Richard bona! how can I get his tone???

[Colonel_Claypoo]

wow! i've never been a jazz fan except for bona's stuff but i have never heard him play with joe zawinul before.
i must say that this is the coolest jazz sort of thing i've ever heard.
by the way, that genre exactly is this? jazz and?

 

[KJung]

Anyways, I don't think you need any one type of bass to cop his tone. I also don't think you need a ramp. My favorite album of his is Reverence, and he plays several basses on it; Mike Lull jazz, Fender jazz, Fodera 5, Zon lightwave fretless and Yamaha TRB5 fretless. Still has that burpy rich tone on all the songs.

Try bumping your mids - if you have a paremetric eq you can swish it around til it sounds right. Roll off (WAY off, hehe) your passive tone / active treble, play punchy but fairly light notes. And use the bridge pickup.

I dunno, that's gotten me pretty close...

+1 While his playing is simply astounding, his tone is not particularly unique. His 'primary' tone does have that 'Bartolini soapbars run passive' sort of mid oriented, warm, punchy, organic tone, so that would be a good place to start. If you are on a budget, one of the Lakland 55-02 basses with the original Bartolini's (the Skyline version of the 55-94's) will get you very close when run passive IMO and IME, without breakng the bank.

 

[babaseen]

Anyone know what type of strings Richard favors...

 

[Eublet]

+1 While his playing is simply astounding, his tone is not particularly unique. His 'primary' tone does have that 'Bartolini soapbars run passive' sort of mid oriented, warm, punchy, organic tone, so that would be a good place to start. If you are on a budget, one of the Lakland 55-02 basses with the original Bartolini's (the Skyline version of the 55-94's) will get you very close when run passive IMO and IME, without breakng the bank.

Agreed. I ran my 55-02 active, with the treble all the way down to zero, mids around 10%, and bass around 30%. Basically, I tried to make the active sound as close to the passive sound as possible, both tonally and in terms of output. It was a very warm, neutral sort of tone that was very close to Bona's.

I'm not the only one who does this. I know the guy in this video is doing the same thing on his 55-02.

 

[Zombbg4]

Anyone know what type of strings Richard favors...

I think he uses DR Sunbeams.

 

[VroomVroom]

Some great clips in this thread. FWIW, here's one of my favorites:

 

[Bochafish]

When I think classic Bona, I think of fodera+ SWR with Zawinul Syndicate

He seems to move his right hand a lot to get different tones out of his bass. (Closer to the neck, or closer to the bridge)

 

[dhemstra]

What I don't understand is his muting. When you see him play the solo with mike stern for example, how does he prevent the low strings from rumbling anyone knows? He keeps his thumb anchored on the pickup at all times.

Dennis

 

[Lincoln]

I think alot of it has to do with the pickups, as well. My Ash/Maple jbass can get a burpy mid, but the Dimarzio Ultra Jazz pups are incredibly growly and hot - it has a killer slap sound, but they are far to aggressive to get that butter, burpy tone. That hasn't stopped me from trying though.

My new Clement bass will have soapbar barts with a 3-band Glockenklang that has an active passive switch that acts as a tone roll off.

And while a ramp isn't necessary ( I'm still getting one) a lighter touch and hand positioning are crucial. I find that even when I don't want to dig in my fingers do tend to curl under and pull the strings a bit more than I would like...

And while

 

[BobDeRosa]

It takes an extremely light, consistent, and precise touch (in both the fretting and plucking hand).

Getting that sound is more about spending enough time refining your plucking technique until it is entirely automatic and effortless.

You don't need a particularly expensive bass to achieve this (in fact there is no bass you can buy that will bypass the necessity of developing a light touch in obtaining this tone). But it does help to have equipment that isn't noisy, because you'll have to have your gain floored and your master volume very high to compensate for how soft you'll be plucking.

Also, notice that Bona plays with a ramp. This helps him play lightly with great consistency because it prevents his plucking fingers from digging in to far below the strings.

Wouldn't "flooring" your Gain create incredible distortion?