Carol Kaye's string changing method !

[two fingers]

Huh. You actually believe that you could lay down jamerson's lines? That's rich

(sigh) Nope. What I said was (and I can have the court reporter read it back to you if need be since your reading comprehension seems to be...... lacking) that lots of guys could have sat in that chair and laid down some tasty bass lines. Of course, none of them would have sounded like Jamerson. But, then again, whomever they sounded like, we would have them on a pedestal right now in stead of Jamerson, assuming Motown had been equally successful.

 

[warrplayer]

Always liked this one.

In this video she mentions sometimes having to shim the necks of the new Fenders she got on trade in.
i think people are taking a slightly eccentric and possible brillant way of avoiding leaving your bass in a store for a day and automatically assuming lack of any general maintenance skills.

 

[xaxxat]

Reminds me of the story about Bill Gates passing up a $100 bill lying on the ground. It's not worth his time to stop and pick it up.

Obviously it was the same for Carol. She had better things to do than changing strings. Plus, she appears to not be a gear junkie.

 

[king_biscuit]

Lots to respond to here:

1) Taking bass to the next level: until there is a foundation, there is no "next level." If Kaye, Osborn, and Jamerson are not acceptable as the seminal stylemakers of electric bass, who ya gonna call? Bill Black? Jerry Lee Lewis' bassplayer? Little Richard's?

2) Kaye's being unable or unwilling to be a "bass tech" and not changing her own strings is no knock on her. Isn't McCartney on record as saying his original Hofner went out of tune on the E string above the third fret? He did not know about compensating the bridge. In decades past, how many pawn shop wall-hangers had horribly warped necks because we the teen owners did not know about truss rod adjustment? Almost NONE of the players had tech skills back then, and there was NO shortage of full service music stores. Kaye had a system which worked for her; it's not for us to pass judgement.

3) I would like to see that ten-minute string change. I doubt it can be done. Not to the tune-up and play level at any rate. Certainly not to studio spec.

How long does it take you to change strings, and do you really think a bass off of the wall from a music store in the 60s was ready to go at "studio spec?"

 

[warrplayer]

How long does it take you to change strings, and do you really think a bass off of the wall from a music store in the 60s was ready to go at "studio spec?"

Man, believe it or not, way back in the early 70s most small stores did total set ups on everything they hung on the wall. It wasn't Baine Capital back then. There was some pride of ownership involved in running a place.

 

[Humbled]

...believe it or not, way back in the early 70s most small stores did total set ups on everything they hung on the wall...

Yes indeed, they did.

 

[king_biscuit]

Man, believe it or not, way back in the early 70s most small stores did total set ups on everything they hung on the wall. It wasn't Baine Capital back then. There was some pride of ownership involved in running a place.

In the video you posted, which I just scanned over Carol complains that she had to add shims to the trade-ins she got to make them playable, so they were clearly not at "studio spec," whatever that means, straight from the store.

 

[warrplayer]

It is a fact that Carol said she did it to save time. Each of us can take turns inferring all day from that fact, and my inference is that Carol is kind of crazy and it didn't happen. You have added enough "facts" to your point to draw your conclusion. Is it possible both right?

It is certainly possible she made the story up. Or she did it once and over the years that story got embellished. All I was offering up was my experience of string cost and resale values back in the day (I started playing in the mid 70s), and stating that her story doesn't sound all that perposterous based on my remeberences. YMMV.

 

[king_biscuit]

It is certainly possible she made the story up. Or she did it once and over the years that story got embellished. All I was offering up was my experience of string cost and resale values back in the day (I started playing in the mid 70s), and stating that her story doesn't sound all that perposterous based on my remeberences. YMMV.

Who knows, it is a good story!

 

[warrplayer]

In the video you posted, which I just scanned over Carol complains that she had to add shims to the trade-ins she got to make them playable, so they were clearly not at "studio spec," whatever that means, straight from the store.

Lol. She is just like many guitarists turned bassist that like their bass strings sitting micrometers from the fretboard. So, yes, I take back everything you have ever disagreed with me over. Obviously a ding bat.

 

[GretschWretch]

How long does it take you to change strings, and do you really think a bass off of the wall from a music store in the 60s was ready to go at "studio spec?"

If I was doing it against the clock, and all I had to do was yank the old strings off and slap the new ones on, then yeah; I could do it in ten minutes. But that excludes trimming the string ends to proper length, setting the bridge height and intonation.

Since I've been a music store, pawn shop, and flea market rat from 1964 to the present day, I do. Maybe not to studio spec in a lot of cases, but certainly closer to it than a ten-minute string change will get you.

 

[king_biscuit]

Lol. She is just like many guitarists turned bassist that like her bass strings sitting millimeters from the fretboard. So, yes, I take back everything you have ever disagreed with me over. Obviously a ding bat.

LOL!

 

[two fingers]

3) I would like to see that ten-minute string change. I doubt it can be done. Not to the tune-up and play level at any rate. Certainly not to studio spec.

