Sade - off pitch?

[mhartman29]

I'm a big fan of Paul Denman's bass lines with Sade and Tar Baby is one of my favorites. However, the pitch seems off to me. I don't see any mention of an alternative tuning nor does Grok seems to think its anything other than standard tuning. Grok does say older recordings can be slightly off pitch. Perhaps my intonation is off, but I don't notice it on any other Denman recordings that I play.

Anyone else notice this? I cringe when I play the parts around the 12th fret.

 

[No such thing]

Grok seems to think

Likely the problem.

 

[BGroovy]

I'm a big fan of Paul Denman's bass lines with Sade and Tar Baby is one of my favorites. However, the pitch seems off to me. I don't see any mention of an alternative tuning nor does Grok seems to think its anything other than standard tuning. Grok does say older recordings can be slightly off pitch. Perhaps my intonation is off, but I don't notice it on any other Denman recordings that I play.

Anyone else notice this? I cringe when I play the parts around the 12th fret.

Happens to me on all kinds of recordings. Sometimes the recording was slowed down or sped up which changes the pitch. Sometimes people recorded slightly out of tune.

 

[Slevage]

Happens to me on all kinds of recordings. Sometimes the recording was slowed down or sped up which changes the pitch. Sometimes people recorded slightly out of tune.

Modern technology now allows us to change speed and pitch independently.
I remember learning tunes off a 45 RPM record on a turn table that was 30 years old.

 

[Wasnex]

Never noticed it, can you post an example?

? He provided a specific example.

Sade and Tar Baby

Easy enough to find on YouTube



Some of the notes in the little bass solos are rather pitchy but it's really hard for me to say for sure why because of how heavy the chorus effect is on the bass part, and because the keyboard patch also seems to have some sort of pitch-based effect. Another factor may be the chord extensions in the keys.

For those who don't know, chorus duplicates, delays and re-injects the sound slightly out of tune...so basically a sound with chorus will always be a bit pitchy. The amount of detuning and how much of the pitch is blended back in can be variable....this chorus effect is fairly intense


There are lot's of other little flaws in the recording. I think the key is to listen to the track as a whole rather than focusing in to closely. If I listen to the song this way, the flaws are heard more as a feature than a bug. Basically the intonation issues support the mood of the song and give it sort of a dreamy, ethereal quality.

 

[BismarckHerring]

? He provided a specific example.
.

My bad, I read that sentence wrong and thought it was a band name. Not sure how that happened.

 

[MCS4]

Happens to me on all kinds of recordings. Sometimes the recording was slowed down or sped up which changes the pitch. Sometimes people recorded slightly out of tune.

Yep. I remember trying to learn the "Layla" intro (guitar) parts off the record and being supremely confused... unsurprising in retrospect considering the speed/pitch was adjusted slightly and slide guitar was involved.

 

[Thumpin6string]

Sounds like he is using a fretless with chorus to me.

 

[InhumanResource]

? He provided a specific example.

Easy enough to find on YouTube



Some of the notes in the little bass solos are rather pitchy but it's really hard for me to say for sure why because of how heavy the chorus effect is on the bass part, and because the keyboard patch also seems to have some sort of pitch-based effect. Another factor may be the chord extensions in the keys.

For those who don't know, chorus duplicates, delays and re-injects the sound slightly out of tune...so basically a sound with chorus will always be a bit pitchy. The amount of detuning and how much of the pitch is blended back in can be variable....this chorus effect is fairly intense


There are lot's of other little flaws in the recording. I think the key is to listen to the track as a whole rather than focusing in to closely. If I listen to the song this way, the flaws are heard more as a feature than a bug. Basically the intonation issues support the mood of the song and give it sort of a dreamy, ethereal quality.

It sounds like chorus/digital delay and a little vibrato to me. In addition to this, I’d say it sounds pretty dope.

 

[J_Bass]

Here Comes the Sun is another example.

The tuning is sharp because it was sped up.

