Bottom-End, Writings and Reviews from Music Producer Pete Strobl

To continue on the subject of Mouth Mechanics in general and Voiced Consonants in particular, Here is a little written homework assignment for all of you singers who are not competing for the title “LQBM”  (Least Qualified Band Member.) To review definitions for a moment, Voiced Consonants are those sounds which are not vowels, are created using the same mechanics as the Unvoiced Consonants, and are produced concurrent to phonation or the vocal cords engaging to create pitch.

The more obvious Voiced Consonants are those which can be sustained over long notes. These are L, M, N, the American R, V (F) and Z (S). Less obvious but voiced nonetheless are those which combine pitch with a slight burst of air. These are B (P), D (T), Soft G as in George and J (CH), and Hard G as in gag (K).

The consonants in parenthesis are the Unvoiced versions created with the same mechanics but without pitch. G and K for example are both formed by releasing the closure created by the base of the tongue meeting the tip of the soft palette. The difference between God and Cod therefore rests merely upon a split second of pitch.

Yes, it can be argued that there are many permutations of these sounds but these should be enough to get you started. Besides, the time you spend offering evidence that X is not really just KS would be better spent making yourself better, wouldn’t it?

Okay, so you wanna get into this right? Here’s the first assignment:

You’ll need multiple copies of your lyric sheet for this exercise.

1. Go through your lyrics very carefully and identify EVERY Voiced Consonant by underlining it.

2. Now go back and circle each Voiced Consonant which is at the beginning of a new word or a new syllable.

For example:  the word new begins with an EN sound which is a Voiced Consonant. In the word renew, the second syllable also begins with the EN sound and should be circled.

3. Go back and make a box around every Voiced Consonant which is either at the end of a word or at the end of a syllable inside a word.

For example: The word exam ends with the EM sound. In the word examination, the second syllable also ends in the EM sound.

4. Go through your lyrics and notate each Voiced Consonant which begins a word or syllable on a pitch higher than the note immediately previous to the Voiced Consonant sound. Use the “My Bonny” example as your guide.

This all might seem like busy work but repetition is key if you want to instantly and instinctively identify problem areas that can actually become very helpful tools in the development of more expressive singing.

The thing you are trying to accomplish here is to understand the difference between consonants you sing through and those which sonically interrupt the act of singing. Let’s use the word accomplish as an example and assume that its three syllables go up the first three notes of the major scale. We would separate the word like this…Uh-kahmp-lish. The EL sound of the syllable Lish must be identified as being at the start of the last syllable and not at the end of the second syllable (The P is a puff of air and the subject of a different article altogether. Forget it for the moment and concentrate on the EL). And yet, how many singers would place the EL sound on the same note as Kahmp and then find that they must quickly slide up to the next note with their mouth open while singing the Ih vowel. And if the melody required the third syllable to be sung at a larger interval the slide would be even more exposed as would be the singers sloppy approach.

So to review:

Voiced Consonants have pitch.

Voiced Consonants must be be executed (Some of you probably want the sentence to end right there, I’m sure) with the same support and attention to sonic detail as the vowel sounds.

When a Voiced Consonant begins a word or syllable, it should occur on the same pitch as the word or syllable itself.

When a Voiced Consonant ends a word or syllable, it should not fall off in pitch but rather provide the word or syllable with a clean cutoff with sonic and rhythmic accuracy.

As in all things artistic, there are many exceptions. Artistic singing has more to do with communicating ideas and emotions than it does with carefully obeying arbitrary rules posted on the internet by pedantic maniacs like yours truly. However, slovenly executed Voiced Consonants are like a quarter-inch hair mole hanging from an otherwise stunningly beautiful woman’s nostril. No matter how badly you want to get into the vibe of the moment, you find your focus returning to that one little follicular blemish. So if your listeners are being distracted and can’t get into it because you’re sliding around on your consonants, no matter how artistically intended,  it might be a good idea to adopt the motto, “It’s perfectly okay to know what I’m doing.” Do some homework!

For those not fluent in the Lingua Franca da Cornu, or, the way horn players talk, the term Jump Street means from the top, at the beginning, right off the bat, from the left, immediately. For example, if a jazz trumpeter were to say “I knew the skirt made change from jump street.” his friends would understand that, in his opinion, the girl in question was a known purveyor of sexual commerce from the very beginning. There, that should clarify the title, but more about Groove Duke and the “IT” being nailed in a moment.

