Double Bass Gamut Guts

[Uncletoad]

This is THE sound for me. The Gamut Gut D an G are outstanding. I've done several gigs in different circumstances with these and they always sound great.

I stopped using the mic the last couple of gigs. I think I broke it. I'm not really missing it though. Sounds great with just the Full circle flat through the Focus.

I don't mind the tuning issues. We'll see how they change as they wear in more and I go outside next year. They may make me nuts yet.

The Dominant E and A aren't bad. I could live with them but I'm ready to try a few more things on that.

See, you should always listen to the luthier. Nnick told me I was a Gut guy. I just was reluctant to go down that road.

So far so good though.


End progris riport.

 

[Adrian Cho]

Your quest for sound has betrayed you. Now you're REALLY on the dark side.

The tuning is not really that big a deal especially if you're using steel strings on the bottom. The real issues are more just cutting through in some situations and using the bow. If you're using something like a Full Circle and your bass is not particularly dark, it should work out OK.

 

[Uncletoad]

Your quest for sound has betrayed you. Now you're REALLY on the dark side.

The tuning is not really that big a deal especially if you're using steel strings on the bottom. The real issues are more just cutting through in some situations and using the bow. If you're using something like a Full Circle and your bass is not particularly dark, it should work out OK.

So I'm now in a dark corner of the dark side.

Of course I am.

Progris Riport:

Tuning is stabalizing. Only tweaked it a couple times last Saturday. I was standing like a foot from the front door that was opening and closing to the cold and rain all night. Not a problem. Nice.

That sound! Man. Gut. Makes me want to play in the middle and upper registers. That's the piece I've been missing. Walking in upper positions and into and out of thumb these are the only strings I've played that keep the low end and the percussive thing going. Steel tends to die up there or loose low end or attack.

I'm not that enthused by the sound of them in my practice room outside the gig. Practicing they sound weird to me like thunky or impure or something but back on the gig they blend or pop out the notes as I need. All that junk dissapears.

I can't get the bow sound going on them. I really suck with that thing on these strings. Good thing nobody wants to hear that on the gig right now. Need lots of shed time on that.

I'm sure they'll piss me off yet but I understand why people stick with these despite their shortcomings.

After several gigs with the Dominant E and A I'm getting used to them as well.

I've got a slim gig schedule for the next two months so I'll have more shed time. That's probably good. I need it.

If you are still reading after all this, I'm wearing red boxers with a santa face on them.

tmi?

 

[PB+J]

Will someone point me to a good soundclip of the sound of gut strings? I mean, i've got all sorts of classic jazz, and most of the time the bass is pretty indistinct and muddy. Take Pettiford's "another one." His version of "stardust" is marvelous, but the tone is all distortion and mud--on my cd it's clearly overdriving the crap out of the mic. I think this is due to the limitations of recording equipment back in the day. I keep hearing people raving about the tone of guts. Mostly what i hear in gut strings is thuddy, but I want to know if that's the limits of recording or the character of the strings. Take Mingus on "Haitian fight song." Cool tone, but it's all up front, it's all initial attack

Edjicate me!

 

[Adrian Cho]

In many ways the sound of Mingus and PC typify gut but I believe that modern gut strings must be better quality because they seem to have far more sustain than any of the gut strings one hears on those old recordings. I wouldn't call the Gamut guts thumpy at all.

 

[Jeremy Allen]

Pretty much any jazz recorded before 1961 will feature the sound of a bass with gut strings; you're saying you've yet to hear a good bass sound among that enormous mountain of definitive music? I agree that recording quality varies widely, but the same can be said for more modern steel-string recordings: is the sound of Marc Johnson's bass on the Bill Evans' "Turn Out The Stars" stuff (nasal and direct from the pickup) a good sound, and characteristic of steel strings? How about that of Dave Holland on Pat Metheny's "Question and Answer," where the Spirocores sometimes end up getting buried in a muddy, indistinguishable mix (like his solo on "All The Things You Are")?

