Post your covers! (2019-2022)

@howard - This song was the reason I took the B2B course… I use to play this song on my '52 Fender Telecaster all the time when I was younger and my bucket list goal was to do it again on bass… Thing is, I had to use two different basses tuned different in order to accomplish that goal… Thumbs Up for BEAD tuning… Now you know why I made the change on my Yamaha TRBX174EW… It ws the only way I could accomplish my bucket list goal…

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Hell yeah, mission accomplished then!! You aced the song, and, we’re all self-conscious of how we played, but you knocked it out - and Mango, tuned to BEAD just looks killer - there’s something about the thicker strings on a bass, and that B string that is getting me stirred up to do a similar project bass soon :slight_smile:

And, what’s great about rock n roll - no matter what curve balls life throws at you, you can always give it the middle finger, or just a loud bass riff! Rock’s always had attitude, always will. Can’t buy it with a million bucks, it’s a feeling! If you’re havin’ fun man, you’ve already won the game, haha!!

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Thanks @Vik - playing Rock is so different than any other genres… With this style rock, I found that (for me) playing a BEAD tuned bass above the 5th fret gave me everything I wanted in both *ease of play, and *tone… The attack was much easier accomplished since the frets were closer to where I was more comfortable given my arthritis, and from what I could hear, the deep tone was much more prevalent with the TRBX174EW in BEAD playing above the 5th fret then the TRBX304 was playing normally…

This was the biggest thing that I wanted to show in this cover. It wasn’t about ability or anything, just tone and how a BEAD tuning can be used in different songs…

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Thanks @howard… Just showing off those Yamaha’s… What I really wanted to show off was the tonal differences between standard EADG and BEAD tuning… I can hear the difference and kinda like it…

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Yeah! Sounds awesome. I am already missing my B string :slight_smile:

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Whole lot better than missing your “G” string @howard :joy::joy:

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@Lanny - That video had it all, great basses (I think Big Red is a beauty), great song, and excellent bass playing, looks like you nailed it to me.

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Great cover @Lanny! Another fine job.

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Wow, another great cover, @Lanny! You are getting really good at this! And you even ad libbed there at the very end!?! Or did I hear two bass tracks there… I couldn’t quite make out what was going there towards the very end…

Anyway, you and @terb have set the bar very high indeed.

Yeah, so about that: I have promised @terb a cover (finally!), and I am in the process of learning one, but that just made me realize where I still need to invest a lot of work. The song I chose requires some chugging, which is not one of my strengths; in this case: 16th notes at 90 bpm (so, equivalent to 8th notes at 180 bpm), which I definitely need to practice more :rofl: And it’s not just the chugging… getting out of it again in a controlled fashion is just as important here!

Anyway, there are a few other things to consider before I am ready to post anything:

  • I need to find a different tone; something more gritty than what I usually like (so, exploring some distortion or overdrive…)
  • I should play this with a pick, but that is not realistic; so, will have to adapt it to finger-style
  • I need to play this on my Yamaha (as the lowest note is the low E, and the highest is the E on the 21st fret of the G string; so I need a 24 fret bass to play this; alas, the Yamaha has half rounds on it right now, which might work, but round wounds would have been better for this…
  • there is a middle part without bass (much like in Lanny’s cover here) - I need to find something to do there
  • I found a cover of this song on YouTube. I could probably match its quality by playing on an old tennis rack, but I want to do it a little better… so, more pracising those 16th notes
  • finally, what to wear?? I don’t own heavy metal T-shirts (or beanies), and my tailor in Hong Kong is currently closed because of the virus situation… so, another tough one there :grin:
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that’s an excellent cover @Lanny , very impressive ! this line is not easy at all, and you played it really well and with a very appropriate groove. that’s great ! also I like the new “two-basses-on-a-song” category :grin::+1:

about the cover frequency, I’ll have to slow down too because of a big (and good) change in my professional life. I’ll have way less time for music and other hobbies for a few months, so I will release less covers, and/or I might choose very easy songs that I could learn and record very quickly to compensate the lack of time.

anyway, the level will drop a bit, either in frequency and in complexity, and @Lanny and myself count on you all to fill the gap and post covers, especially when we don’t ! :grin:

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Very nice cover, @Lanny!

You and I seem to have a lot in common . . . :wink:

Cheers and keep on thumpin’
Joe

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Ditto that, @Lanny . . . :grin:

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Thanks @Vik… What I really like about the BEAD tuning is that I can get a fuller deeper tone throughout by simply playing typical EADG songs above the 5th fret… The thicker strings all around really help bring a depth to the tone. I originally wanted to play the entire song on Mango, but I also needed to know that I could still slam out those notes on a typical EADG tuned full scale bass.

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Thanks @jazmo1999… Big Red was my second bass (Mango was my first). I have it set up with half rounds and a Hipshot Kickass bridge. A great and fun bass to play, and for this song it was a much better choice than my normal “go-to” bass (Ibanez SR500E).

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Thanks @joergkutter… What you are probably hearing is the remnants of the original guitar track. I typically round out the original tracks toward the end of songs so that my bass is most prominent, but it got late and after a couple “Celebratory Slugs” from the Moonshine jug, I kinda got a case of the “Phuk-Its” and figured it best to just leave it as it was…

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Nothing wrong with that, @Lanny. I figure our ears are just getting better and better in listening for details and hearing the finer nuances… :smile:

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Thanks @terb… One of the more difficult songs I’ve taken on to cover… Almost like playing my bass like I would play my ‘52 Tele… The difficulty wasn’t as much in playing the notes, it was more in playing them fast and precise. Since I’ve always predominantly played Rock on my Tele’s by simply playing nothing more than an “A Pentatonic” scale, this song’s groove fit right in…

Gotta say that it was much easier to play on Mango tuned to BEAD though…

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Because the tuning allowed you to play it higher up the neck?? Or??

Thx!

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Yes!! Instead of playing the song between the 3rd and 9th frets (10” fretboard span), I was able to play it between the 8th and 14th frets (7.5” fretboard span). Playing fast note changes is much easier in shorter distances (play faster with less effort)… Gotta remember, I’m an old guitar player and as such can pretty much always find an easy way to make things look and sound difficult…

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That’s an interesting point you’re talking about. I’m pretty sure it’s a good education for ears to learn/do/record covers, but also to listen carefully to someone else’s bass line !

it’s probably even more challenging in the case of my covers, because of the “noisy” side of the songs but also because I don’t mix to make the bass easy to ear. (no criticism here for anyone, it’s just what I think being a fact)

sure ! it makes absolutly no doubt. and here it’s another interesting point, I like the idea to make experience and realize what we did in the past, what path we used to follow etc … and it’s a great thing to have the conscience of what has been easy or difficult to do, I think.

could anyone say which song has been the most difficult/challenging for me, in all the covers I did since the beginning of this thread ? I would love to read your guess about this :v::grin:

and that’s another interesting use of a BEAD-dedicated-bass (and even a good reason to have a BEAD-dedicated-bass). if you use it in the EADG range, it’s like a very short scale bass with huge strings, it’s not so common in fact ! and probably even more interesting for us former guitar players :grin:

(explaination for non-guitarists : that’s because we can move our fingers very fast but in a short range, and the bass long scale can be a problem)

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