Song: Higher and Higher
Artist: Jackie Wilson
Tuning: Standard (EADG)
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I got into this bass game to rock, but I never knew how much I’d love playing motown. This and My Girl have easily been my favorite songs to play in the 50 song challenge so far. I really needed to stay loose to keep pace, great song to warm up with. I keep forgetting to order that foam @John_E to dampen my lively strings, so the tone is not authentic but tried to tame the beast a little. One other technical note, Moises was unable to remove much of the bass track from the original this time, most likely because it would be blasphemous to mute Jamerson.
https://youtu.be/jGH9n__bMoo
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Nice job!
I am close to being done with this one.
Your tone is great as is for sure here.
The foam would drop out that tiny bit of twang you still have but its really good as is.
Great job on this, a couple very very minor timing misses, but your fills are just great.
I think I used the EQ trick @terb taught us to take out the muddier basslines like this (I cannot remember where that picture of the EQ is from Terb.
Motown is SUPER fun to play for sure.
Here is what has become my #1 viewed video up on YouTube…
https://youtu.be/rS7DUu6lTlM
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Thanks a lot John, I always appreciate the feedback! Yeah I had good time improvising the fills. Oh the pentatonic scale never gets old to me.
I see why! Great performances on both instruments. The split screen is a nice touch. Love the way the bassline drives the tune along.
Very nice! My fingers started feeling worn out as I watched your’s keep up with that super repetitive riff. I need to get back to this one and commit it to muscle memory. Great job on the fills too. Love 'em!
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Thanks a lot @7over! Welcome to the BassBuzz Forum 
That’s the key, get it on autopilot. If I start thinking about it, it’s all over.
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I’ve always liked this song so when I saw it on the challenge I ruched off, dusted off the Hofner and got rehearsing!
I’m fairly happy with the result but with hindsight I would use less bass on the selector and maybe change to roundwounds. Or use a ton of production - I added some compression and cut the 100hz band in Audacity. I still can’t get rid of the popping sound - I think I’m hitting the strings a bit too hard.
Anyway when you get into the groove with this one you can play it for hours. Definitely trying some more Motown.
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Nice job @Ed
This one is kicking my ass.
I agree its fun to play, I play it almost every day, and then I put on the track, which is going at somewhere north of a million beats per minute (so it seems) and I fall apart.
Took you a couple reps to fall into the groove, and the second riff threw you off a bit (just like me), but you recover very well.
This is not an easy bassline, and once you were in the groove you nailed it.
The Hofner sounds really good on this, well done.
Ugh, really need to get ‘good enough’ at this one and move on.
Cheers to you for pushing through it.
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Nice job @Ed!
The Motown has been my favorite part about the 50 song challenge. Not sure I would have learned these if I wasn’t doing it. This stuff really builds your groove chops.
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Thanks @John_E ! It took a little bit of time to make myself comfortable but it was plain sailing from then on It’s definitely a case of turn on and zone out because when you stop to think what you’re doing it all falls apart. 
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Oh yeah - I’m kind of looking forward to the James Brown track now…
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Absolutely! You’ve inspired me to finish this damn song.
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Let’s begin by stating I used to love this song.
I hate to play this song.
Speed it not my friend, but it is finally done (close enough).
Plenty of missed notes but moving on.
This literally took me months and months of coming back to and going a bit faster and faster to get even remotely close, then, once at speed I couldn’t keep it up for the whole song.
Bye-bye Jackie Wilson, moving on.
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You did it! Way to keep at it, this song is speed work out for sure. Nailed the timing and tone in classic @John_E fashion.
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This is one I’ve been practicing fragments of for a while but could never quite pull it all together. This isn’t an excellent example but I’d call it pretty good. I was originally using my fretless bass for most of tracking but I decided to pick up the JINO and give it a go with that bass. The resulting track was pretty good so here we are.
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Ya this one took some time for me to for it to click in at speed, it’s a tough tune to keep at pace and keep the groove in the pocket, but you did a really great job @cheeze_pizza !!!
For some reason I felt very satisfied when I was able to complete this one.
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Sounded fabuloso to me! You made it look easy, but it is a tricky one
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Thanks John! It does feel great to ave this one under the belt. I find myself playing the main riff quite often.
Thanks man! This one was also on the final Badass test so that helped prepare. Now I need to jump in the Statue of Liberty and slime the heck out of NYC! 
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Okay, I have to say that this is done, but it is far from perfect on my end. Next songs say that I should feel good, so I hope it will be better.
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It took me a long long long long long time continually coming back to this one before I got it even close to right.
It is a simple bassline that is deceptively difficult to play with perfect timing for the length of the song. And it’s a super fast riff!
Overall pretty good @Johnnyb - to me your found the groove and fell in perfectly til the end about 1/2 way in, which was the opposite of my struggle, which was keeping the groove going for what felt like the longest 3 minutes of my life.
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