Anyway, that's a digression. To minimize the lack of quality in the recording process, you could look at things recorded after 1960 (or some stuff from the latter half of the 50s) but still close, when most of the players were still clearly using gut (at least on the top two strings). This could include the following excellent examples of outstanding bass sound and playing:
1) Oscar Peterson w/Ray Brown: "The Sound of the Trio" (especially "Tricrotism" and "Kadota's Blues");
2) All of the Bill Evans Trio stuff with Scott LaFaro (yep, that's gut);
3) Charlie Haden (check out "Lonely Woman" from "The Shape of Jazz To Come");
4) Doug Watkins on "Saxophone Colossus";
5) The better portion of what Paul Chambers recorded with Miles, Coltrane, "The Rhythm Section" (including the album "We Three" with Phineas Newborn and Roy Haynes);
6) Sam Jones with Cannonball Adderly on "Nippon Soul" and "Live at the Lighthouse" (super clear on the former, super phat on the latter);
7) Red Mitchell's bass solo on "Turnaround" on Ornette's "Tomorrow is the Question";
8) The Coltrane "Live at the Village Vanguard" stuff with Jimmy Garrison and Reggie Workman;
9) Bob Cranshaw on the Carmen McRae "Sings 'Lover Man' and other Billie Holiday etc." album (especially on "I'm Gonna Lock My Heart And Throw Away the Key");
10) Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins, "Sonny Meets Hawk," especially the super-organic bass solo on "Summertime" (I think it's Henry Grimes).

That would be the tip of the tip of the iceberg...Sometimes you may have to turn up the old Hi-Fi during the bass solo because of the original mix, and sometimes you may have to account for the recording practice (people on here have trashed "Kind of Blue" for having a muddy bass sound; maybe, but that's just the way it was recorded--it doesn't mean Paul Chambers or gut strings in general therefore have muddy and indistinct tones).

PS For a great comparison, try Mingus on "Haitian Fight Song" vs Mingus on "II BS." Same tune, recorded at different times and in different places. I think you'll find that on the latter, the sound is wonderfully clear and full of nuance.

 

[PB+J]

Thanks--I'll dig in.

Of course, I'd forgotten about Lafaro! I've got every recording he ever did, just about. One of the things that's striking about LaFaro is how different he sounds from his peers. I've often thought the move to steel strings had a lot to do with people wanting to sound like LaFaro

I wasn't trying to diss anybody--Double bass is still hard to record well.

to this day I've never played gut strings--any local (DC Area) players with gut strings I can try?

 

[Uncletoad]

First let me say again that I'm blogging. This in no way implicates that I'm done trying different strings or have settled on the string combination for my bass that suits me forever. Far from it.

I'm a curious george type. A cat really. A "Grass is always greener over there" fellow.

So my bloggings should be taken as just that. Impressions, not endorsements. If any of you have followed my previous journeys with Dominants and Animas and Belcantos you'll know that I find things I fall in and out of love with as I spend time with stuff.

So, on to my point.

I was practicing again tonight and I was struck again by how terrible these guts sound with the bow. Even the best of bow touches are going to have a hard time getting these things to sound pretty or full. I now understand how people have "pizz" basses and "arco" basses. Maybe some day I'll go there.

Another point I already made but I'm going to make again. Playing by myself I don't think they sound all that great either. The spot they put me over the moon though is in a mix on the gig. They sit in a spot that really is satisfying to me. Perhaps because I listen to dead guy jazz most of the day and so I like hearing the bass in that spot.

Right at the moment I'm listening to Blanton in Ellington from the late 30's. That's the sound. Right in that spot. Poofy bouncy and round. Swingin strong and moving everyone along with easy authority. Yes it's a player thing but the sound is what helps the player do his thing. Perhaps an unusually dark bass and very old Spirocores could get that sound. I don't know. The guts seem to do it naturally, the spiros have to work to get there.

When I play Fender bass I most often use a '63 Precision with old Labella Flats on it. Soloed up it sounds terrible. Thunky, fat, ill-tempered and cranky. In a mix that sound transforms to a big supportive focused mid range with a thunder that makes everything work and yet stays out of everything else's way. Press the solo button and it's awful again, put it back into the mix and it's perfect.

Guts are the same to me.

Unlike my Labella equipped Fender I don't think the Cleveland with Guts would work for every situation I find myself in. Practically speaking I'm sure it would work great half the time and make me pull out my hair the other.

I think my next move is to find a lighter tension E and A string and bring the string height up to a stupidly high spot. I think the D and G gut need more room to move and I'm not going to add more Camber to the board for my string experiments. Like Arnold Shnitz predicts I'll eventually end back where I started with a drawer full of $1000 worth of strings I don't use and a bunch of bullsh*t I posted on the Internet instead of practicing.

 

[Marcus Johnson]

I understand completely. Puffy sound, that's how my pianist friend describes it. I got some of that with the Animas.

