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Deep Reggae Bass sound,
- Thread starter mathius34
- Start date
Totally heard of you!...I typically seen them at places like Kool Haus, Big Bucks (like 3 times), Sound Academy, local Festivals (i live in Hamilton actually) Also been to multiple shows in StCatherines and Niagara Falls
R u guys still together? ...."Time Pass or Time Passes" sticks out in my mind
I don't remember most of the venues from back then (if they're still around). Yeah, the song was Letting Time Pass. We haven't broken up but haven't done a show in about two years now.
HA!...i knew i was close. Too bad you guys arent still givin'er...
Your style may have been ahead of your time...look at City and Color....not too far off i'd say.
Free show about 2km from my house next week
-Tea Party
-Jon Anderson (Yes)
-City and Color
-The Arkells (local)
-America
-Helix
-The reason
-Saga
etc...we have it too good here in the summer for concerts.
Sorry to get off topic :-(
:-(
Too right Mushroo. Daniel Lanois has mentioned his use of the Jamaican method of bass playing/amplification: turn your amp/preamp way up and play with a very light touch. I believe John Entwistle used this technique also.
i doubt any rockers every really used this method.
the reggae guys really do just turn their amps WAY up and play as lightly as they can. its all subs that way. its blissfull.
Technique wise I'd echo muting, muting, muting. Both hands are key. Muting the staccato notes with the right hand finger that plays the next note.
Also, I've seldom used them but I've seen plenty of string mutes used as well as the extremely cost effective foam under the strings method. This can help cut overtones from jazz bridge pickups without losing the note definition. Any bass is fine if adjusted proper like. It's much more a technique thing for me.
Also, I've seldom used them but I've seen plenty of string mutes used as well as the extremely cost effective foam under the strings method. This can help cut overtones from jazz bridge pickups without losing the note definition. Any bass is fine if adjusted proper like. It's much more a technique thing for me.
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
You got it. That right hand finger mute is the name of the game. Any of the basses I've used for Reggae would work equally well for all types of music...
I've actually seen the words "spanking" and "violent" used to describe Entwistle's right hand technique.
At one point during "My Generation" session he famously bought several Danelectro Longhorn Basses for the strings they came with, because he kept snapping the strings and they couldn't be bought separately from the bass.
While he and Pete Townsend were having a bit of an arms race with amp wattage, John still had to work hard to be heard over the guitar. Bass amplification back then definitely left something to be desired.
Back on topic, I'm kind on the fence with both schools of thought - use moderate volume and dig in; or crank the amp and ease up on the attack. It really depends on the feel I'm going for.
Am I mistaken, or don't you own the ultimate reggae bass?
BurningSkies
CRAZY BALDHEAD
- Feb 20, 2005
- 27,956
- 20,348
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Dingwall Guitars
I do, but I've also played Precisions, Jazz basses, I have a PRS, one time I had an Ibanez. I enjoy both my Dingwalls because they give me what I'm looking to hear even more than the others but I'd never suggest it's the only solution.
+1 to that.
I'm not really playing Reggae music but I do like to have this Deep and full sound. As opposite to the rock ou funk approch where attack means a great deal to the bass sound, here what you're going for is a fat and full (Hi-Fi) sound.
I now play a Bongo 5 and the 4 band preamp is a delight to work with for this particular thing.
Reggae tone:
Please check the tune "Red, Gold, and Green" by Hugh Mundell, off the album "Mundell". This is Flabba Holt playing bass, and these notes are on that tune. Reggae bass has many little sub genres and each its own bass flavor and feel. For this forum I'd like to use this recording because this album is one of the pinnacle reggae albums IMO. If you know reggae, you'll know that this is a take on "I Hold The Handle" originally by the Heptones.
First lets talk Rhythm. Lets count this bassline in 8th notes, with the "chop" on 2 and 4. You'll notice that in the bassline, the bass is very much in time with the chop. On beat One, the bass is very much in time with the kick drum, which is not laid back or put ahead. The only note that is really left behind the beat is "three and",quickily catching up on 4, and the pick up in the next measure on the "and of one", which is also behind the beat. In that sense, you have a two measure phrase (repeated over two chords following the progression) where out of 16 beats in the bassline, somewhere about 2 or 3 beats are behind the beat, 4 are rests, and the rest are in time. That means that if you want to talk statistics, the bass is behind the beat somewhere around 10 percent of this tune. Hardly worth saying the bass plays behind the beat, IMO, when there are other styles where the bass does play behind the beat more than half of the time.
