I would check out Roger Sadowsky's guidelines for bass set-ups. If you can't find it on the Sadowsky website then I will try and dig it up for you.
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Slap/pop - Am I missing something?
- Thread starter The Big
- Start date
I listened to your Soundcloud sample. In my opinion, the reason your pops sound inconsistent with your slaps, is that your thumb-slaps are legato (long sustain, allowing the notes to ring out) whereas your finger-pops are staccato (short sustain, with more silence between the notes). I can actually see it visually, when I look at the waveform.
My suggestion is to practice controlling the duration of your notes: Experiment with short, staccato thumb-slaps, and vice versa, experiment with long, sustained finger-pops.
I disagree that you need to go shopping for a new bass, amp, effects, strings, etc. You are well within "striking distance" of a good slap tone, with the gear you have now.
My suggestion is to practice controlling the duration of your notes: Experiment with short, staccato thumb-slaps, and vice versa, experiment with long, sustained finger-pops.
I disagree that you need to go shopping for a new bass, amp, effects, strings, etc. You are well within "striking distance" of a good slap tone, with the gear you have now.
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I listened to your Soundcloud sample. In my opinion, the reason your pops sound inconsistent with your slaps, is that your thumb-slaps are legato (allowing the notes to ring out for their full duration) whereas your finger-pops are staccato (short sustain, with more silence between the notes).
My suggestion is to practice controlling the duration of your notes: Experiment with short, staccato thumb-slaps, and vice versa, experiment with long, sustained finger-pops.
I also agree with the comments above, that your tone is "brighter" than I prefer, though that of course is a matter of personal taste.
I disagree that you need to go shopping for a new bass, amp, effects, strings, etc. You are well withing "striking distance" of a good slap tone, with the gear you have now.
Awesome, will give that a shot. Glad I don't need to send this beautiful piece of a Fender back.
String muting is very important. You don't want any artifacts from notes your not intentionally playing. That will muddy up the sound.
Yeah, ligher is generaly better because you hit/pull less, and that way you can be faster/snappier. But it's personal preference and compromise. The music I play now is mostly finger style, so 0.40-0.95 is OK. If I played slap more, I would go lighter and lower setup.
One more thing, and this is also very personal, but to me growl is on the opposite of slap sound. To me, slap is more of a dull (or bright) percussive sound, like what percussionist sounds on his instrument. Growl is for rock'n'roll. But that's just IMO, I believe if you play slap with feel you can make any guitar work.
Grab a wrench set and new battery at the store. Dive into that set up thing, there's tons of set up "how to" on You tube. Sheldon Dingwall has a great step by step series. It's not rocket surgery. Only you can really dial up a setup that works with your current technique level. And that's going to change as the hours and hours and hours go by.
Your touch will get lighter and your hand motion more efficient as you work on building speed and dexterity. The guy in your video example is a very accomplished slapper. Lots of advanced techniques like the double thumb, just rolling out nice and smooth. That's going to take a while.
You'll want to pay attention to the height of your bass and how you practice. If you get your best sounds while sitting with the bass on your leg, your strap needs to put it at that same height. You'll notice many slappers wear the bass a little higher than is "rocker cool". Some wear it super high. The lower you go the harder it gets to mute and slap.
Light strings, so get to know FretNation.com. DR Pure Blues .40 VW is a nice slap set. Or any other super lights you might like. D'Addario has a super light .35 nickel XL set that is very affordable. Buy a few sets, and set yourself up with something to soak strings in denatured alcohol. String changes are fast with used strings and you'll always have a clean set.
Talkingbass.com has tons of slap material and Tony Oppenheim's technique book "Slap It" is a great resource.
A compressor is super helpful for evening out peaks and valleys at first, later you'll find you get more of the subtle sounds like ghost notes, left hand slaps and the little details are more in focus. Most recorded slap has a good deal of compression going on.
After all that, it's just hours. Practicing slap lines at half time can really help you get full note value and accurate subdivisions. You are basically learning to be a hand percussionist on bass, it's going to take time.
