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Randy Meisners tone
- Thread starter 4bassjohn
- Start date
On the Hotel California concert DVD they look and sound like flats.
Dunno what brand, though.
Great tone, great player, great singer. My hero.
Dunno what brand, though.
Great tone, great player, great singer. My hero.
I've always felt that that the eagles sound lost something after he left. No disrespect to Tim Schmidt though.
To get his tone, you can pinch your nose closed so you sound more nasal.
Just kidding! I love his voice...but you gotta admit it's kind of nasal.
Just kidding! I love his voice...but you gotta admit it's kind of nasal.
Have you ever heard the original four guys sing acapella? No offense to Timothy Schmit (no d) but the original band had a magical four part harmony blend that no other band has ever matched IMO of course. After Bernie Leadon left the vocals were never as good but the lead guitars were better. I think most Eagles fans would admit that the Meisner era recordings (everything up to and including Hotel California) are by far the best.
He was known to play those early Hagstrom short scale basses, as well as a modified Guitarron sometimes. Just a beautiful sound. Yes, the original band was really great..management turned the Eagles into a money first/music second situation. Not saying the platinum version isn't legit, they've made some very listenable records, if not just paint by number studio tracks. But the original group had much more magic, much more real life drive, and a much more down to earth presentation.
+1. I don't even like the originals all that much, but they were way better than the later bunch.
I saw his basses up close in the 70s on the One of These Nights tour and the strings were Fender flats on virtually all of them.
Just read all of the posts and wanted to chime in. I saw the Eagles half a dozen times between the Desperado album and Hotel California and as much as I loved Tim Schmidt after seeing him with Poco, I think that he never fit as well within the Eagles. Same with Joe Walsh. Probably my favorite guitarist of all time who I had been seeing since the James Gang days. I felt him and Don Felder were great on Hotel California but I preferred Bernie Leadon's playing for that particular band.
I think it's less about what Randy's bass sounded like and the way he played, than it is the Henley/Frey "must control everything" that causes the differences. Bernie was the most interesting musician in the band ever.
John
John
Very well stated.
I'll expand an be blunt in my take..and it's just my opinion no offense meant to anybody here.
Randy's particular bass style was born from a school of Southern Calif playing that's more about texture than locking with the kit as section...it's very un-schooled. And beautiful in it's own sphere. Really, it's like half of what Lee Sklar became famous for doing on everybody's records...it's one of the main ingredients of that regional sound. The Eagles started out as a band that wanted to be Poco, and it went way downhill once it was presented to the founding members that in making some personnel and visual changes they could have all the $$ and teenage girls screaming they'd ever imagined...now you can watch videos of them bickering with each other over royalty payments on utube. Pitiful example of success on it's own terms.
Oh yeah, love the scene with Jeff Bridges (the Dude, Big Lebowski) getting kicked out of the cab in L.A. for asking the cabbie to turn the Eagles tape off because "It's just that I hate The F******* Eagles, man"
To get his tone, you can pinch your nose closed so you sound more nasal.
Just kidding! I love his voice...but you gotta admit it's kind of nasal.
That's probably the sound of a Hagstrom bass with the pickups wired out of phase. Very honkee sounding..Emory Gordy used that setting sometimes, but in his case a lot of signal processing and eq was added to bring up the bottom..later Emory strung his Hagstrom as a baritone guitar (A-D-G-C), you can hear it on the intro of Emmy Lou's "Luxory Liner
trivia..
I love Meisner and to me, his sound will always be a P with flats. Sure he played other basses, but if I cover the Eagles, I always use a P and ideally it has flats.
BTW, i saw the recent documentary of the Eagles..... Man, ol' Randy hasn't aged well compared to the others!
BTW, i saw the recent documentary of the Eagles..... Man, ol' Randy hasn't aged well compared to the others!
I think Meisner's work on the first Poco album tops anything he did with the Eagles or anything Timmy did with either band.