There was a time when recordings, really good recordings, were being made by really good people as a matter of routine. These recording projects came in under budget, everybody usually got paid and if they were successful, there might have been a little $omething on the back end. This was back in the days before iPods. Audio-philogically it was the Cro-Magnon era of monophonic AM radio. The mono 45 rpm record is to the mp3 as cave painting is to CGI. A friend of mine has an old Chrysler with the original tube radio and I have to say man, old-school R&B popping out the top of that single dashboard speaker still gets the hairs on my neck up and dancing.

So now, here we are in the summer of 2010. Recording budgets have become somewhat of an oddity on display in the history museum. The skill set of composing and recording digital music is approaching that of virtual Playstation auto theft with the results being a fairly accurate representation of the circumstances under which the crime was committed. Okay, that’s a bit strong, but there can be no argument that, under the heading of of self-produced recording projects, there exists a lot of crappy music parading under false pretenses.

Out of this fog and into the harbor sails the Heavy Mariner. This freshman release from Chicago’s own Groove Duke, Mark Alan Cornell, has somehow managed to corral a cracking ensemble of living, breathing musicians, singers, technical personnel and other mercenaries for next to nothing to produce a body of work that does exactly what a horn-driven R&B album should do…it makes you smile.

Heavy Mariner

Groove Duke provides plenty to love for everyone on this album. The horn arrangements are tightly written and performed and the solo playing eloquently serves the songs rather than the players egos, a welcome element and the benchmark of experienced road warriors. The Rhythm Section, capitalized out of respect to the album personnel, is a heaving beast of groove. There is nothing mechanical about this band. The true test of any Rhythm section is a slow shuffle and the depth of feel in You Better Believe It is like being tied to a chair next to a sleeping Rhinoceros. The back beat pops at the last possible instant and what seems to be a groovy little tune is actually quite sinister under the shiny facade. And let me say something about sounds. I’ve spent hours watching engineers trying to get rid of a snare drum ping. But wait til you check out Judas Love. A ping never felt so right. From the single, Stick Boy right down the line, the Rhythm Section kicks the rest of the band square in the ass and handing in a less-than-my-best-stuff performance doesn’t seem to be an option for anyone.

But let me get to what makes this album really work in the tradition of classic R&B records. Instrumentals are great and who can’t find love in their heart for Squib Cakes, Home Cookin’ and What Does It Take. But the ultimate connection with an audience happens at the vocal mic. That’s where the story unfolds, that’s where the guts get spilled, that’s where all the joy, pain, faith and details are put on display for everyone to see and hear. And it is at the vocal mic that this album makes its boldest statement. Pauli Carman, the voice, heart and soul behind Champaign’s How ‘Bout Us produced the background vocals so it will come as no shock that they are stellar in every way. The arrangements are classic and familiar without being trite and Cornell’s stories couldn’t be told without the marvelous interplay so characteristic of great R&B vocal ensembles.

Mark Cornell

Mark Cornell’s singing chops are deceptively musical. While he isn’t Al Green, Teddy Pendergrass, Donald Fagan, Sly Stone or even Wayne Cochran, his original dialect is derivative of a massive hit singles collection. But it isn’t beauty of tone in the usual sense that make Cornell’s vocals compelling. Cornell is first and foremost a musician in general and a trumpet player in particular, a combination that has proven both interesting and successful in the past. Witness Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker and Jack Sheldon for example. Of the three, only Baker had what most would consider a pleasing voice in the strictest terms, but all three are masterful singers who get the point across on a most intimate level. Accomplished Jazz musicians have a sense of intonation, time and phrasing rare even in the best golden-throated vocalists. Cornell is cut from the same whole cloth and when he tells you a story you listen and believe. Sometimes he’s the guy across the bar and sometimes he’s sneering menacingly into your ear as in the afore-mentioned You Better Believe It. His emotions run from zero to sixty but he is always consistently “That Guy” and you just want to hear more.

Which brings me to my only real issue with this album. Does Mark Cornell see himself as a trumpet player who sings or as a singer who plays trumpet? There is never a moment on the album where I say to myself, “Damn, I wish that trumpet was louder.”  I can’t say the same for the lead vocals. There are sections where the background vocals, excellent as they are, could step back a few feet from the front of the stage. But I can’t blame them because it feels as if Cornell is having an “I’m really just a trumpet guy doing the best I can.” moment. I got news for you Mr. Cornell. You’re busted! No matter what you think, you sing your ass off so step up and accept a 5dB boost in the mix for your bad self.

