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Double Bass Ray Drummond Sound, Gear, Philosophy.

AMJBASS

AMJBASS

Supporting Member
Jan 8, 2002
5,772
4,201
Ontario, Canada
#1
I have really been into Ray Drummond lately. He swings hard/has a really great time feel, and seems genuinly interested in getting "his sound" out to the audience. Have any of you had the chance to see him live? I have only had the chance to hear him on CD and videos on youtube, but he seems to be really focussed on getting the best sound he can through amplification. I have been on the fence, primarily focussing on playing with just a mic, or unamplified. However, some of my most memerable gigs have been when I have relied a bit more on the amp and working on getting the best amplified tone I can(although I have had some great experiences without any amplification as well...). Obviously it is personal, and depends on a lot of different things, but I would be really interested to hear what Ray uses to amplify himself, and how he gets that sound out in the house.

It has probably been discussed here, but I did find it quite interesting what Ray has to say about the lack of an indentifiable tone these days especially with younger players. I think to a point it makes sense. He mentions that a lot of older players have an instantly recognizable tone, while a lot of younger players who just play with a mic all sound the same. That may be true if you haven't learned how to get a sound out of the bass and are merely making a philosophical choice to use a mic only. There are a lot of players out there who play with just a mic(or nothing) who have really unique voices(ie//John Webber, Neal Miner), but I totally get where Ray is coming from. It seems like a lot of guys aren't really focussed on getting "their" own voice on the instrument.
 
#2
Ray Drummond is a great player! I've only seem him live once, but I have to say that he was the most noticeably amplified bassist I've seen at the Village Vanguard (which is a club where the bass usually seems to sound great). Make of that what you will...

I think there's so much to be said for playing unamplified, and playing with a mic, and playing with a pickup with the intent of getting a great sound out of it. I do all three, often going in phases between one set-up and another, and I feel like each situation exposes a different part of my tone production that I need to work on.

I would have to disagree with Ray or anyone who says there is a lack of identifiable tone in today's younger players (although I suppose it depends which generation of "younger player" is the one in question--are we talking about Rufus Reid, listed as an "up and coming bassist" in Todd Coolman's Bass Tradition book, or about Matt Brewer, just a few years out of Juilliard and playing with everybody?). Larry Grenadier, Scott Colley, Drew Gress, Reid Anderson, William Parker, Ben Street, and many others have very distinctive sounds which I can identify within a few notes most of the time. I agree that there is a generic steel string/Spirocore/post-Young Lions sound which really comes through in a lot of recordings (I remember listening to that big New Jersey jazz station--WBGO?--in my car and just gritting my teeth saying "every bassist sounds the SAME!!!"), but the personalities are there. To me, the great players are not coincidentally the ones who have focused on their tone production and who therefore hit you first with that *sound*.
 
#4
I have so much respect for Ray Drummond. What a fine player. He seems to fall into that category of cats flying just below the highly visible radar, but he's always playing, and playing his ass off. He moved to New York about 30 years ago, but I don't think he gets the attention he deserves. Fine player.

I saw Ray give a clinic when I was a senior in high school, about 17 years ago. One of the first things he said was that bass players should care about their sound, and in turn, their gear. He said we need to have pretty thorough knowledge of what you're playing through, and some remedial knowledge of audio and frequency in general. He was plugged into the house (via an old Barcus-Berry) and at that point he proceeded to tell the guy running the board to boost him "at 65 Hz and slightly cut the 1KHz frequencies" (I'm paraphrasing). That just blew me away. My reality, to that point, had been to plug in, play, and if you were good, you'd sound good. I was even told that by some older players. His words have stuck with me all of these years, and it was a lesson, at 17, I needed to learn--and I teach it to my students today. Whether you use a mic or a pickup or whatever, you need to have (as Ron Carter put it) a "laboratory mentality" when it comes to being heard and every piece of gear that you use to that end.

Thanks, Ray.
 
#6
I don't mean to be the negative nancy of this thread, but I had the pleasure of seeing Hank Jones at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola with Russell Malone, Ray Drummond, and Victor Lewis. I was sitting in the front, and Ray's tone just sounded muddy and his playing was generally messy. I didn't think him and Victor were getting along at all. Ray wasn't really making any effort to communicate with the rest of the band and wasn't getting the cues from Hank to stop or end, which resulted in some messy sections of the show. With Ray's tone that night, it was already hard to clearly hear his solos (he was playing into a realist and plugged into an SWR California Blonde). Keep in mind, a couple months before I was able to make it into Birdland to see Hank Jones with Russell Malone, George Mraz, and Lewis Nash. That was my favorite show I've seen yet. Furthermore, my friend was a tech at the Healdsburg jazz festival last year, and he said that Ray was a really tough person to deal with.
 
#7
pdbass said:
One of the first things he said was that bass players should care about their sound, and in turn, their gear.
Click to expand...

The last time I heard him was at a book launch party with Barry Harris and (I think) Grady Tate, he was using the same rig as half the bass players in this city , a GK MB150. Nice ideas, but not a sound that I would want to emulate.
 
#9
Monte said:
Last time I saw him he was playing a French small bass with Helicore Orchestral (not hybrids) and I cannot remember the pickup. I think he was playing through a Hartke Kickback. Not a bad amplified sound, but more electricky than I prefer.
Click to expand...

I have heard that he uses a 1/2 size sometimes for travelling purposes. Interesting...

I know that NHOP worked hard on getting the sound that he had amplified. Maybe this sound is what these guys were hearing in their heads. Its not something I am really into. The natural sound of the bass is such a wonderful thing, but that amplified tone is definitely unique, and can sound great at times.
 
#10
It's not to surprising that he is tough to deal with. I have stopped by his website, and he is very opinionated, and very vocal about it.

As far as his tone go, he is the one getting called to play with Hank Jones, not me, so he must be doing something right.
 
#12
Small world! BTW, a few years ago at Healdsburg, drummer Billy Hart took a hacksaw to the rack tom mounts of the loaner kit. These guys go pretty crazy sometimes on the road..........
 

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