Now lets talk Harmony. Over both chords (I and ii), the bass uses the fifth of the tonic both on the bottom and the top of the line. That means that both measures have the same low and high note, of F (in the key of Bb), so on the C minor chord, the bass is playing an F as its low note. This is extremely common in reggae, and basically translates to a sort of ii-V harmony, where the five of the tonic is imposed under the ii chord to make a five chord with a 9th.
Now lets talk tone. This tone bassline is being effected via a low pass filter, as it usually is in reggae. You can tell this by two ways. Firstly, the engineer is messing with the aux on the track and noticeably changing the filter throughout the song. The tone to me is more woody, based on a low mid and a high mid sound. Notice the volume of the bass. My biggest annoyance is when people suggest the bass is loud in reggae. The bass isn't so much loud as it is just left alone in its frequency range. The drums are thru a high pass filter and cut below a certain frequency, usually around 100 or 120, allowing the bass drum to be at a higher range than the bass guitar. This is in contrast to most rock production, where I've seen engineers even use oscillators to add bass to the bass drum! So in essence, the bass isn't loud, the bass is at its normal volume. Your perception of the bass is just clearer and more articulate because space was left sonically for it to cut thru.
As for technique- Any technique works for reggae. So long as you can understand how to treat beats intrinsically, and you have a good understanding of dynamics in your right hand, a good understanding of muting in your left hand, and know how to use those tools on what beats. You need the bass to sing, there needs to be a lot of variation. Listen to the tambourine. Not every beat is played with the same dynamic, and the bass imitates and translates that.
Hope this clears it up for anyone!
Please check the tune "Red, Gold, and Green" by Hugh Mundell, off the album "Mundell". This is Flabba Holt playing bass, and these notes are on that tune. Reggae bass has many little sub genres and each its own bass flavor and feel. For this forum I'd like to use this recording because this album is one of the pinnacle reggae albums IMO. If you know reggae, you'll know that this is a take on "I Hold The Handle" originally by the Heptones.
First lets talk Rhythm. Lets count this bassline in 8th notes, with the "chop" on 2 and 4. You'll notice that in the bassline, the bass is very much in time with the chop. On beat One, the bass is very much in time with the kick drum, which is not laid back or put ahead. The only note that is really left behind the beat is "three and",quickily catching up on 4, and the pick up in the next measure on the "and of one", which is also behind the beat. In that sense, you have a two measure phrase (repeated over two chords following the progression) where out of 16 beats in the bassline, somewhere about 2 or 3 beats are behind the beat, 4 are rests, and the rest are in time. That means that if you want to talk statistics, the bass is behind the beat somewhere around 10 percent of this tune. Hardly worth saying the bass plays behind the beat, IMO, when there are other styles where the bass does play behind the beat more than half of the time.
Now lets talk Harmony. Over both chords (I and ii), the bass uses the fifth of the tonic both on the bottom and the top of the line. That means that both measures have the same low and high note, of F (in the key of Bb), so on the C minor chord, the bass is playing an F as its low note. This is extremely common in reggae, and basically translates to a sort of ii-V harmony, where the five of the tonic is imposed under the ii chord to make a five chord with a 9th.
Now lets talk tone. This tone bassline is being effected via a low pass filter, as it usually is in reggae. You can tell this by two ways. Firstly, the engineer is messing with the aux on the track and noticeably changing the filter throughout the song. The tone to me is more woody, based on a low mid and a high mid sound. Notice the volume of the bass. My biggest annoyance is when people suggest the bass is loud in reggae. The bass isn't so much loud as it is just left alone in its frequency range. The drums are thru a high pass filter and cut below a certain frequency, usually around 100 or 120, allowing the bass drum to be at a higher range than the bass guitar. This is in contrast to most rock production, where I've seen engineers even use oscillators to add bass to the bass drum! So in essence, the bass isn't loud, the bass is at its normal volume. Your perception of the bass is just clearer and more articulate because space was left sonically for it to cut thru.
As for technique- Any technique works for reggae. So long as you can understand how to treat beats intrinsically, and you have a good understanding of dynamics in your right hand, a good understanding of muting in your left hand, and know how to use those tools on what beats. You need the bass to sing, there needs to be a lot of variation. Listen to the tambourine. Not every beat is played with the same dynamic, and the bass imitates and translates that.
Hope this clears it up for anyone!