Getting back to the craft of making records that sound and, more importantly, feel good, Heavy Mariner kicks the hell out of some projects costing a boatload of money. Everyone involved with this record knew exactly what they were doing and did it well. It sounds like just a good time weekend in the studio with a bunch of pals but anyone in the know will tell you how much is involved in an album like this.

Heavy Mariner from Groove Duke started out as a Sellaband project but Mark Cornell made it happen on his own. Above all, the album makes you smile. Yeah, there is the obligatory instrumental to open the show. But my face started cracking open about halfway through the drum fill that starts I Get The Picture and I was a stepping, grinning mess for the duration.

Get yourself a copy, go find someone with an old mono sound system, preferably in the dashboard of a mid-sixties chrome-encrusted land-yacht and roll the windows down. Just don’t forget to floss because you’re gonna to be grinnin’. The “IT” is old school R&B and Groove Duke is nailin’ it right from Jump Street.

Is writing a song an art resulting from divine inspiration or is it a craft accomplished by technical know-how and repetitious practice? Arguments can be made for both concepts and numerous examples given of inspired songwriters with limited technical training. But for the young aspiring musician of today with a modern arsenal of digital music making tools at hand, what if inspiration falls short? Wouldn’t it serve young musicians to put inspiration on hold for a moment and explore the craft of musical construction in order to build a more powerful vocabulary. Then, when the coconut of inspiration cracks open a head full of ideas, the aspiring songsmith will be able to decide which of the many available options are most suited to convey artistic intentions most effectively.

One of the biggest obstacles to overcome in becoming a songwriter is the notion that every note issuing from the pen is sacrosanct. One must come to grips with the idea that out of a hundred songs, maybe a handful will be meaningful. Writing the rejected material however, is far from a waste of time. Indeed, it is precisely the time spent writing embarrassing garbage which results in the ability to recognize and sort out what works from what doesn’t. Think of it as doing a computer search. The first step your computer takes in looking for a file is to eliminate the irrelevant files and narrow down the areas to search effectively. In other words, if you are searching for toilet paper, you already know that the frozen food aisle is a waste of time. Yet it is not uncommon for inexperienced songwriters to waste time and energy digging under the frozen peas and pizza for something being displayed for half price with a coupon in the paper aisle.

Here is a simple exercise in songwriting that is painfully basic but time well spent. It is an exercise in simplicity and exploits the fact that many popular song structures are much simpler than we would care to admit. Let’s take three basic chords for our harmonic vocabulary. E Major, A Major and D Major. If we write the three chords in every possible sequential combination, we have the following results:

1) E, A, D    2) E, D, A    3) A, D, E    4) A, E, D    5) D, A, E    6) D, E, A.

Write each chord sequence on a piece of paper and throw all six pieces into a hat. Now take one piece of paper from the hat as you would in choosing the winning raffle ticket. Play this combination of chords in the given sequence for at least five minutes. Don’t try to make anything more out of it than it is. Just set the drum machine, sequencer or egg timer to five minutes and let the chords decide the groove. After five minutes, try singing a simple melody over the chords. Let your ears do the thinking and don’t try to come up with something that the world has never heard before. If you have a short lyrical idea in mind, go ahead and try to incorporate it but the idea is to build a melodic vocabulary inspired by three simple chords. You can sing “Granny wears army boots” for all I care, just explore as many melodic ideas as possible.

Now, choose another piece of paper and repeat the exercise until you’ve gone through all six chord progressions. If you can refrain from thinking too much you should be able to get through the entire hatful in an hour. Then, to make things more interesting, choose two pieces at a time and start your timer.

For young bands slugging it out in the garage as to whose idea has the most value, this exercise will not only expand everyone’s abilities but also serve to let every band member contribute to the group’s musical vocabulary. Each member can pull a sequence and the whole band can play the sequence as a unit. In this way, every member has the chance to direct the band through their sequence in turn. Whoever pulls the paper out of the hat gets to produce the track so to speak, and the combination of everyone’s input will increase the band’s ability to write as a unit.

