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The 70s tone

#21
Tanner5382 said:
Really? I find 70s bass to be much more prominent than in modern music.
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I was a reading a thread somewhere (Gearslutz maybe) on Paul McCartney's recording setup and it got into discussing how a lot of 60s and 70s stuff seems to have a lot of sonic space for bass to be heard. Take Led Zep or Black Sabbath, bands that you would expect to have massive guitar sounds when it's more the case that their guitars, as with the Beatles, have a very compact and tight presence on the recording, leaving much more room for the bass to be heard. Motown is the same - very compact guitars and keys, and lots of space for bass.

I find that modern music, especially pop and rock, is so bottom heavy that you really are only left with the 'impression' of an electric bass being in the mix a lot of the time. It's as if everything in the mix is adding to a big, flat, indistinguishable pancake of bass frequencies sitting underneath the 'main action'.
 
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#22
punkjazzben said:
I find that modern music, especially pop and rock, is so bottom heavy that you really are only left with the 'impression' of an electric bass being in the mix a lot of the time. It's as if everything in the mix is adding to a big, flat, indistinguishable pancake of bass frequencies sitting underneath the 'main action'.
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Yeah, I completely agree. Well-worded there, brother.
 
#23
seanm said:
I find in 70s music it is generally very hard to hear the bass :rollno:

To be honest, I find 70s music a bit hard to listen to now. I think it is because they catered to AM radio, and lost all the lows and highs.
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Nobody ever catered to AM radio except in the 50's and early 60's when they were the only stations playing popular music. And by the time the 70's started, popular music was well established on FM and AM music stations were on their way out. I agree with those that say you're just used to hearing music so over-compressed and over-modulated that it only seems quieter by comparison. Not everyone mixed bass up front in the 70's, but there was a lot more of it.
 
#24
Sounds a lot like a bass straight into the board with a bit of tape compression to me.

Nothing more. Nothing less. Especially the Chicago song. Passive bass into the mixing board.
The Bowie stuff sounds the same, but with a short scale bass with flats.
 
#25
JimmyM said:
Nobody ever catered to AM radio except in the 50's and early 60's when they were the only stations playing popular music. And by the time the 70's started, popular music was well established on FM and AM music stations were on their way out. I agree with those that say you're just used to hearing music so over-compressed and over-modulated that it only seems quieter by comparison. Not everyone mixed bass up front in the 70's, but there was a lot more of it.
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I guess I was the only one who lived in a non-FM region. Which sucks for me, but was probably great for everybody else. I remember when a real rock FM station (chez 106) started in my area in 1977. It was unbelievable. Album oriented rock. IIRC Supertramp had album of the year for the first two years.

I also remember when AM died (again in my area). I had an AM only radio in my car ('94 Citation, probably the best car I ever owned) and 54 rock (now the bear) switched to FM. For quite a while after they still broadcast on AM, then they stopped. I used to have the radio on all the time in the car. I now almost never turn it on. End of an era :(
 
#26
ThudThudThud said:
Sounds a lot like a bass straight into the board with a bit of tape compression to me.

Nothing more. Nothing less. Especially the Chicago song. Passive bass into the mixing board.
The Bowie stuff sounds the same, but with a short scale bass with flats.
Click to expand...
Well we know for sure that Peter Cetera used a B-15 in the studio extensively with Chicago, and Trevor Bolder used Marshalls in the studio back in the Ziggy days. There probably were DI's involved, but they were also micing amps.
 
#28
Punkjazzben got it right! That's exactly my feeling about modern pop, with some exceptions in rock though (not many).

Speaking of ampegs, since many of you talked of them, have you tried the svx? Would it help in my case? I know this kind of goes against the pure analog sound and most probably can't be compared to a real ampeg by far, but years will pass before i'll be able to get a real ampeg.
I could probably check a demo out to see if it helps or if going with a di would be better solution.


Cool tunes by the way (those last 3 that were posted). For me basically every song from the 70s is an example of what punkjazzben said.
 
#29
I've tried the SVX, and it's not bad. I greatly prefer analog Ampeg simulators like the VT Bass pedal, though. Easier to work, they don't require a computer, and for my money they sound better. You're right that none of them measure up to the real Ampeg tube amps, but some of these simulations do a very good job at sounding like the amps they're mimicking. Also, Ampeg's other amps do a really good job at it in their own ways, too, with the possible exception of the B2RE/SVT450h, an amp designed more for people who traditionally don't care for Ampeg. It's way better now for simulations than it was 5 years ago, I'll tell you that. I used to think they were all a joke, but now I think it's doing pretty well, even though it's still got a ways to go before it's perfected.
 
