Seinfeld Bass Sound Revealed.

[BadSanta1281]

These pretzels are making me thirsty.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

But what about the theme from Night Court!

Sure!
Start your own useless thread tho.

 

[azureblue]

Jeez. Way back, my band did this in a studio with my bass and an Emulator sampler. We did a multi sample, a bit of clean up, and used that sound, played on the EMU (driven by a sequencer), to get the sound we wanted. We tried the classic DX7 bass, the Korg bass, the CZ101 bass patch, but none had the "meat" the Emulator sample had.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

No Soup For U!

 

[pbass2]

Shrinkage

That sampled bass went from a 34" scale to a shorty real quick.

 

[drumvsbass]

No you don't. You stated "The original audio may have originated on bass guitar". Very different statement than "it originated on bass guitar.
I don't call people out unless they are vague (as in this case) or opposed to the source material.

You're gonna get upset about semantics?

 

[Carl Hillman]

Oh TB - you’ve done it again

TalkBass was angry that day, my friend...like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.

 

[Scottgun]

As always on Talkbass, we begin with The Airing of Grievances.

 

[brianrost]

The whole point was that it was played on a keyboard.

Playing sampled licks is like pushing buttons, this lick on that key, that lick on that key, etc. It's not like it was played note by note from the keys.

That's a technique that's been used since the earliest days of samplers.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

You're gonna get upset about semantics?

Well,I'll tell you what.
Last night I took the wife out to a conveyor belt sushi place called Rocking Rolls™.
I polished off 23 orders of mostly Nigri filets followed by a few episodes of Domina on Amazon prime.
Work is going real swell so far today, so good that I stopped off right outside Monroe and ordered a BBQ Sammich (pulled pork for you flatlanders) with red slaw on top and eat it while rollin down highway 74 topped off with some fresh cherries.

So...no.
How bout you?

 

[Shepsdad]

As always on Talkbass, we begin with The Airing of Grievances.

I’ve got a lot of problems with you people…
I lost my train of thought…

 

[silky smoove]

This is always good for a laugh:

 

[Dominic D]

Playing sampled licks is like pushing buttons, this lick on that key, that lick on that key, etc. It's not like it was played note by note from the keys.

That's a technique that's been used since the earliest days of samplers.

He’s very clearly playing it note for note from the keyboard.

 

[Les Fret]

I don't believe I've ever heard anyone argue it was synth as opposed to a sampler. The whole point was that it was played on a keyboard.

Exactly! the sound is a short sample of a real bass guitar. That’s also how many digital keyboards/synths build there sounds. So it’s basically the same as a sound from a keyboard. The actual bass lines are not played on a bass guitar but on a master keyboard. They don’t sound like how a bass player would have played them. For example the bending of the pitch wheel and the strange jumps. But that’s exactly what makes these lines so special and original. It is not so much the sound but the way it is played by a keyboard player.

 

[winston]

The real story - they has reserved a synthesizer for the Seinfeld theme session.
However, while the rental company took the reservation - they didn't hold it.
Apparently the rental tech was very distracted after finding out they were not sponge-worthy.
So they sampled a bass guitar instead, and the rest is history.