“Three chords” you say. And I answer emphatically, “Yep! Three simple chords.” As a matter of fact, if you do the exercise, you’ll find that about a million songs will come to mind. And the reason they will come to mind is that they were hit records…and that is the whole point, isn’t it? To learn how to write a hit song. Artists like Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, CSNY, Bob Dylan on and on and on haven’t been embarrassed to express their artistic inspiration through the use of just three chords and neither should you. And when the times comes to get really tricky and need to say your piece with five or six chords, you won’t be rummaging around in the freezer wondering where the damned toilet paper went.

I made the switch from gym rat to studio rat when I realized that breaking fingers on the basketball court didn’t add much to a bass track. So I hung up the old sneakers, grabbed my bass with both hands and took my gym rat mentality with me into any studio with a good espresso machine. What can I say? The things I would forego for a chance to be in the room with the guys and gals is a very short list. And that is why I jumped at the invitation to travel to Holland to work on Traveling Girl with some good friends who also happen to know their way around a recording studio.

I was picked up at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport by the Traveling girl herself, Lille Mulder. As we knew each other only by email, we both did a few laps around the terminal before the process of elimination successfully put us into the car together. The two hour drive to Dick Kemper’s Studio in Doetinchen gave us a chance to tell our life stories and lay the groundwork for the two week’s work ahead.

Dick Kemper

S&K Studio reflected all the know how of the seasoned musician/engineer/producer that is Dick Kemper. Dick toured the world as the bassist of Vandenberg sharing major concert venues with Metallica and Ozzy and that experience combined with the intervening years of recording have served to create a consummate studio pro. I was here to work with Lille  only on the vocal tracks but a quick tour of the studio and a listen to the basic tracks told me that she would have plenty of inspiration to draw upon when it was her turn on the other side of the glass.

As good as Dick is at his job, any engineer or producer will tell you that they are only as good as the talent holding the guitar or bass, or in the case of Nico Groen, hitting things with sticks. And in this department Dick had plenty to work with. The producer of The Traveling Girl is my good pal Casper van Vulpen and Casper started the project off with plenty of wind in his sails by choosing great songs to record and the right combination of players to make the magic happen. This project was truly an international effort as Casper had gathered the forces of a Russian from Poland, a Polish songwriter from England, a British writer from London, an Austrian from Los Angeles, a rhythm section from Holland and one of the best singers I’ve worked with in years. Lock the doors and get the coffee going. This was going to be more fun than a pick up game at the Fourth Street cage in the Village.

The Traveling Girl

Lille was a dream to work with. Many singers can be temperamental, moody or demanding. Lille was all of these but in a very unique way. Where some singer’s moods or demands are driven by insecurity, inability or lack of preparation, Lille took full responsibility and her demands were only of herself. And where some singers might hit the wall of their endurance or storm out of the room blaming it all on the headphone mix or the color of the pop filter, Lille forced every mood directly through the microphone and into her vocal performance for upwards of eight hours at a stretch.

The main focus of my involvement was in creating authentic and sincere vocal performances with a singer in English as a second and sometimes third language. Regrettably, I only know how to say “Goddammit” “Two Beers” and “Screwing in the kitchen” in the Dutch language but Lille and I were able to work together in German as well as English. I find sincerity to be the most attractive element of any vocal performance and this must be based on not only a thorough understanding but also a convincing belief in the lyrical content of a song.

Producer Casper van Vulpen

Whenever studio rats get gather in the temple of sound they follow a timeless ritual. Everyone let’s everyone else know who they know, which new plug-ins they use, choice of recording software, past, present and future drug, alcohol and gambling profile and whatever other factoids seem pertinent to the session. It’s just a bit of canine butt-sniffing really, but it serves to lubricate the initial get-to-know-you period better than passing out resumes. We already knew each other via the internet so the circle sniff was just a bit if handshaking and joke telling. Before I hit the pillow that first night I felt warmly sniffed into the pack.

My second day in Holland Lille and I went to work in earnest. As we went line by line dissecting the finer points of pronunciation we also discussed the inner meaning of every phrase. Sometimes when writers create in a foreign language they might say something that makes perfect literal sense but loses symbolic meaning or poetic value in the translation. There were a few corners to smooth over in this department and we changed a few words or phrases to insure that Lille was portraying the feeling behind the meaning with belief, conviction and precision.