Playing time with that sound and feeling is one of the sublime pleasures of being a bassist. And venturing up the G string and still sounding like a bass ain't too shabby either.

 

[Uncletoad]

I understand completely. Puffy sound, that's how my pianist friend describes it. I got some of that with the Animas.

Playing time with that sound and feeling is one of the sublime pleasures of being a bassist. And venturing up the G string and still sounding like a bass ain't too shabby either.

That's exactly it. Why can't I be that concise?

 

[Adrian Cho]

Having been through gut on three different basses, I need to point out that there's variable too. Some basses simply don't sound that great with gut especially pizz. My Shen being new and having pretty punchy projection as a flatback (not that it's exclusive to that kind of bass) works well with the guts - better than on any of my previous basses. I was worried when they first on there as they were buzzing like crazy but once they got stretched back out again and I raised the action a little bit, they've been fine.

Guts to me also sound best when you really dig in. That's the nice thing about these strings. They respond when you dig in. Some strings just crap out when you do that.

As for the bow, yes it's hard but don't forget that Early Music players all play on gut and all orchestral music was played on gut until the invention of steel and synthetic strings.

 

[jallenbass]

When I had guts on my bass our guitar player said that I sounded behind the beat which never happened when I played with steels. To his ears Animas put me back on the beat. Any thoughts on how your groove sounds with guts as opposed to Spiros and the like?

 

[Uncletoad]

When I had guts on my bass our guitar player said that I sounded behind the beat which never happened when I played with steels. To his ears Animas put me back on the beat. Any thoughts on how your groove sounds with guts as opposed to Spiros and the like?

Excellent question.

I don't know yet.

It's likely though.

I definitely had that problem with the Animas. Doesn't seem that way as much with guts as it did with the Animas but I need to ask my band mates to be sure. I'm not the best judge of that on the bandstand. It feels right but I could be off and not know it. That would suck.

Thanks for reminding me about that so I can explore that.

 

[Marcus Johnson]

Why can't I be that concise?

Dunno.

 

[Mark Carlsen]

When I had guts on my bass our guitar player said that I sounded behind the beat which never happened when I played with steels. To his ears Animas put me back on the beat. Any thoughts on how your groove sounds with guts as opposed to Spiros and the like?

Well simply put steel strings are quicker and guts are sluggish.You have to adjust how you pluck them by a micro-second or play alittle more on top w, guts.

 

[Adrian Cho]

Well simply put steel strings are quicker and guts are sluggish.You have to adjust how you pluck them by a micro-second or play alittle more on top w, guts.

+1. There is more mass to move and the lower tension strings simply don't respond as quickly as higher tension strings. In addition, the unwound gut strings can get sticky sometimes and if you're sweating a lot or your hands are dirty, you may find you have to wipe them more often than you would with wound strings.

 

[jallenbass]

Actually the comment I got had to do with definition. They were fine when we played as a duo but when we added more players and especially a drummer the attack couldn't be heard. Since I was playing on old Red-O-Rays I'm wondering if Gamuts are closer to steel in attack as well as having a nice gut sound.

 

[Adrian Cho]

Having only heard someone else play Red-O-Rays once (live), I think the Gamuts do have a crisper attack but it's still obviously very much a gut attack.

 

[Uncletoad]

Actually the comment I got had to do with definition. They were fine when we played as a duo but when we added more players and especially a drummer the attack couldn't be heard. Since I was playing on old Red-O-Rays I'm wondering if Gamuts are closer to steel in attack as well as having a nice gut sound.

The front of the note on the Gamuts is far more identifiable than the Animas or the Labella Guts. These Gamuts are in a whole nuther league from anything else I've tried. They pop out from a messy soundscape in a way that is unique and clear. Not like steel at all but very articulate. I still think I have to show up on the front side of time to make the note happen when it should.

 

[Dave Speranza]

I am trying to read all i can about gut strings because I am dying to put them on my bass, you guys mentioned the red-o-rays which I believe i have red are the strings Ray Brown used?

I am looking for the ray brown gut kind of sound (yes yes its in the fingers i know, but still). Do the gamuts give a similar type of sound? My only experience playing on guts was I sat in on a guys bass who had the dlugoleckis on it. I started playing on that and I thought "hey i sound like paul chambers" (well it was more like "holy sh*T i sound like paul chambers!") and I LOVE PCs sound but would personally prefer the sound ray brown gets on records like "Night Train" and "Ben Webster meets the oscar peterson trio." Any advice is appreciated. Thanks sorry for the hijack