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Whitney Houston: bass sound

K

kucor

Aug 26, 2011
159
40
EU
#1
Hi TB, does anybody know how to get a bass sound from Whitney's songs?






I'm a big fan Whitney, but don't have any experience with effects. It is probably synthesizer/keyboard sound, but I'd like to have it with classic effects.

I play 55-01 w fat stacks + Sad preamp, great sound and lot of fatness.

any suggestions?


thanks
 
#2
Bass? I thought Whitney was a soprano...

Kidding aside...

Synth bass, for sure.

Gated fuzz + chorus + Octave Up and Down + a touch of filter (and not necessarily in that order) might get you there for the first Vid.

Second vid, more or less the same. Maybe less filter and add some vibrato on an expression pedal...

You'll need to do some judicious hand muting to stop the notes, make it more synth sounding. Try some synth pedals, too. IDK.

She was such a talent, and a Foxey Lady.
 
#4
Feral Feline said:
Bass? I thought Whitney was a soprano...


Gated fuzz + chorus + Octave Up and Down + a touch of filter (and not necessarily in that order) might get you there for the first Vid.

Second vid, more or less the same. Maybe less filter and add some vibrato on an expression pedal...

You'll need to do some judicious hand muting to stop the notes, make it more synth sounding. Try some synth pedals, too. IDK.
Click to expand...

Holy Cow! that sounds like a lot of pedals for two songs:smug:
 
#8
Normally, in this kind of music, the bass is played by keyboard: so, it's a keyboard synth bass sound (very hard to carefully reproduce with a bass + effetcs).

I suggest you the Akai Deep Impact SB-1: very organic and full of analog low end synth sounds... but very expensive and very hard to find!
Maybe, also the MarkBass SuperSynth, EHX Bass MicroSynth, Chunk Systems Octavius Squeezer and Iron Ether Subterranea (+ envelope filter) could do that job. ;)
 
#11
MultiScaleMale said:
I'd just get a keytar.
Click to expand...

Cool! You can plug it into this:

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[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Moog recreated the ONE Keith Emerson bought in 1969.

They made SIX (this year), and quickly sold out five units. The last one will be available for sale after Sunday October 10 - for $150,000.
 
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#12
kucor said:
Holy Cow! that sounds like a lot of pedals for two songs:smug:
Click to expand...

Well you did say with classic effects! You could get id done with one, the Zoom MS60-B, or a Zoom B-3 or with a Fractal... ;-D

Read up on all the synth-bass threads. Lots of people with wayyyy more experience getting those sounds from pedals...
My advice is don't sweat it if you don't nail the exact tones, close is good enough so long as you've got the song's vibe down – IMHO.

Most importantly, have fun.
 
#13
You will get the best results for the least money with a keyboard... if you have an iOS device, you could get that with a keyboard controller and an app (perhaps even free), but even standalone keyboards can be fairly cheap compared to buying synth pedals, or combining pedals into a chain...

that being said, the most fun approach is imo buying individual pedals, but that can get expensive and time consuming, as you have to figure out which ones to buy... as a plus, you end up with a bunch of pedals you can use by themselves too! the downside is that it's really hard to get them to sound the way you want, and than use that in a live performance...
 
#14
thanks but I don't play keys, and don't use iOS or any other OS on my mobile phone. I like pedals. they look cool:D

Feral Feline said:
Well you did say with classic effects! You could get id done with one, the Zoom MS60-B, or a Zoom B-3 or with a Fractal... ;-D

Read up on all the synth-bass threads. Lots of people with wayyyy more experience getting those sounds from pedals...
My advice is don't sweat it if you don't nail the exact tones, close is good enough so long as you've got the song's vibe down – IMHO.

Most importantly, have fun.
Click to expand...

understand. but I excepted one or two effects, not 4 or 5. Well at least I'm gonna have some fun:D

In the end, It's all about fun. I can play it all without any effects, and it will still sound great. just wanna come close to that 80's vibe
 
#17
A Zoom MS60-B can get you close.

Honestly, I wouldn't try to match that exactly if it were me, I would just use some filtering and a some overdrive. Of, course I can probably get pretty close with my Source Audio Bass Distortion Pro and Bass Envelope Filter Pro. I do similar things to get Lady Gaga synth sounds.
 
#18
As others have said, get a Zoom MS60B $90ish or a B1on $60ish, they have some synth bass sounds that r great out of the box n u can edit 2 taste, plus u get a whole pile of other excellent n usable sounds 4 the price of a Boss tuner pedal. Akai SB1, Korg G5 r great but difficult 2 find n $$$ when u do. Markbass SS n EHX Micro should also cut it but r a more spendy synth only fx. Good luck
 
#19
The '80s synth bass thing and particularly the '90s west coast rap single-oscillator bass sounds are why I eventually caved and bought a Novation Bass Station 2.

You can get some really wild synth sounds from a bass guitar with the right pedals, and with a little dedication you can set up your board to offer synth-like modulation options (pitch wheel effects with a whammy, pitch vibrato on a momentary footswitch, adding certain types of chorus or whatever can simulate multiple detuned oscillators etc.

But what you can't do reliably is set up an ADSR envelope that will trigger for every note. And you can't get a believable single-oscillator sound from effect pedals. So that effectively rules out the '80s pop synth bass and the '90s rap synth bass sounds, respectively.

Buy an analogue synth with patch memory. They are great fun. :)
 

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