Wal bass fretless & Ken Smith six string

[Les Fret]

Just finished this prog/fusion track called "Mind-Wandering Activity" playing my fretless Wal and Ken Smith Burner 6. Short bass solo on the Wal in the middle. Also did the guitars, synth and the drum programming. Bass is recorded direct. Hope you like it! let me know if you will. Thanks, Barend

 

[Geepers]

Nice work! It’s got a cool middle eastern vibe to my ears. Would have liked the Ken Smith bass a bit fuller to really drive it but yeah, very well done

 

[Jogobass]

okay, you make me want to get a 6 string Ken Smith now. Life is not fair. All that savings money that would have gone into a new car is now going into a new bass guitar.

 

[Janforth]

Very cool! What strings do you use on your Wal bass?

 

[lordradish]

Just finished this prog/fusion track called "Mind-Wandering Activity" playing my fretless Wal and Ken Smith Burner 6. Short bass solo on the Wal in the middle. Also did the guitars, synth and the drum programming. Bass is recorded direct. Hope you like it! let me know if you will. Thanks, Barend

Just reaffirming that Wal fretlesses are the best fretless sounds ever. Makes me wanna pull the frets off of my fretted 5. What FX do you have on that?

 

[Hans Gruber]

Dang. I went through your channel and just subscribed. Very original stuff there. I went for the gear stuff but stayed for the musicianship.

 

[dfp]

You are really good at this stuff! Great work!

 

[Element Zero]

All killer no filler. Heading to YouTube right now to sub.

 

[Altitude]

Fantastic.

I think you listen to Steve Topping and Allen Holdsworth. There’s also a guy in Dallas called Mark Lettieri that writes stuff that sounds like this. The keyboards give a little Trick of the Tail era Genesis.

Really enjoyed that. Nice work. Not enough people post evidence of themselves actually playing bass on this board.

 

[Les Fret]

Very cool! What strings do you use on your Wal bass?

I normally use D'addario rounds nickels. But on this bass there are still the DR Lo Rider rounds strings that were on it when I bought four years ago . They still sound good though.

 

[Les Fret]

Just reaffirming that Wal fretlesses are the best fretless sounds ever. Makes me wanna pull the frets off of my fretted 5. What FX do you have on that?

It is just an envelope filter plugin from my DAW. Maybe some slight compression added.

 

[Les Fret]

Dang. I went through your channel and just subscribed. Very original stuff there. I went for the gear stuff but stayed for the musicianship.

That's good to hear. In the end gear is less important than the playing!

 

[Swamp_Ronin]

This was excellent thanks for sharing.

 

[JRA]

really great to hear your work, @Les Fret, and what great programming and production --- you bad!

 

[Wyrdlow]

Bravo! Great playing and arranging. I love the sound of the Wal.

 

[Bob_Ross]

Sweet drum programming! Was that sample packs and/or VI, or did you create that with a crap-ton of MIDI note entry?

 

[Les Fret]

Fantastic.

I think you listen to Steve Topping and Allen Holdsworth. There’s also a guy in Dallas called Mark Lettieri that writes stuff that sounds like this. The keyboards give a little Trick of the Tail era Genesis.

Really enjoyed that. Nice work. Not enough people post evidence of themselves actually playing bass on this board.

Thanks. Great comparisons. I love Holdsworth and old Genesis! I never heard of Steve Topping though. Any special recordings I have to check out? I am always into something new.

 

[Les Fret]

Sweet drum programming! Was that sample packs and/or VI, or did you create that with a crap-ton of MIDI note entry?

Thanks. Most is MIDI note entry, some fills are MIDI loops. I don't know any VI/AI that can do automatic drums parts on a given song. Would be fun to try out though. Is there any software that does that?

 

[Altitude]

Thanks. Great comparisons. I love Holdsworth and old Genesis! I never heard of Steve Topping though. Any special recordings I have to check out? I am always into something new.

Topping is definitely a Holdsworth disciple. I think I read about him in an interview with Mark King from Level 42, who was playing with Holdsworth in the 90s. He has a couple good albums - “Time and Distance” and “Late Flower” both from that era or a bit later.

But there is seemingly no work product out of him since. I’m not sure if maybe he passed or just stopped recording albums. Maybe the former because there is really nothing at all about him out there newer than ~2004.

 

[Les Fret]

Topping is definitely a Holdsworth disciple. I think I read about him in an interview with Mark King from Level 42, who was playing with Holdsworth in the 90s. He has a couple good albums - “Time and Distance” and “Late Flower” both from that era or a bit later.

But there is seemingly no work product out of him since. I’m not sure if maybe he passed or just stopped recording albums. Maybe the former because there is really nothing at all about him out there newer than ~2004.

ok thanks, I will check it out for sure.