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Tetsuo Sakurai's TRB Bass Tone

Tier BR

Tier BR

Dec 7, 2023
4
5
the land where Bacchus Global basses are made
#1
Hello, I'm new here (I don't even know if this is the correct forum to post this lol).
So I have been listening to Sakurai for a while now, and I love his bass tone with his white Yamaha TRB.
Is there any way to get that bass tone without getting a TRB?
Is the piezo pickup necessary for that tone?

here's some videos:
slap:

fingerstyle (ik it's blue):
 
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#3
Dr. Cheese said:
His tone is pretty much a Jazz Bass tone. You should be able to get there with a bass that has two single coil or stacked humbuckers in the right position.

Tetsuo Sakurai is a phenomenal player.
Click to expand...
Is it like a Jazz bass some bias on the neck pickup?
From what I hear, it has more growl than J basses with both pickups at full volume (am I using the term "growl" correctly? Idk)
 
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#4
I'm not familiar with that player. But if you asked me to guess what bass he was playing was with my eyes closed, I would also have said "70s Jazz Bass." I'm also hearing some compression and overdrive. I bet you could get pretty close with any Jazz Bass with stainless steel roundwounds and something like a SansAmp VT pedal.
 
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#5
Tier BR said:
Is it like a Jazz bass some bias on the neck pickup?
From what I hear, it has more growl than J basses with both pickups at full volume (am I using the term "growl" correctly? Idk)
Click to expand...
That's more a matter of amp/bass eq., it's fairly bright, plenty of power headroom (excess capacity), tweeters ON. The bass is a good one, not a dead spot on it. Then there is technique, the efficiency and energy of his plucking digs that sound out of the bass.
Production and content- I would put this in the category of athletics with music just as a platform for showing off, zero content, I apologize for expressing that so rudely.
 
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#8
Tier BR said:
Is it like a Jazz bass some bias on the neck pickup?
From what I hear, it has more growl than J basses with both pickups at full volume (am I using the term "growl" correctly? Idk)
Click to expand...
I think 70s Jazz Bass pickup spacing is key to this sound. The wider spacing between the pickups definitely gives more "growl", particularly with some active EQ to fill it out. The more common 60s pickup spacing tends to be bit warmer/softer sounding, though can pretty close with the right EQ
 
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#9
sunbeast said:
I think 70s Jazz Bass pickup spacing is key to this sound. The wider spacing between the pickups definitely gives more "growl", particularly with some active EQ to fill it out. The more common 60s pickup spacing tends to be bit warmer/softer sounding, though can pretty close with the right EQ
Click to expand...
a lot of people say they can get close

But tbh there’s a certain peak that eq doesn’t hit that I find the 70s and 60s have that makes them different

Like when I flip my my bridge pickup on my kiesel I get close to that 70s sound

But then using the 60s and using eq it doesn’t quite get there all though it could be me
 
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#10
PeaveyPlayer said:
a lot of people say they can get close

But tbh there’s a certain peak that eq doesn’t hit that I find the 70s and 60s have that makes them different

Like when I flip my my bridge pickup on my kiesel I get close to that 70s sound

But then using the 60s and using eq it doesn’t quite get there all though it could be me
Click to expand...
Yeah @micguy posted a thread about this recently, how pickup position/design affects timbre and with some visuals of the EQ response for a couple examples: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/how-pickup-position-affects-tone.1668250/#post-28950854 . They can't really exactly replicate each-other as a certain pickup position makes for a certain response for each string independently (not just a singe EQ curve for the whole bass), but you can usually sculpt something that can fit in the mix in a similar way with clever EQ'ing as long as your source signal isn't too far off to begin with ( at least as far as pushing up the high-mids and cutting some other mids). Probably easiest to just get a bass with 70s spacing though (or close enough, as in the Yamaha basses) if this is a gold-standard tone for the OP, no fancy EQ'ing necessary.
 
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#11
BassBrass said:
That's more a matter of amp/bass eq., it's fairly bright, plenty of power headroom (excess capacity), tweeters ON. The bass is a good one, not a dead spot on it. Then there is technique, the efficiency and energy of his plucking digs that sound out of the bass.
Production and content- I would put this in the category of athletics with music just as a platform for showing off, zero content, I apologize for expressing that so rudely
Click to expand...
Yeah, his playing on the clips I sent are very show off-y lol

Thanks for the reply
 
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#13
The both PUs seems closer to the bridge as in the modern position compare to a 70s JB.

26FC574D-33FD-4F29-B432-218B4727CCED.png
 
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