finding your voice ?

[zeb_bass]

hey guys....

just ´d like to share some thoughts / seek advise about "the" finding your own voice:

As far as I am concerned:

- I am in my early 30s
....kinda late for finding your own voice / signature sound ...but anyways ...I love bass too much and ´ll keep trying....

-Ever listen back to your own recordings? Why is it that ? - All of a sudden you are not the cool super bad bass player you´d like to be ?
The super funky syncopated inovative stuff sounds kinda out of time, way out there actually kinda lame. The boring and predictable at times even cheesy stuff (at least thats how it felt while you layed it down) is actually quite killer.

Soundwise:

- I have settled with 4 stringed Fender J basses since some years.
I think this is quite final and a stable one of my better life choices after taking a huge detour, wasting approx. 10-15 years debating about Fender P vs. J, 5 stringed monster vs. 4 stringed banger, carbon fiber necked vs. rosewood beauty or maple queen, headless useless junk via gotoh style vs. old school schaller tuner, hi-tec zingy vs. oldskool grindy.
Finally came to my senses and realized: If yo not ganna make it happen on a nice fender J ...YOU´ll not gonna make it happen anyways. (C´mon Marcus can, Jaco could, Me shell mos def. can ....so wacha wanna argue bout?)

-How do you tackle the bedroom vs. live sound dilemma ?


- Showing up with at least 3 different Axes to each session before you´ll feel covered and confident ? - Isn´t that gonna put you in trouble from start ...did you never understood that the tone is in the fingers ?


- Why am I not getting the P. Bass vibe ? Is this gonna be essential to mature ?


- I am also still not over the single vs. humbucker thing.
Why is it that single coil grind so great in the mix but cannot be combined with that super Hi Fi Glock 18 kHz Sizzle?

Any cool ideas/ food for thought / reference points ya´ll ?

Cheers,
zeb

 

[JimmyM]

As far as you're concerned part...playing something complex doesn't necessarily mean it's good, and vice versa.

Bedroom vs live tone...experience takes care of that.

3 axes...sometimes your favorite bass isn't the right thing. I generally stick to one bass during a gig, but I'll bring several basses to sessions just to have different tones or give the producer a choice.

P Bass thing...some get it, some don't. I do, you don't. Big deal.

SIngle coils...they're brighter than humbuckers, so a bright pickup with a bright cab = way too bright. BTW, anything over 10k is pretty well useless to bass.

 

[Ten Four One]

P and J are fundamentally different. I can really dig into a J and feel like it's supporting me. With a P I feel like I'm supporting it. I know that makes no sense whatsoever, but they're massively different vibes.

 

[EagleMoon]

Age has nothing to do with finding your own voice. That's something that's going to change constantly your whole life, or as long as you're playing. It's a continual thing. Just because you're in your early thirties doesn't mean it's late. Some people in their sixties are still looking for their tone. I think it's part of being an artist to not be happy for any length of time with one thing. It's what makes us evolve and grow. Tone can be in the fingers only in the sense that a good bass player can bring the best out of an instrument. That doesn't necessarily mean that best is something that you want.

P basses aren't for everyone, but neither are jazz basses or MTD's or Peavey's or whatever. You need to pick the bass that fits the tone of the group you're working with, whether that's a single coil or humbucker equipped instrument, who knows? Sometimes people just analyze things to death rather than just going out there and playing.

 

[Billnc]

My own voice won't go away, whether or not that's a good thing I don't know. I sound like me whatever the bass. Doesn't mean I don't prefer different basses though. My early 30's present to me was a bass.

 

[unclejane]

hey guys....

just ´d like to share some thoughts / seek advise about "the" finding your own voice:

As far as I am concerned:

- I am in my early 30s
....kinda late for finding your own voice / signature sound ...but anyways ...I love bass too much and ´ll keep trying....

-Ever listen back to your own recordings? Why is it that ? - All of a sudden you are not the cool super bad bass player you´d like to be ?
The super funky syncopated inovative stuff sounds kinda out of time, way out there actually kinda lame. The boring and predictable at times even cheesy stuff (at least thats how it felt while you layed it down) is actually quite killer.

