I've been listening to Stanley again for the first time in years and have been wondering how he gets that sound (the hollow, trebley, lead sound). Is that sound a characteristic of Alembics? I do know that he plays hard around the neck area but if I do that on my fender jazz it sounds nothing like, no matter what I do to the tone controls. Please don't say it's all in his fingers because I know what aspects do come from your fingers. I mean the bass sound itself. I hear he uses piccolo basses. Is that a standard bass tuned an octave higher? Mark
He doesn't *just* use piccolo basses. His sound probably comes a lot in part from, yes, his Alembics. Check out what strings he uses too. A lot of bassists seem to seriously underestimate the impact a good set of strings has on tone.
He uses a couple of short scale Alembic Series basses. So the pickups and electronics will have a major effect and some are tuned piccolo (up an octave), some standard and some ADGC (up). Plus of course, it's the SC factor. I agree strings are also likely to be important; I like my short scale S1 best with stainless.
i think much of the "stanley lead" sound came from his short scale piccolo basses and a healthy dose of slap delay and reverb. he has a really percussive attack and it always sounded like he was overdriving the pickup itself. those short scale hamer's going for cheap on ebay would make great piccolo basses! you can prolly get alot of info on stanley's site too...
I'm not familiar with the recording, but I have a Brian Bromberg CD where Brian uses basses strung with nylon strings (piezo bridge pups of course) and the sound is definitely like what you've described.
In '88, I had a chance to play some of Stanley's basses, including "the brown one", through his full concert rig. Sorry, just a little bragging. It had very light Rotosounds on it, and they were "A" "D" "G" "C".
