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Jack Casady-can you help me get his sound?

#41
Thor said:
Well said. I agree 100%



I respectfully disagree.

I would ask you to listen to Plastic Fantastic Lover, The Other
Side of This Life, and Somebody to Love, the live versions
from Bless Its Pointed Little Head. After you listen to these
three songs, tell me you found them grooveless from a
bassist's POV.

(Without going to far off topic here, there were plenty of Cali bands with great groove
of that genre. Examples: Spirit (check Mr.Skin on 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus), Sons of
Champlin, Quicksilver (Happy Trails), Santana. No need to go further.)
Click to expand...

I guess the type of groove for the mainstream of pop music has changed over the years, but certainly not the concept. I do find that a lot of rock from that era was played very much on the beat, but groove can be had anywhere from pushing to behind the beat and all the space in between.

I had seen Jefferson Airplane at the Filmore East a couple of times and at Woodstock, but holy crow, I remember the first time I saw Jack and Jorma playing duets. It was on a Friday night television show, "Midnight Special." I couldn't believe that two "rock" players could make so much beautiful music. They were playing intricate chamber music, on par with many classically trained performers, only in the blues/rock idiom. I think they did Watersong... I almost gave up bass playing. Fortunately, I ultimately decided to just keep on practicing. Jack Casady is a fantastic musician.

I wish more people knew of Son's of Champlin (later the Son's) music. Very sophisticated writing and playing, tons of groove. Dave Schallock was the bass player, if I recall correctly. One heck of a player always solidly in the pocket.

Dennis
 
#42
acleex38 said:
I'm so glad this thread is going. I'm amazed at how many people are seeking that tone, or at least exploring it.
Click to expand...

I did pick up a Baby Blue II recently just for that reason. Am waiting for replacement woofers and scheming of a way to overdrive its tube front end.

Watersong did it for me too. Jack's soaring bass brushstrokes with Jorma's relentless guitar always leaves me smiling.

=wr=
 
#43
quickervicar said:
To answer the OP's question I would recommend running a A/B/Y box set to Y, with A going into clean amp. Then run B through an overdrive pedal, then a volume pedal, then into another amp (or a dirty guitar amp & skip the OD pedal, like Jack). You can then blend between clean & dirt. The SWR IOD does this in one preamp space.
Click to expand...

Bingo, this sounds like the correct answer to the OP's question. I listened to the Water Song from the Burgers lp and figure you could cop that basic tone with a hot output bass, and a single tube amp, no A/B/Y chain necessary. Push it till you get the desired amount of overdrive.

The thing I find hard to tell is whether there's much speaker distortion on the studio cut. I've never used the JBL D-140 alnico speakers, don't know how much of a signature tone they're responsible for. FWIW, the longer I play (I'm mostly a guitar player), I tend to prefer speakers played well within their rated power.
 
#44
Beating the horse when it is already well & truly dead... a few years back there was a similar discussion in a Guild forum. One pro told how Jack came to his place and played one of his Starfires and how great it sounded.

After Jack left, he picked up the bass, hoping that Jack had tweaked the settings to get that signature sound. But when he played it, it was clear that the sound had left with Jack.

I had a Starfire with Darkstars for a while but only got that Casady sound once in a great while, mostly by accident.
 
#45
As to the amps -

A while back I toyed with the idea of using a clean amp/dirty amp pairing. But rather than using a Y cord and voulme pedal, I was going to try a sweep pedal so the overall volume would stay relatively steady when you changed the balance between the amps. Never did it.

Have any of you ever tried a sweep pedal like that?
 
#46
Happy Face said:
Beating the horse when it is already well & truly dead... a few years back there was a similar discussion in a Guild forum. One pro told how Jack came to his place and played one of his Starfires and how great it sounded.

After Jack left, he picked up the bass, hoping that Jack had tweaked the settings to get that signature sound. But when he played it, it was clear that the sound had left with Jack.

I had a Starfire with Darkstars for a while but only got that Casady sound once in a great while, mostly by accident.
Click to expand...


This is exactly why I mentioned Jack's DVD earlier in the thread.
His last section on 'Performance Detailing' really
addresses some of his tone tricks. For 29 bucks, its the
price of one lesson with a teacher, and he gives you a lot
of stuff so I think it is well worth the money.

Note I have no affiliation with Jack or anybody who sells the
DVD. I just think it is a good educational tool. Yes, I own it.
Never too old to learn a few new tricks.
 
#47
Happy Face said:
As to the amps -

A while back I toyed with the idea of using a clean amp/dirty amp pairing. But rather than using a Y cord and voulme pedal, I was going to try a sweep pedal so the overall volume would stay relatively steady when you changed the balance between the amps. Never did it.

Have any of you ever tried a sweep pedal like that?
Click to expand...

That'd be an elegant solution. I never went that way, but I did use a splitter box. Stereo out of the bass (P with two P pups bridge out to one side ,neck to the other) To two 2x15 rigs. One set up to run distorted and one clean. The sound was huge.That was then, now I use my pedal board to split the signal out when I need to play big like that.
 
#52
Last time I saw Jack with Tuna he was using Aguilar's with his sig Epiphone,,,,still kicks ass...and I can get that sound with my Schecter c4 and one of the new Acoustics and playing right on the end of the neck....check out Breakdown way .com and ask him personally.....I did My Bass mentors are Jack, Jack, Felix and Mel..
 
