I'd like to know this too. I'm playing traditional Brazilian music and they often use the trombone for the bass counterpoint to the main melody. The attack-free legato sound with lots of vibrato works really well with that role (bass melody, not bass percussion). I was thinking MIDI was the best way to approach that sound, short of learning to play the trombone...
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Pickup with most Tuba like sound?
- Thread starter asberrys
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J bass back pick up, upper mids rolled off add some bass to it for body and find the place to pluck- I like just in front of the pick up. Check Leigh Harris's "Dog Days" (on iTunes) for a great example of using a tuba in place of a bass.
I play, or rather played, tuba. I think I know what you mean.
Paul Simon's Graceland SA concert "boy in the bubble" featured a bassist, Bakithi Khumalo, seen at about 2:15 and at 3:11 in the following clip playing a 4str bass sounding remarkably like a tuba:
Closest I've heard to a tuba on BG. Could this be near the sound you seek?
~
Paul Simon's Graceland SA concert "boy in the bubble" featured a bassist, Bakithi Khumalo, seen at about 2:15 and at 3:11 in the following clip playing a 4str bass sounding remarkably like a tuba:
Closest I've heard to a tuba on BG. Could this be near the sound you seek?
~
I really just entered this thread to see how many people wouldn't actually answer the question, and instead say "want to sound like a tuba? Then play a tuba, durrr".
+1 on these for staccato style. I play a lot of New Orleans Second Line tunes where tuba is the native instrument. You can kind of slide into the notes for a convincing tone.
As for a convincing legato style.....don't know if that's possible.
George Porter Jr. of The Meters actually achieves a tuba like tone on many of their recordings. New Orleans funk bass is very tuba inspired. He did most of the stuff I speak about using a 51' style Tele-bass, which would mean a single coil Precision Pickup. Alot of this is in the attack/eq but this is the absolute closest to "tuba" tone that I have heard.
Good thing i read to the bottom and found what I did. I had been reading through and thinking that he must be meaning the sort of sound that Paul was getting in Sgt Peppers, especially in 64. His highs in that album always reminded me of a cork popping from a Champaign bottle and the lows were to my ear very tuba like. I too have been wondering how to get that sound and don`t think it`s an out of place question. Take care. Bob
Dirty Dozen Brass Band... Tuba instead of bass and though this isn't THE funkiest tuba line I've encountered from them, it's not bad.
Tuba bass can be good and the haters can just calm down.
Besides, this is the pickup and electronics forum, so it's about making a bass SOUND like a tuba with PICKUPS AND ELECTRONICS.
Fretless with roundwounds, gigantic humbucker, bass boost, technique out the booty, and lots of reef- I mean - CREATIVITY! Yes...
Oh yeah, also, the Roland Synth pickup and floor unit would work too. It could sound like a piano, a tuba, a guitar, a sitar... whatever you want it to sound like.
"MEH! If you want to sound like a synth, join a synth forum! MEH!"
(.... where's the smiley that's giving the finger...)
Tuba bass can be good and the haters can just calm down.
Besides, this is the pickup and electronics forum, so it's about making a bass SOUND like a tuba with PICKUPS AND ELECTRONICS.
Fretless with roundwounds, gigantic humbucker, bass boost, technique out the booty, and lots of reef- I mean - CREATIVITY! Yes...
Oh yeah, also, the Roland Synth pickup and floor unit would work too. It could sound like a piano, a tuba, a guitar, a sitar... whatever you want it to sound like.
"MEH! If you want to sound like a synth, join a synth forum! MEH!"
(.... where's the smiley that's giving the finger...)
DiMarzio Model One in the neck position......
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As "tuba" as I've heard and this is with non-dead roundwounds to boot.
Invalid Link Removed
As "tuba" as I've heard and this is with non-dead roundwounds to boot.
The "bass only" Jamerson Motown tapes out there sound really tuba-like to me, as well as lots of the New Orleans funk players, and yes, some McCartney. Fat, overdriven, lots of compression.
