So what ya do when the college playoff game between Oklahoma and LSU is a complete blowout?? Make another cover!!
In this one, I’m playing the bass line to “Gimme Some Lovin” by the Spencer Davis Group using my Yamaha TRBX174EW Passive Bass since this particular bass really works well with the “Blue Eyed Soul” genre of this piece. This is a great song with a simple yet effective bass line groove. Timing and tone are the key elements in this piece, and string muting is a must in order to keep the notes clean - especially when playing with the nickel round wound strings on my 174. The Babitz bridge that I put on this bass also helps quite a bit (IMHO) - but then again, bass set-up is always a most important ingredient in playability and tonal qualities.
I believe that @terb had a great idea creating this thread months ago when we were going through the B2B course at the same time and it’s certainly grown quite a bit since then. What I’d like to do is try and add a little “History” to each each of mine since that is one of the biggest reasons I love playing bass to the ‘Classics’… SO… Here’s a little bit of music history that I found interesting…
This song was originally recorded and released in 1966, and written by Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis, and Muff Winwood, (Steve’s older brother), and also the groups bass player. Muff is also credited with producing the first Dire Straits album ‘Dire Straits’ in 1978.
Great @Lanny ! I love this song and it’s on my infinite cover list very nicely played ! and very nice and appropriate bass tone. love it !
I like the little story/text with each cover, I try to do this too (more to explain how the things has been going with my cover/recording process for a particular song, but it could be also about the relashionship I have with a song, a band or even a musical style) and I find it’s a funny way to talk about some interesting points !
Here is my last cover for the 2019 season, with some sludgecore from Arkansas
Sleuthfoot - A Little Suffering
I have some habbit of this kind of sludgy bass lines, but the biggest problem for me here was the tuning, because this song is in Drop-C (which is CGCF) or at least that’s the way I transcribed it. With the 45/105 gauge I have on the SBV, the strings tension is very low, barrely playable, and this requires a very precise control over the attack and finger pressure on the frets. I’m wondering how this kind of line will feel with the low-tuning dedicated bass I’m currently building, with huge 65/130 strings !
Fun fact : this song has been released very recently, only two weeks ago (dec 13 2019)
DAMN @terb!!.. You KILLED it!! The attack was friggin’ awesome! Not an easy song to play to at all. And to try with 65/130’s?? Damn man, that’s gonna be like bangin’ lows lower than whale shit dude!! Pickin’ notes on the suspension wires of the Golden Gate Bridge!!
Anyway, LOVE the attack on this one, and… And damn man… No greenie??
haha thank you @Lanny ! you’re right, this kind of song is not so easy. the timing especially is very critical. There are some variations, a lot of “rebounds”, some tempo slow down, and the pattern is not always very logical to me (and that’s something I like).
Greenie was out of the game here : with 40/100 strings there is no way to go lower than Drop-D. but the SBV works pretty well for those heavy stuff, as the low end can remain relatively tight thanks to the pickups. and I like the not-very-appropriate surf music look
So the whole reason I went to Ochanomizu yesterday was to try and find these English Bass Centre Elites strings. The Peter Hook signature ones are 65/105 and that huge G string just has to sound awesome. It hadn’t occurred to me to go with a larger E string though. That’s a really really good idea, looking forward to hearing how it works out for you.
My only worry is the nut might need to be filed out to accommodate it.
in fact 5-string basses are very rare in all the stoner/sludge/doom world. a down-tuned 4-string works great. we mostly see Fender Precision and Rickenbacker 4003 basses : fat and punchy instruments.
for now I mostly play in drop-D so Greenie is currently set up for this tuning, and in most cases it’s enough in the low range. but for lower pitches I plan to set up the Jim Harley PB for BEAD/AEAD which is the tuning (standard/dropped) of the four lower strings on a 5-string bass. it should be a nice addon to my existing basses and so, this BEAD/AEAD Precision will use the four lower strings of a 5-string set to archieve the 65/130 gauge :
But wouldn’t it be easier?? Or is it too much “poser” to wield a 5-string??
I guess what you are doing is turning a 4-string into a “pseudo”-5-string and leaving off the G string as it probably has no use anyway in that type of music!?!
Anyway, off to buy some line seed oil, such that I can treat the fretboard as I am about to change strings and lower the action on my P copy…
I don’t think it would be easier, it would just be useless ! exactly like 7-string guitars, nobody uses this in stoner/sludge/doom. tuning to drop-D or drop-C is not more complicated than having too much strings, I think. Well I guess it depends on how you see things. Personnally I like to keep things simple and I don’t want 5 strings if I need only 4 !
very nicely played ! and very nice and appropriate bass tone. love it !