#53
This is an interesting thread and I apologize for being late.
I have visited here in years.

Yes, people are right that the Guild electronics and the Versatone had a lot to do with Jack’s sound.

And it is also true that a lot of Jack’s tone comes from his talent and technique. As others who have taken Jack’s workshop have already attested, good tone is the most important thing to Jack and good tone comes from the meaty part at the end of your right hand (if one plays right-handed).

Speaking of all this I will tell a Jack story from one of the workshops. Some of you might have been in the class with me and might remember this. It was about four years ago in the A-frame. There was one female in the class (with a Danelectro) and about two teenage males.

We were going over the improvised part in E from I See The Light. I was playing in an attacking style reminiscent of you-know-who.
Jack quickly turned my way and asked what I was doing and I explained that that was the way I sometimes play.
Jack said “Don’t play that way.”
I replied “Well, you used to play like that.”
Jack: “BUT I DON’T PLAY THAT WAY ANYMORE SO STOP IT!”

Typical Jack.
 
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#54
Bofee said:
The last time I saw him play he was using a Versatone amp for the dirty sound. It looked like he had a separate volume pedal for the Versatone to control the dirt level that was blended with the clean sound. I don't recall what kind of amp he was using for the clean side.
Click to expand...

This is absolutely correct. I know because I have a Versatone, as well as a '68 Starfire II and an Epi JC Signature. I run a passive volume pedal - I think it's a Boss, but it's not here right now so I can't check - with a tuner output, which goes to my main amp, then the variable output goes to the Versatone. With this setup I can pretty closely mimic any instrument tone Jack ever got, from the mellower sounds of "Volunteers" to the pure distortion on some of the "Phosphorescent Rat" tracks, and - with the Guild - the insane yet controlled feedback of "Sunrise". (Haven't figured out a way to get the multi-track thing yet.)

However, that's only part of the equation. The greater part of what makes Jack the true master that he is is in his hands and his head. He'd still sound like Jack Casady even if he were playing a Teisco through a Crate practice amp.
 
#55
R D Maynard said:
This is absolutely correct. I know because I have a Versatone, as well as a '68 Starfire II and an Epi JC Signature. I run a passive volume pedal - I think it's a Boss, but it's not here right now so I can't check - with a tuner output, which goes to my main amp, then the variable output goes to the Versatone. With this setup I can pretty closely mimic any instrument tone Jack ever got, from the mellower sounds of "Volunteers" to the pure distortion on some of the "Phosphorescent Rat" tracks, and - with the Guild - the insane yet controlled feedback of "Sunrise". (Haven't figured out a way to get the multi-track thing yet.)

However, that's only part of the equation. The greater part of what makes Jack the true master that he is is in his hands and his head. He'd still sound like Jack Casady even if he were playing a Teisco through a Crate practice amp.
Click to expand...

That is the scariest part of the whole deal. ;)
 
#57
Jack was an inspiration to me. I loved the Airplane, but felt RCA did them little credit with the lo-fi recordings. It took up till "Volunteers" for the band to receive a halfway decent recording.

But I saw them live in Central Park, 1970, and they were awesome. Jack is amazing.
 
#58
FirstBassman13 said:
This is an interesting thread and I apologize for being late.
I have visited here in years.

Yes, people are right that the Guild electronics and the Versatone had a lot to do with Jack’s sound.

And it is also true that a lot of Jack’s tone comes from his talent and technique. As others who have taken Jack’s workshop have already attested, good tone is the most important thing to Jack and good tone comes from the meaty part at the end of your right hand (if one plays right-handed).

Speaking of all this I will tell a Jack story from one of the workshops. Some of you might have been in the class with me and might remember this. It was about four years ago in the A-frame. There was one female in the class (with a Danelectro) and about two teenage males.

We were going over the improvised part in E from I See The Light. I was playing in an attacking style reminiscent of you-know-who.
Jack quickly turned my way and asked what I was doing and I explained that that was the way I sometimes play.
Jack said “Don’t play that way.”
I replied “Well, you used to play like that.”
Jack: “BUT I DON’T PLAY THAT WAY ANYMORE SO STOP IT!”

Typical Jack.
Click to expand...


I missed that post.

I know someone who teaches over there and their comment was 'He is real picky, much more so than a lot of the guitar
class teachers are.'

I can totally see that happening.

Unfortunately, that 'Plasic Fantastic Lover' and 'Other Side of this Life' attack is now hard wired into my body and no amount
of chastisement will likely fix it at this point 38 years later. 34
of which were on bass.

;)
 
#59
Well, I've got a BB II; I've had 3 JC Epis, 4 Starfires (one with Alembic pups/electronics.one with Hags, one with DarkStars);5 Alembic basses, a SWR IOD, an Alembic F1-X, SF-2, aguilar tube amp & cabs;have his DVD (VHS before that);I've taken 4 wonderful FPR workshops with Jack.
No Versatone :-(

I still don't sound at all like god.

Oh well - I have everything he's ever recorded & then some.

Anyone ever catch Jack with Paul Kantner's Acoustic Explorer in the 90s?
Those shows were amazing - Jack was bassically the lead instrument AND the foundation simultaneously (Kantner on rhythm guitar, female lead singer (Mangano); no drums, no lead guitar; sometimes an accenting keyboardist (Lavin IIRC))
 

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