to her then so be it, the proof is certainly there in her work.
 
#69
mrufino1 said:
I think that because she has been so public about things that she rubs people the wrong way, and there are people that are out to prove she is an idiot, which I think is far from true. Motown credits aside, she did a ton of work and was great at her job.
Interestingly, John Entwhistle said that during the recording of my generation he kept breaking strings and needed to get new basses because you couldn't buy new strings at the time where they were located (London I believe?).
But yes, in the end it is a very minor point and if what she did made sense to her then so be it, the proof is certainly there in her work.
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Good point. I'd forgotten that back in the early days it was very hard to buy replacement strings in some places, even from the dealer where you got the bass. I remember when I bought my P bass in 1962 I asked to buy a spare set of strings and they said they'd have to order them in for me :( That's not the case these days even in smaller cities.
 
#70
62bass said:
Mutes work wonders in eliminating the over-tones and under-tones that destroy your sounds - mutes give you the finest in clarity of sounds,
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This is a problem I've always had with Carol Kaye (though I can't really fault her for it; she isn't a scientist), but "undertones" don't exist. There just flat out is no phenomenon known as "undertones". There are psychoacoustical things similar to that, but not ones that a mute would affect.

Sorry, she talks about them a lot, and it drives me nuts.

She is a great, great player, though, even if I don't agree with all of her methods.
 
#71
Angus said:
This is a problem I've always had with Carol Kaye (though I can't really fault her for it; she isn't a scientist), but "undertones" don't exist. There just flat out is no phenomenon known as "undertones". There are psychoacoustical things similar to that, but not ones that a mute would affect.

Sorry, she talks about them a lot, and it drives me nuts.

She is a great, great player, though, even if I don't agree with all of her methods.
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Are you talking about missing fundamental?

This is possible to emulate on a bass, although it's usually done in chordal work.

I think in Carol's case she is confusing the term with something else (sympathetic vibrations?)
 
#74
Psychoacoustical effects- missing fundamentals and physically-not present 'common tone'. The latter is much more common with simple tones rather than complex ones, and really is only meaningful when the tones aren't just harmonics of a single one. The missing fundamental is another psychoacoustical effect that still isn't appropriate here, but is the closest thing to whatever she means by "undertone".

The problem is, overtones physically exist, whereas missing fundamentals are a psychoacoustical phenomenon that occurs in the translation from your ear to your brain...so a mute isn't going to help.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with the rest of the conversation.

For the record, I still definitely dig her playing.
 
#75
A quick chime in from a long, long time bassist.

My Vintage Dan Armstrong Modified Danelectro has the Dano rosewood saddle. Even with the tweeking Dan did to this, the A and D string intonation just doesn't exist past the fourth fret. I've played it live and in the studio, and honestly, only I could really hear the notes out.

As for 1960's Fenders, not all the models had individual saddles. Many still had the bridges with two strings per saddle. So again, intonation was questionable anyway. Perfect intonation is impossible. Yes, todays laser drilled, computer controlled necks and production techniques make even the cheap-o basses today immaculately close to perfect intonation, but they still aren't perfect.

So Carol is right, intonation isn't that important on the bass (or guitar) for that matter, at least not to the music or the song.

And with the compression used on music today for digital players, only expert musicians can really tell if there is anything out of character with the mix.

I love my Dano. Even though the 7th fret E note on the A string sounds more like an F.

Tom Richards
 
#78
JimmyM said:
Interesting to say the least! I discovered she's best worshipped from afar, though. She can be brutal.
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I've had just the opposite experience. Carol's always been really personable in emails and always ready to share storys.

I wish 'tho that I had looked her up back in the mid 70's when I was in LA/Hwood. She was super buisy at that time but did say that period was the beginning of the end for the big studio dates.
 

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