Liked yr blog by the way. Very funny stories in there.
some 20 yr old industrial metal :
Marilyn Manson - Disposable Teens
I used the Yamaha SBV 500 this time, for a change. In the case of this song, I did not wanted the midrange punch of the P, I wanted a more āblurryā attack. The SBV with both pickups fully open works great for this purpose. Also I did a new setup on this bass yesterday, so, using the SBV for this cover has been a nice test ride for the setup. Works pretty well.
The more I play this Yamā, the more I love it.
Itās a truly great sounding bass! Probably has a lifetime warranty too.
donāt know ā¦ I didnāt had any problem with it yet and Iām not the original owner !
@terb That was spot on. You matched the tone of the song so closely it sounded like part of the original recording. Damn, that was some next level skills.
damn ā¦ I just listened to the original track again, and youāre right, itās pretty close Iām very surprised because it was not at all a concious choice ! I did not try to match the original bass tone, and I even did not used specific amp settings for this song + the original track is played on a Gibson Firebird bass, I believe, and certainly not a SBV
if it sounds like the album, whatās the fun in recording covers ? I guess the ultimate step would be to play air guitar over the untouched album track
old school recording methods for the next cover : 100% analog, with a goodāol mic in front of an amp !
Been awhile since anyone posted to @terbās thread, and since deer season has slowed down a bit here in Georgia, I figured it was time to dust off the recording gear and put together another coverā¦ Thought that since one of my last ones was Pink Floydās āMoneyā, that this one should follow suite, and since the topic of the Beatles came up in another thread, āTaxmanā would be a good choiceā¦
Not the greatest, but then again, who can really compete with Paul McCartney when it comes to playing bass??..
TAXMAN - Cover Video
Nice ! not the easiest bassline to show us your new bass but you played it pretty well !
Thanks @terb. I think the hardest part of the song to play was the bridge. The entire piece has a ton of hammer onās that I found I could only get to sound right by using round wound strings. Just couldnāt get the tone out of the half rounds that I normally play on my 304 Yamaha. A lot of McCartneys moves in this song do in incorporate his ability on the guitar - just using it on bass.
Thanks Joe!!
Cool, @Lanny!
I donāt know whether it is the video, my internet connection or the camera/lighting you used, but your plucking fingers are just a āblurā during the faster passages - looks pretty impressive
Can I ask you a technique question, though? Hm, how to describe this bestā¦ it looks to me that your finger tips, after plucking a string, are āhoveringā over the strings, ready for the next pluck!? Is that correct? You also seem to pluck quite lightly!?
Reason I am asking is that I seem to recall that Josh advocates the āplucking upwards through the stringā technique (my words, not his), i.e., a movement upwards (towards your head) instead of outwards (away from the body) and where they deliberately come to rest on the string āaboveā (e.g., when you pluck notes on the D string, the fingers come to rest on the A string etc.). Did you always play like you do now, or did you try different approaches and then settled on the one you use now?
Really mainly curiousā¦ also a bit since I also play lightly, but found that in āreal life situationsā (i.e., a band), I really need to dig in much more and I donāt think it would be possible with the āhovering fingersā. Also, I think when the fingers come to rest on the next string, this helps with muting issues.
Thanks for posting a video (otherwise, I wouldnāt be able to ask stuff like that, and thus learn )
@Lanny is obviously much faster than a camera
sure, and you might want to know that guitar players all need to be experts in muting techniques because with a guitar (often used with at least an overdrive) you always get a ton of unwanted noises if you donāt mute evey unused string all the time.
Yeah, I bet, especially tricky when you play with a pick, I guess
So, is @Lanny also a guitar player who wants to upgrade and become a bassist now??
not really I think, it just requires a different hands position but the right hand can very often be used to mute the lower strings.
and yes Lanny played guitar before downgrading (in the sense of ālow-gradingā ) to the bass !
Thanks @terbā¦ We guitar players certainly know our tricks and techniques! Spot on with answering @joergkutterās questionsā¦ Thanks! Especially since Iām down for awhile anyway - got a pacemaker being put in on Friday.
Joerg, to elaborate a bit on what terb was explaining, when we play guitar, our fretting fingers are a lot of times (well at least mine) hovering over the strings - especially when fast note transactions and hammer-ons/pull-offs are being used. During the bridge section of this particular piece, McCartney incorporated much of his former guitar playing technique and style into the piece with short quick notes utilizing the hammer on style used frequently by lead guitarists especially during solos. The ābridgeā section of this song was basically his bass solo. Youāll notice my pinky finger hovering over the D and A Notes on the 7th fret of the G and D strings. However, Iām actually plucking the D and G strings on the 5th fret and then quickly hammering down down on the D and A notes on the 7th fret. Doing this quickly requires that my hammer on finger be ready to slam down and off in order to make the note sound like itās being plucked or played without actually having to pluck the note with the plucking hand. Actually, the fretting hand does the majority of the work, but it really only works good if youāre using the right strings and a well adjusted (for action) bass.
As for the plucking, I was pretty much a finger plucker (although Iāve been referred to as a different kinda plucker by someā¦ āmotherā??) when it came to playing six strings, and my style has always been what it is. I donāt ever pluck out and away, and have always plucked straight up with a light touch and tend to use electronics and amplifiers to give me the dig I need to get my point across on the strings.
I do tend to use fingers on both hands to mute (and even at times the palm of my plucking hand), and at times youāll even notice my fretting hand taking the shape of what many call the clam gripā¦ This is not what I do when my thumb curls over the fretboardā¦ Actually what Iām doing is either muting the E string with it, or in some certain need to situations, Iām using it to fret a note on my E stringā¦ Again, as terb mentioned, as a guitar player, you really need to be proficient in the muting technique. That and the hammer on and pull offs will make any guitar player seem to be āLightning Fastā - the real trick comes in making each note crystal clear which is much easier for me to do on my ā52 Tele then it is on any of my bassās - but then again, Iām still in the process of learning this instrumentā¦
Hope this all helpsā¦ We all play differently and use different techniques as we develop into our own styles, and as terb mentioned, like him, Iām also a longtime guitar player.
The main reason I chose this McCartney song was because of his integration of his six string techniques into his bass lines since before the Beatles he was a lead guitar player. And as we all know, he basically took up bass because no one else in the group was willing to step up to the taskā¦ The guyās a geniusā¦
I agree, the bass strings have way more mass and obviously way more inertia and amplitude, they require much more effort to move and sound clear and neat
Yeah that really comes through trying to play fast changes on the E string. Especially when it is detuned to D