Soundwise:

- I have settled with 4 stringed Fender J basses since some years.
I think this is quite final and a stable one of my better life choices after taking a huge detour, wasting approx. 10-15 years debating about Fender P vs. J, 5 stringed monster vs. 4 stringed banger, carbon fiber necked vs. rosewood beauty or maple queen, headless useless junk via gotoh style vs. old school schaller tuner, hi-tec zingy vs. oldskool grindy.
Finally came to my senses and realized: If yo not ganna make it happen on a nice fender J ...YOU´ll not gonna make it happen anyways. (C´mon Marcus can, Jaco could, Me shell mos def. can ....so wacha wanna argue bout?)

-How do you tackle the bedroom vs. live sound dilemma ?


- Showing up with at least 3 different Axes to each session before you´ll feel covered and confident ? - Isn´t that gonna put you in trouble from start ...did you never understood that the tone is in the fingers ?


- Why am I not getting the P. Bass vibe ? Is this gonna be essential to mature ?


- I am also still not over the single vs. humbucker thing.
Why is it that single coil grind so great in the mix but cannot be combined with that super Hi Fi Glock 18 kHz Sizzle?

Any cool ideas/ food for thought / reference points ya´ll ?

Cheers,
zeb

My small experience:
- play less other people's music and try to make more of your own. When I was gigging I played almost exclusively other people's music except for our originals. And the bass parts for many of those were more or less come up with by the guitarist or drummer (the guys who wrote the music for the songs). I embellished a little bit but still preferred to play the parts the way the songwriters envisioned them.
So I was constantly chasing other people's ideas about tone, style etc. This can get you into a rut as far as finding your own sound and style.
So do some woodshedding where you do all the musical ideas yourself. You'll start to converge on a sound and style that's yours and not someone else's.
- I was also shocked the first few times I played back my own recordings. They do reveal all the little rough edges and general suckiness that you might not hear when you're actually playing. I'm sort of getting used to this slowly myself - a lot of my recordings are when I'm improvising and trying a bunch of different things to see what I like. So when played back, it sounds more like practice than playing.
- bedroom vs live sound: in the gigging days I would practice with my gig rig instead of a practice amp. This helped a little bit. Otherwise, there's not much you can do to prepare for whatever room it is you play the gig in. You just have to deal with it and twiddle knobs until you get a good sound. The general rule of thumb is, the sound guy will choose only the type of mix where you're utterly inaudible to yourself on stage. So be prepared for that, i.e. get a gig rig that also functions as a good monitor.
- Er, I gladly gave up both the P and J vibes years ago and never looked back. My ricks were even worse, tho, so that wasn't a very good decision either. Now I'm a humbucker/fretless man - good tone without having to drown out all the other instruments. I don't play in bands/live anymore, but I think it would translate well there.
- when it's all over and everything's sold off here in a bit, all I'll have is my carvin bunny and my computer. That should eliminate the problem of which bass to use . When I was gigging, I got to borrow a steinberger for a while. I usually brought one of my rickenbackers along with as a backup, but I never felt the need to have to switch in a gig. I kind of sound the same on just the one and didn't need another one

LS

 

[Fergie Fulton]

Everytime i listen to myself on record i can improve it, even when i had just finished the session i can improve on it, but someone will make the decision that it is good, and makes the decision that i stop.LOL.

Basses one bass for the last 25 years plus, a P bass it works for me just fine.

My voice is a bit like don't seem do much but do what is needed, understanding what is important in a song and doing it. Someone once compared it to the late Steve McQueens acting style in that his actions often speak more than his words,.... still trying to work that one out LOL

 

[Danny Fox]

I agree with Fergie, and generally everytime i write a new track I'll record it straight away to see where I can improve it. Sometimes the slightest adjustments in tempo and phrasing make all the difference and listening back to my rough demos are the easiest way for me to spot them. I'm sure im not on my own when I spend most of the time listening back cringing!

Link Removed

 

[mambo4]

my "voice" change significantly from 30 to 40 years old. I went from fat boomy p-bass with flats and 1x15 cab to a boutique J-bass with rounds and 4x10 cab. Why? Because I went form a salsa band to and indie rock band.

In other words my "voice" is dictated by my sense of what is most appropriate for the music I am playing.

-as for the "bedroom vs Live tone" dilemma, Ignore the bedroom tone. I record all our practices (Zoom H2 FTW) and judge my sound on that alone. It's how I fit in the mix that matters. No one who matters (ie, an audience) is going to hear my bedroom tone: solo bass tone only matters to solo bassists.