The next cover I’m working on is Sting’s Moon Over Bourbon Street, because I absolutely love that song. Anyway, I’m fairly certain it was played on an upright, and I’d like to get my tone as close to that as possible.
So far, I’m playing it on my Carvin B40 “jazz” (not by Fender standards, but it’s got two J99 single coil pickups) bass. I’m using the neck pickup only, with tone at about 10% or so. That’s making it close, at least to my ears.
I could swap to some flats, but I don’t want to spend money on strings I’m only going to use once.
I’m recording into Reaper, so is there anything I can do there?
I’d say use precision bass with flats and play over fingerboard with fingers at an angle, with tone completely off.
But there with jazz get your treble out,use neck pup, also play over fingerboard with angled fingers, and try to eq as best as possible.
For Amplitube I saw some acoustic plugins, havent tried.
This song was a prime example of Sting going back to the jazz roots from which he started. Interestingly, in concert he chose not to play the double bass, leaving that to one of his band mates, probably so could concentrate on singing.
I use a Nordy Mute. It’s a quick and super-efficient way to get a classic double bass muted tone. It costs, but it’s more than worth it for its convenience and consistency.
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UPDATE: A Nordy Mute doesn’t require hassling with foam under strings or the retuning that necessitates. It’s a fast and elegant way to play, and it’s instantaneous to put on and take off. Simple.
Also, varying degrees of muting are quick and easy to achieve depending on how low on the strings the NM is placed.
Foam under the strings will help. Simple weatherstripping or a cut up foam paint brush (my go to) work great. Don’t need to buy a special gadget. Make sure to retune!
But still won’t be very close with rounds, need flats. And a P is much closer. But if you must J, neck only, tone rolled off all the way.
So, a couple of recommendations for a P. That’s interesting, I for sure had thought a tone’d down J would be the ticket. I’ll try it on my Charvel and see.
Great suggestion, helped immediately.
Ok, I see what both are getting at. I wonder if a fret wrap would - in a pinch - suffice similarly. One of these:
I tried on a pinch using the cheap sponge I got from 99 cents store and cut it to fit by the bridge. It sounded similar to the after market kit.
If you really want the upright-ish tone maybe look into the ghost tech saddle pickup conversion. It’s pretty much a dropped in saddle replacement. And a few electronics options.
I concur with others about flatwounds and a mute such as a Nordy. If you have a fretless, that will help also. At the end of the day, all you can hope for is to get close to the sound of an upright.
They won’t. They are too narrow to put in the strings near the bridge. And you don’t want to dampen too much anyway. These are for above the nut to dampen vibration etc. or, people put them just below the nut when they want to slap and not mute well when their playing is meh.
Kitchen sponge in a pinch is good. Just cut it down to 1/2 inch or so wide.