 

[ardgedee]

The 1980s was the peak era of chorus effect. Some musicians made it part of their signature sound, like Mick Karn, and the bassline here resembles his, in tone though not as much in playing style.

 

[Swamp_Ronin]

Grok (and ai) sucks. I’d rather be completely deaf than to have grok tell me what I’m hearing.

 

[JazznFunk]

Not every recording, and not every part, is always 100% clinically on point. Entire recordings can be sped up or slowed down on tape for one reason or another - accidentally or intentionally.

The entire recording of Don Henley's 'New York Minute' is sharp overall, as I learned when trying to play along to it decades ago when I first started out. I thought my bass was out of tune or intonated incorrectly.... nope!

Also, 'Kind of Blue' was issued with side one of the entire album a half step too sharp for a LONG time and not fixed till decades later on subsequent CD releases. I had never heard the 'wrong' version of the album before I started playing bass, as the version I bought was one of the late 90s 'Jazz Masterpieces' reissues around 1998/1999.

Instead of consulting AI for this stuff, grab a tuner, play along, and use it as an opportunity to refine your ears further.

 

[john_g]

Sounds like he is using a fretless with chorus to me.

I only got to listen to a few seconds and yeah it sounds like that to me too...fretless alone would explain potential tuning issues

 

[bassbrad]

There is a wide chorus applied to the bass that in the upper registers does push the intonation a bit off. I'm not sure but this is likely by design of the mix engineer making that part sound a bit sour or bitter. FWIW I would bet that other people would hear this differently from those of us with a tuned fretless bass player's ear and sense of intonation.

 

[Swamp_Ronin]

People are gonna let ai tell them when to take a crap before long. How did anyone do anything before some environment-destroying garbage built on theft told them what to think?

 

[SLO Surfer]

I'm a big fan of Paul Denman's bass lines with Sade and Tar Baby is one of my favorites. However, the pitch seems off to me. I don't see any mention of an alternative tuning nor does Grok seems to think its anything other than standard tuning. Grok does say older recordings can be slightly off pitch. Perhaps my intonation is off, but I don't notice it on any other Denman recordings that I play.

Anyone else notice this? I cringe when I play the parts around the 12th fret.

When you say “the pitch seems off” do you mean the bass player’s pitch is off from the rest of the band/recording? Or do you mean the whole song is not perfectly tuned to A440, which your bass is when trying to play along with it?

 

[mambo4]

There a chorus on the bass and pitch modulation on the keys as well, they create a dissonance, probably for effect.
I call deliberate artists' choice. I seriously doubt it was accidental or poor musicianship.
These days it would just be called "lo fi"

 

[Don Kasper]

The whole Sade track is SHARP - stop blaming the bass playa or any effects.
If you want to play along with the track, you'll need to tune your bass SHARP of A440 - just use your earz.
This is not rocket surgery. IMFO, of course.
Thanks.

 

[SunByrne]

The older the recording is, the more likely it is that this is a casualty of some other circumstance. For example, as many have noted, sometimes recordings are slowed down or sped up (mostly sped up), and this changes the pitch. Very common thing.

IIRC there's a Janet Jackson song ("Rhythm Nation" maybe?) that was known for eating hard drives when played loud through a computer because it used a note that was the same as the resonant frequency of a particular model of laptop hard drive. Not the frequency of a note in any standard Western tuning but the song was sped up a bit, and there it was. (I think there's an Adam Neely video on this.)

And there are other just plain misses of the pitch. Early Van Halen recordings were, according to legend, often off a few (or more) cents because they just tuned to whatever Eddie's Frankenstrat was tuned to that day. My teacher and I refer to old VH recordings as "Eb-ish" because they're always a bit off to one direction or another. Many other recordings were tuned to whatever the piano in the studio was, and if the piano in the studio was a bit sharp/flat, the whole track would be. Ahh for the days of everything being analog...

Of course, now it's easy to change things like this without affecting pitch—the DAW just does it—but less so back in the day.