The idea that there is an "attack-less" instrument sound out there is strange to me; it is the attack that most defines to our ears what instrument we are hearing.
I remember in college a music prof playing a flute and trombone playing the same note with the attack taken out of the notes. We couldn't tell which was which.
Jamerson isolated bass, sounds a lot like tuba to me:
The idea that there is an "attack-less" instrument sound out there is strange to me; it is the attack that most defines to our ears what instrument we are hearing.
I remember in college a music prof playing a flute and trombone playing the same note with the attack taken out of the notes. We couldn't tell which was which.
Jamerson isolated bass, sounds a lot like tuba to me:
Well, there's actually no such thing as the bass family of musical instruments. at least as the term "family" is commonly used. Bass is a register or range (or, you could argue, a function), and instruments are not divided into families on the basis of register. That's why, for instance, all saxes, from the bass to the sopranino, are considered to belong to a single family (the saxophone family), and none of them belong to the guitar family or the violin family. (Instruments are, however, subclassified within families on the basis of register--thus, alto, tenor, and bass trombone).
But you're absolutely right that all of those instruments you mentioned can work in the same register, and that they can therefore exercise much the same functions. Some of my favorite bass ever has come from Stevie Wonder's left hand.
i would say , rondwound strings, compresor, 0 tone, finger playing near the neck but only the tips of the fingers like john entwistle, but the most important to me is the amp and the drive of that amp, definetively a tube amp and 4 or 2 speakers similar of a diameter of a real tuba...
stock pickups maybe, dimarzio model j would be good enough
stock pickups maybe, dimarzio model j would be good enough
I'm also a tuba player. I'd probably try an E-Bow, either striking the string with the E-Bow, or coming down on the string suddenly without actually hitting it. But you wouldn't want a slow swell attack for anything New Orleans or polka or traditional folk music (Mexico, Germany, etc.).
There are some really good brass-like sounds you can get out of an E-Bow on guitar, so I'd assume that some techniques could be adapted to bass. You want some good harmonic content with an envelope; tuba can be nice and rich harmonically. That isn't typical of a P-Bass 'thud', for example. But the E-Bow adds a lot of harmonics without even needing a distortion pedal.
There are some really good brass-like sounds you can get out of an E-Bow on guitar, so I'd assume that some techniques could be adapted to bass. You want some good harmonic content with an envelope; tuba can be nice and rich harmonically. That isn't typical of a P-Bass 'thud', for example. But the E-Bow adds a lot of harmonics without even needing a distortion pedal.
from wikipedia, but I've read it elsewhere as well:
"The tuba has been used in jazz since the genre's inception. In the earliest years, bands often used a tuba for outdoor playing and a double bass for indoor performances. In this context, the tuba was sometimes called "brass bass", as opposed to the double bass, which was called "string bass"; it was not uncommon for players to double on both instruments."
As I already double on BG and upright, I thought it would be cool to add tuba. I saw one for sale and went and tried to play it. You basically sit inside a twenty-foot coil of brass, an enormous long tube, and try to make bass sounds by doing farty-sounds with your lips into it. There are a few keys, but how they relate to the farty-sounds remains unclear to me.
That was my tuba adventure; I am sticking to bass.
"The tuba has been used in jazz since the genre's inception. In the earliest years, bands often used a tuba for outdoor playing and a double bass for indoor performances. In this context, the tuba was sometimes called "brass bass", as opposed to the double bass, which was called "string bass"; it was not uncommon for players to double on both instruments."
As I already double on BG and upright, I thought it would be cool to add tuba. I saw one for sale and went and tried to play it. You basically sit inside a twenty-foot coil of brass, an enormous long tube, and try to make bass sounds by doing farty-sounds with your lips into it. There are a few keys, but how they relate to the farty-sounds remains unclear to me.
That was my tuba adventure; I am sticking to bass.