Nico Groen at S&K Studio

I had initially thought to coach Lille into a strictly American pronunciation but her delivery has a certain international charm which we certainly did not want to lose. So we concentrated on clarity and those areas where letter sounds differ between Dutch, German and English while retaining the feel and passion which went into the original demos of the songs. On a technical level, most problems arise when losing the distinction between voiced and un-voiced consonants. Using the word “Love” as an example, the ‘V’ must have pitch. Dutch and German speakers pronounce the word as “Luff” because their ‘V’ is our ‘F’ and so “Live” becomes “Life” and “Very” becomes “Fairy.” Another pitfall is the American ‘TH’ sound which doesn’t exist in many European languages. To make the sound one must extend the tip of the tongue between the teeth and blow out a puff of air. Euros tend to replace the ‘TH’ with either the hard ‘D’ or the sibilants ‘Z’ or ‘S’ as in “Vaht do you Sink about ziss.” And, as the sentence indicates, even our ‘S’ sound has voiced and un-voiced versions as does the ‘TH’…hear the difference between “This” and “Think” “What’s” and “Was.” And then there is our ‘W’ which is their ‘V’…so our “Was” would be pronounced “Vass” two corrections for the price of one on that one.

The key was to make the corrections seem effortless and allow the vocal performance to be driven by Lille’s amazing sense of phrasing. As I got to know her day by day I learned that Lille is fierce when it comes to learning new things. She was hell-bent on mastering whatever I suggested and made notes on the lyric sheets, wrote on the leg of her jeans, pounded the table and repeated the ‘TH’ sound until I had to cover my coffee cup. But I didn’t want her to obsess so the best and most efficient learning came through simple conversation. We decided that when in the studio we would speak only English and I would try to catch and correct every mispronunciation as it happened.

Lille keeping an eye on Roland Franken

There are many structured exercises aimed at engaging the diaphragmatic-intercostal musculature but none is more efficient than uncontrolled laughter. Being among new friends gave me a fresh audience for the jokes that elicit groans from my stateside friends and I took full advantage. Teaching the jokes to Lille was also a way to practice Americanized idiomatic pronunciation. What seemed to be breaks in the work were actually quite useful and her delivery of the songs as well as her complete understanding of the intent behind them improved at a fast clip.

Two weeks later my job was done and Lille dropped me at the airport where she had first found me. We were in the studio every day and the two weeks seemed like one long session. Working with Casper, Kostek, Dick Kemper and especially Lille had made the time go much too quickly and on the Los Angeles bound flight I wished that we had been making a double album. The musicians played their asses off, Lille sang her ass off, Dick engineered his ass off and now my ass was off for home.

Traveling Girl will be  available online and represents the hard work of very talented people from all corners of the globe (yes, I know that the globe doesn’t have corners, just go with me on that one). It was a ton of fun to be involved with the project, the music and, most importantly, the people. I hope you all enjoy it.

When I was in my twenties I worshiped at the altar of funk. James Brown, Tower Of Power, Ohio Players…you get the picture. If they marketed action figures of funk musicians my toy box would have looked like the line-up at an Oakland barbeque and funk fest. From my perspective, country music was completely of, by and  for sequined, cowboy-hatted shit-kickers who lived in trailers with two cars parked on cement blocks in the front yard. If anyone had told me that The Ohio Players’ wardrobe was  as ridiculous as Porter Wagoner’s there would have been trouble.

But as a musician who earned the daily bread by making club crowds of many persuasions happy, I found myself in playing situations that didn’t always correspond with my personal tastes. That didn’t prevent me from being a smart ass and when a customer would request a country song, my witty answer would be, “Sure, what country?” Thankfully I grew out of my bias to discover that there was crappy music to be ridiculed in every genre and, as I gained further wisdom, great music to be cherished as well.

Over the years and during the time I managed The Band’s old haunt, Shangri La, I had the pleasure of getting to know and appreciate the work of some great rock musicians who had one foot planted firmly in a cowboy boot at some time in their career. I can also say that standing on the stage of the Grand Old Opry and playing to the 4,000 fans who fill the concert hall was one of the big thrills and chills of my playing career. Patsy Cline, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash have become as firmly ensconced in my iPod as my erstwhile funk gods and I feel no sense of disloyalty shuffling between What Is Hip and Your Cheating Heart.

Katie Thompson

There is an up and coming young country artist on Sellaband who answers my “Sure, what country?” dumb-ass question with a vengeance. Katie Thompson is a classic country singer/song writer from what is probably Nashville’s most remote satellite, New Zealand. Katie exhibits her own sense of style, opting for cocktail dresses over blue jeans as she leads her accomplished band through a repertoire of classic country tempered by her Kiwi upbringing.