#30
Speaking from my experience, I could get this tone for days using an Ampeg SVT210av cab. You could even stack 2 if you need more oomph. Now, this would be a medium duty solution, and I'm sure JimmyM with his knowledge could recommend a similar sounding bigger cab. It seemed to me though that the sealed non ported design kept down the uber lows in favor of low mids, and the fact that it was tweeterless killed the clanky grindy highs. What was left was solid, punchy tone.

That cab and flats should put your right where you want to be just because of the frequencies it emphasizes.
 
#31
ThudThudThud said:
Sounds a lot like a bass straight into the board with a bit of tape compression to me.

Nothing more. Nothing less. Especially the Chicago song. Passive bass into the mixing board.
The Bowie stuff sounds the same, but with a short scale bass with flats.
Click to expand...

+1 I'm pretty sure there was no bass amp present on that Caribou Ranch cut; P-bass with flats and a pick into a Neve console and out to headphones is my guess. Can you imagine what it was like getting a headphone mix everybody liked with that band? Of course, in those days, as I recall, you pretty much took the mix they gave you in the cans; and even that seemed like a miracle vs. live-room recording.
 
#32
There has already been said a lot. Did You noticed that the bass player of David Bowie played a Gibson EB-3? Aside from the P-Bass You see these instruments surprisingly often on old band posters.

So take a tube amp, maybe a small one with a DI box into the PA parallel to the speakers. Speaker choice might be a bit difficult - modern Neodymium PA-speakers are not very well suited (see my trouble withe Eminence 3015)
Take the appropriate bass - P, EB-3, Rick. The appropriate strings - Pyramid Flats, Pyramid black Nylons, Rotosound Flats - all reminescents from that time.

I actually use an Epiphone EB-3 with modified Sidewinder neck pickup and Pyramid black Nylons, yes and even foam through a late 60's Dynacord amp - really nice for such a sound.

Of course You also need the freedom to develop Your own bass lines. The gear just gives You the framework You have to fill with Your mind, Your feeling and Your fingers.
 
#34
It is mostly the feeling and the style of the bass lines.

The sounds of the players actually differ widely (Entwistle, Hattler, McCartney, Jack Bruce). Moreover, many of the players from then are still active. They usually use modern gear but nevertheless sound like themselves.

Gear helps You - Yes, the Hiwatts, Sound Cities, Marshalls, Oranges, if You are on big names. Smalle, less known brands from the 60s and 70s, of course as well. Speakers: 15" - probably all had their problems with the deepest octave... (EVM, JBL, maybe Fane, if You are on the big names...)
Instruments: everything from german semiacoustic basses (Beatles, Stones) to the P.

More or less everything available and suitable to the individual player.
But Gear ist just technology to help You with Your musical ideas and Your feeling. Your Instruments should be not too far off - a slapping engine might not be the real choice - but that
 
#35
I still think it was recording on to 2" tape. That had a certain compression that I can't emulate at all with digital gear no matter what outboard or digital effects I add. Sound craft and Neve preamps also had a certain sound.
My experience with the big studios using 2" tape was 99% DI into the board.
 
#37
I'm happy with Roto 77 flats on my Jazz, a very woody tone on the neck pup. Feels very 'vintage' to me.

Have you considered ditching the PC? If you don't have a quality ADC you're going to lose a lot of tone that way.

And count me in on the opinion that the tone we hear on recordings is just as much a result of the recording techniques and arrangements as anything else. It's important to listen to live sound if you want to cop a tone, since that's closer to what actually is realistic to create.
 
#40
seanm said:
I guess I was the only one who lived in a non-FM region. Which sucks for me, but was probably great for everybody else. I remember when a real rock FM station (chez 106) started in my area in 1977. It was unbelievable. Album oriented rock. IIRC Supertramp had album of the year for the first two years.

I also remember when AM died (again in my area). I had an AM only radio in my car ('94 Citation, probably the best car I ever owned) and 54 rock (now the bear) switched to FM. For quite a while after they still broadcast on AM, then they stopped. I used to have the radio on all the time in the car. I now almost never turn it on. End of an era :(
Click to expand...

Same for me here in SE Missouri. The only FM stations in this area during that time were pure country. Thankfully at night we could pick up WLS out of Chicago that station in the 70's rocked. Boogie check!
 

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