Remember to have fun with it.
Your touch will get lighter and your hand motion more efficient as you work on building speed and dexterity. The guy in your video example is a very accomplished slapper. Lots of advanced techniques like the double thumb, just rolling out nice and smooth. That's going to take a while.
You'll want to pay attention to the height of your bass and how you practice. If you get your best sounds while sitting with the bass on your leg, your strap needs to put it at that same height. You'll notice many slappers wear the bass a little higher than is "rocker cool". Some wear it super high. The lower you go the harder it gets to mute and slap.
Light strings, so get to know FretNation.com. DR Pure Blues .40 VW is a nice slap set. Or any other super lights you might like. D'Addario has a super light .35 nickel XL set that is very affordable. Buy a few sets, and set yourself up with something to soak strings in denatured alcohol. String changes are fast with used strings and you'll always have a clean set.
Talkingbass.com has tons of slap material and Tony Oppenheim's technique book "Slap It" is a great resource.
A compressor is super helpful for evening out peaks and valleys at first, later you'll find you get more of the subtle sounds like ghost notes, left hand slaps and the little details are more in focus. Most recorded slap has a good deal of compression going on.
After all that, it's just hours. Practicing slap lines at half time can really help you get full note value and accurate subdivisions. You are basically learning to be a hand percussionist on bass, it's going to take time.
Remember to have fun with it.
JeezyMcNuggles
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- Feb 23, 2018
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Yeah, for slap, you want to crank the bass, and dime both pickups.
Check out Josh's video on basic slap. He builds on that but I'd start there
edit: he's one of many out there, but he doles out simple basic technique that is a must have to build your own style over
edit: he's one of many out there, but he doles out simple basic technique that is a must have to build your own style over
Personally I think you are being a bit too hard on yourself. Learning an instrument is a life-long journey, so cut yourself some slack.
IMHO the main thing that is missing is technique. The sound you are getting is not exactly like the video, but it's not that far off. In the right players hands, you would probably be surprised how close your bass would sound to the video.
If you keep exploring slap, you will figure out that each player has a unique approach. So if you learn to flawlessly play every Flea slap lick that has ever been played, you will likely be totally confounded when you try to figure out what Marcus Miller is doing. My point is there is not a unified body of knowledge surrounding one clearly defined slap technique...I actually suggest considering slap a collection of different techniques.
Victor Wooten is a really good example who takes several different techniques and somehow seamlessly combines them so that they are perceived as one unified technique to the listener. He moves between single thumb, double thumb, and integrates plucks with thumb, index, middle and ring fingers. There is a lot more he does as well with hammer-ons, pull-offs and chord stuff, but hopefully you get the idea...all of it is seamlessly integrated. I can use many of the discrete slap skills that Victor demonstrates. What I can't do is flawlessly combine them the way he does, but I am getting better.
IMHO, your recording sounds fine, it just doesn't sound the way you want it to sound. So you need to figure out the individual skills necessary to shape the notes to get the sound you want. Then you need to practice those skills.
One area I would suggest exploring is muting. The idea is to cutoff the notes rather than letting them decay, so the sound is more percussive and aggressive.
I am not a huge RHCP, but AFAIK Flea is primarily a single thumb player, which is a fairly basic slap technique. If you want to sound like Flea study his technique.
Here's a video to get you started
You can also study videos from people who have spent time studying Flea's technique.
Keep in mind you may need to customize what you learn somewhat. For example, Flea really attacks the bass. I think the original slap technique I developed is actually almost identical to Flea's, but I prefer to use a much lighter touch.
Good luck!
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Setup is also a big deal with slap, IMO. People think of it as a very physically aggressive style, and there is an element of that, but you may want to start with very low action and very light strings, and see how little force you can put into it to get the sound. Neck pickup always all the way up, and bring the back pickup and tone up to taste. The slap and pop aren't necessarily attacked harder than your normal pluck, it just attacks at a different angle so the the string strikes the frets before ringing.