Katie’s three original tracks on her Sellaband profile page indicate that she has the potential of becoming a household name not only in New Zealand but anywhere that hosts “Electric Slide” night. When she reaches the budgetary goal of $50,000 Katie will have the opportunity to go into the studio with the right people and the right toys to create an album worthy of her honest approach to writing and singing. Her vocal delivery is intimate in the vein of classic story tellers like Emmy Lou Harris and Patsy Cline. Katie doesn’t deal in pyrotechnics or phony gospel riffing. She just tells a story as if she were talking over the back fence and her fresh sincerity is her most engaging quality.

Tall Poppy is written and sung with the voice of a typical young person battling the slings and arrows of peer pressure as she develops a sense of self worth in a cruel world. The story, while common to anyone who hasn’t been raised by wolves, is nevertheless a persecution unique to each individual. Everyone coming of age in the world of schoolyard, fashion, teen dances and the required accoutrements associated with being “cool” has moments when they feel themselves too tall, too short, too skinny, too fat, too stupid or too smart to be considered acceptable by their peers. Katie’s angst laden lyrics ride over a deceptively cheerful rhythmic track but the darkness of the chord progression brings clearly into focus the pain of wanting to be accepted . The guitar playing on this as well as all three of Katie’s Sellaband tracks is not only well executed but tasteful and most importantly, relevant to the song.

Tall Poppy

Monteiths On Tap is a bit of fun and could very well be the hook that lands the big fish for Katie. One can quibble about product placement or the political correctness of glorifying the imbibement ( I think I just invented a word) all the way to the steps of their favorite house of worship, but what is a good old country song if not a paean of praise for either fast cars, faster trucks, loyal dogs and good beer? New Zealand’s Monteiths Brewery has stepped up to the plate in supporting Katie’s Sellaband journey and well they should. Who can say how many Monteiths empties land in the recycling bin the morning after one of Katie’s appearances at a pub pouring the “liquid gold?” Wonderful resonator guitar work on this track, while the feel of the rhythm section never strays from the “sawdust on the floor” vibe that just begs for another round.

The third track on Katie’s Sellaband profile is an introspectively dark recitativo of bittersweet goodbyes. The emotion of the song, as in the case of Tall Poppy, is one to which any listener can easily relate. I don’t like to repeat myself but here again the guitar work provides a perfect sense of yearning to Katie’s wrenching story. Katie’s song writing skills, while well down the path of becoming memorable, could do with a bit of soul searching here. She has great instincts and her topic choice is right on the money. But some of her lyrics, while not being brazenly cliche, could be more intimately powerful with a tweak here and there.

Song writing is an exercise in telling a story or conveying an emotion that can be related to by the broadest possible cross section of an audience. This is what makes a song popular, and why bother to put music before the public if popularity is not the desired result.The magic of masterful song writing lies in the ability of the writer to say something in a way that is familiar yet original. When Bob Dylan sings “The answer is blowin’ in the wind” we say to ourselves “Well of course it is. Who didn’t know that!” But inside we all know that we could never have come up with such a simple way to state the obvious. Economy and eloquence are bought and paid for in currency represented by reams of discarded lyric sheets.

Katie Thompson is deep in the process of honing her craft and this can be a critical phase in the development of a young writer. Staring at a page of lyrics with the unbiased eye of a supreme court justice and knowing what will go on an album and what will better serve as kindling for the grill is not a skill that comes easily. That process marks the difference between great songs that remain relevant for generations and about a gazillion MP3s on Myspace.

When Katie reaches her $50,000 budget on Sellaband, New Zealand, with a population of 4.3 million, will have cornered what might be the highest degree of success per capita on the internet crowd sourcing platform.  Katie Thompson’s success combined with Sellaband Hip-Hopper Maitreya will have made a strong showing for New Zealanders.  And with Katie’s Sellaband release, I’ll no longer be asking “Sure, what country?”

The invention and marketing of the electric bass represents the dawn of modern recorded music. Giving the event the weight it deserves moves me to declare that we are now living in the year 59 F.E. or “Fender Era.” The amplified solid-body bass holds a special double-faceted place in modern music. First developed as a way for bassists to compete with amplified guitars, the increase in stage volume eventually caused guitar players to turn up their own amplifiers to the point of distortion thereby becoming the pivotal influence in creating a rich soundscape with equipment tortured beyond previously acceptable limits.