I once changed the A and D strings on my bass during one broken down chorus and a short drum solo. I had time to stretch the crap out of them and tune up to perfect tuning. It couldn't have been three minutes at the most (probably closer to two). I popped both at the same time and had left my spare bass in the truck out in the cold. I figured it would take less time to change them right then and there rather than go all the way out to the truck and bring in a freezing bass.

And as for "studio spec" gimme a break. You guys still cling to the notion that somehow the studio is some magical parallel universe where no bass is one cent out of tune. It simply isn't true. Intonation on any straight fret bass can't be perfect. It's physically impossible to make every note on a bass perfectly in tune. Have you not checked out some of the isolated bass tracks that guys here post? Have you not checked them out on YouTube? By themselves, a lot of those bass lines sound like crap. The "magic" happens in the mixing and mastering.

I went to Muscle Shoals a while back. We were told stories of how mics were "just mics" and those guys had them in a box over in the corner. Some guy would sing, and then they would put the same mic on a guitar. If it broke, they simply grabbed the next mic on top of the pile in that box over in the corner. They didn't know, and didn't care if it was a "guitar" mic or a "vocal"mic, or a "bass"mic. They grabbed whatever was on top. There were no finitely controlled conditions like you guys seem to think! They banged it out, mixed it down, and printed the dang thing. Even in the 90s I know a band that recorded there (and had a couple of radio hits on rock radio). Even then it was "just a room". They stood around in a circle and played the songs "live". They only did a few takes and printed the best ones. There were no "laboratory conditions" in those studios where every minute detail was complete perfection. That goes beyond even being a myth to just being not true.

 

[Inertialsky]

Any word on if she trades in her Ibanez basses when the 9V battery dies?

Oh and if you're focused, 2-3 minutes per string is pretty average for string changes.

I've restrung in the middle of a song also and it felt like it took longer to grab the string out of my gigbag than it did to tune up to pitch...

 

[petrus61]

Yup, here is the quote from an interview with Chris Jisi, in 1989 (reprinted in "Bass Heroes")

How did the "My Generation" solo come about?
Originally, we wanted to feature the sound of a Danelectro bass, which had thin strings. We did three takes, all of which were faster, more trebly, and more complex than the final one, and I kept breaking the strings. You Couldn't get replacements, so I had to keep buying Danelectros. When the store finally ran out of them, I bought a Fender Jazz Bass, put on LaBella strings, and used it to cut the recorded version.

He contradicts himself in the book Bass Culture and several other sources by saying the solo that everyone hears today was done on a Fender Jazz with flats.

 

[warrplayer]

Any word on if she trades in her Ibanez basses when the 9V battery dies?

Oh poopie! 9 volts die?!

 

[king_biscuit]

If I was doing it against the clock, and all I had to do was yank the old strings off and slap the new ones on, then yeah; I could do it in ten minutes. But that excludes trimming the string ends to proper length, setting the bridge height and intonation.

Since I've been a music store, pawn shop, and flea market rat from 1964 to the present day, I do. Maybe not to studio spec in a lot of cases, but certainly closer to it than a ten-minute string change will get you.

Four string passive Fenders are pretty simple machines. I worked as a tech in a music store for 10 years while in college, so maybe I have an advantage, but unless a four string Fender bass has a real neck or fret problem, I can change strings, set the relief/action, and intonatin in 10 to 15 minutes -- and that doesn't require me to "rush" through the job. Besides, Carol complained that she had to basically setup the trade-ins anyway, so I am failing to see how getting a trade in (this would have required some negotiation and paperwork) that she had to then set up could have possibly been faster than putting new strings on a bass she already had.

 

[two fingers]

Oh and if you're focused, 2-3 minutes per string is pretty average for string changes.

I've restrung in the middle of a song also and it felt like it took longer to grab the string out of my gigbag than it did to tune up to pitch...

Bingo. Come to think of it, ten minutes is probably about average. I play pretty hard so I go through strings quickly. I bet I take no more than ten minutes on average. I've done it lots of times during set breaks and still had time to talk to people and maybe even eat a sandwich.

Of course, it probably wasn't to "studio spec". Bwahaha!

 

[two fingers]

Four string passive Fenders are pretty simple machines. I worked as a tech in a music store for 10 years while in college, so maybe I have an advantage, but unless a four string Fender bass has a real neck or fret problem, I can change strings, set the relief/action, and intonatin in 10 to 15 minutes -- and that doesn't require me to "rush" through the job. Besides, Carol complained that she had to basically setup the trade-ins anyway, so I am failing to see how getting a trade in (this would have required some negotiation and paperwork) that she had to then set up could have possibly been faster than putting new strings on a bass she already had.

Yeah she pretty much saw basses like new purses back then and here we are arguing over it.

 

[Inertialsky]

If you're in the studio and you tune your bass... voila... studio spec!