BOOM!! Now your tone is in the ballpark. You may eventually find that you like this setting for a lot of finger-style playing and when you want to slap, you'll merely need to open up your highs a little bit. Finger-style needs a little low end oomph, but slapping generally has a little more zingy attack with some spanky, snappy highs to help give those notes a sharper attack. Just don't give up the oomph
That first sample sounded like a lot of mids without enough lows or highs to really push it. No surprise that you had a lot more bridge pickup than neck pickup coming through. That nasally, burpy sound can also be good for some situations (finger-style, not slapping), but if you blend your pickups in the direction of the bridge like that, be ready to compensate by bumping your lows a little bit so that it doesn't get too thin in a mix with other instruments.
Slap sounds that were popular several years ago had lots of lows and lots of highs with the mids scooped out - the "smiley setting" on a graphic eq. I don't think this eq setting is ideal because the actual notes are still primarily delivered in the mids. Cut them out too much and that slap sound can get reduced to a combo of thumpy mud and metallic clanks without much for actual notes in there.
If I slap with a Jazz bass, I'll do that with both pickups wide open along with the tone (if it's passive). Depending on a couple of factors, this pickup setting can be a little inherently mid-scooped and I might actually need to turn up my mids at my amp just a little bit. Maybe not - it depends on the sound that comes from a particular layout.
But I also have a P/J bass that will slap just fine for me as long as I don't have the passive tone turned down. I get a lot of mids from that P pickup that cut through a mix with no trouble. Add some snappy high's and that slap sound has plenty of authority when I'm playing with the band.
You may also want to experiment with solo'ing your neck pickup here and there when playing with a band if you want some wooly oomph in your finger-style sound. I played a Jazz bass for a number of years and had trouble with standing out in the mix with the band before I started solo'ing my neck pickup. That doesn't clone the sound of a P-bass, but it gets my tone away from that inherent mid-scoop that happens with both pickups turned up. Much easier to drive the bus when playing finger-style on that bass with the neck pickup solo'ed.
Sorry for diving more into equipment than technique, but you've got a groove-a-licious bass there that should be working great for you in no time!!
They shouldn't necessarily by even. Varies according to bass, strings, pups. Pardon my dust. They are not as close to the strings as the angle makes it appear, I was just trying to show the relative heights across strings.
The tone you are getting in your recording is fine. Its just all out there and needs to be reigned in...you need more practice on technique, which will shape/mold the tone you have there into something good. Part of slap technique is getting the mutes and chokes for note lengths. This will be the biggest factor in tone-shaping (and reigning in) what you have.......
Think about how much palm muting affects what a guitar player does .....where you are now is like a metal guitarist trying to "djent" without a palm mute.
Think about how much palm muting affects what a guitar player does .....where you are now is like a metal guitarist trying to "djent" without a palm mute.
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When I tell myself "I can't do" something I have to step back ask myself how much time have I invested in trying to learn whatever it is. In my experience it ain't my strings, my bass, my EQ etc.
Listen to two.
Also, listen to Wasnex, give it time... it takes a while to get smooth and consistent.
Then go find a new one! You cannot compensate for setup issues without tools. So no matter what else, resolve this.
That jumped out at me as well. Slap/pop requires a lot more muting in order to create tight, distinct note patterns. Not trying to be too critical, but even the finger style sample had more sympathetic ringing than I thought it should have. Unless that's just your style. But for slapping, it doesn't work.
As far a strings go, I would recommend going with a set of GHS Pressurewound light gauge. I've done that on two of my basses and really like the feel (not too loose, but not too stiff) and sound. (They tend to mellow and not be too zingy within a couple of weeks, but they don't go completely dead.)
Beyond that, slap does take a ton of perseverance. It's frustrating. But keep at it. There are many variations of the technique. Try different approaches and see if one works better for you. (e.g. I tend to double-thump and use my thumb like a pick. I like what that does rhythmically.)