The electric bass is a mule combining the strength and firm footing of a donkey with the sleek lines of a thoroughbred. Recording this beast can be as challenging as you want to make it but keeping the function of the bass in mind will ensure that you don’t go astray. To put it into pugilistic terms, leave the jabs and uppercuts to the guitars. Bass notes are the “low blows” of any good track. All’s fair in love, war and rock and nothing says it better than a size 15 boot to the balls. The bass has such influence on a track that even a light tap to the right spot will get the listeners attention.

My Outboard Rig

As to the proper equipment, simplicity is the key. After trying all of the amazing toys dedicated to bass amplification I’ve found that nothing will make a crap bass sound acceptable while there is an abundance of tinkertoys that can fuck up a great sounding instrument. So let’s begin at the beginning and make some decisions as to which instrument should get the gig. The vast majority of bass tracks we hold in special reverence were recorded on Fender basses. The Precision and later, the Jazz bass were so prevalent in recording studios that many professionally copied charts were designated “Fender Bass” in the upper left hand corner. The sound of the instrument was usually captured by direct injection (DI) to the recording console and if an amp was used it was usually a low wattage Ampeg B-15 or something equally as portable.

Ampeg B-15

During the past 30 years I’ve had every bass imaginable in my hands and I recognize the attraction of having a lot of pretty things hanging on the studio wall. But it seems that the dominating feature most often associated with high end basses is that it “gets that old Fender sound.” I have a revelation for you, so do the new Fenders…even the cheap ones! I played a $200 Squire recently that sounded more like an “old Fender” than many basses with 10 times the price tag. Think about it, what is an electric bass? A flat piece of cheap wood bolted to a long piece of hardwood, some strings and a primitive magnetic coil like we used to make in science class out of wire and a 16 penny nail. Like the string bass before it, the electric bass is a physical instrument that responds best when man-handled and all the gizmos that make it easier to play can sometimes emasculate a track.

Bass tracks are not just low notes and there is a fine line between punch and definition. It can be difficult to make out precisely what notes James Jamerson was playing on his early electric recordings, but there was no lack of bottom end punch. Many modern basses and bass rigs offer much wider frequency ranges than were available to early electric players, but it was the physical act of pulling sound out of a primitive instrument that made recordings by guys like Jamerson, Tommy Cogbill, Joe Osborn and Donald “Duck” Dunn have the punch that made a generation dance. The tools to make that happen are still here and are not hard to find.

The first step for any aspiring bassist should always be to learn to play the damned thing. Find a decent bass and don’t plug it in. Play for hours until you can hear and feel the instrument with a minimum of non musical noises. See how long you can get low notes to last.  I remember my first lesson with Monty Budwig. He had me play a low ‘F’ and then pressed my finger down into the fingerboard with both of his thumbs and had me play it again. The sound was twice as big and he said, “That’s the way a bass sounds. Don’t ever forget that it’s a physical instrument.” Once you’ve got the physical aspect of the bass under your belt you can proceed to get your rig together. But always remember that the sound and feel must come from you and the plank, not the gear. Half-assed playing through great amplification is just louder half-assed playing.

A bit of sponge

Older basses were fitted with sponge mutes. I’m not a nazi about keeping every detail of an instrument intact and the bridge cover holding the mute was usually the first thing to end up lost in a drawer. But they do have a very useful purpose and I frequently wedge a piece of sponge under the strings at the bridge. Without the mute, the bass will have more high frequency ring and sustain. But these frequencies and overtones also have a way of smudging areas in the soundscape that may need to be left available for other instruments. While the un-muted sound may be more pleasing on its own, it may not work as well in the mix in combination with the kick drum. Much of what you hear without the mute will never be audible in the mix so experiment and don’t be afraid to sacrifice ring in the interests of more thud.

One of the iconic bass sounds is that made by the Höfner Beatle bass and Club bass. It is interesting to note that these are not fitted with mutes and the string saddles are actually bits of fret wire set into a wooden bridge. The classic sound has a full bottom end attack initially and does not sustain as much as one would think given the construction of the bass. I discovered the reason when I loosened the strings on an old Höfner to clean it. As soon as the strings were slack, they were drawn to the pick-up magnets with a great deal of force. These magnets were seriously powerful. When you attack the string, the powerful magnetic field is disturbed creating a huge initial impact. But because the magnets are so powerful, they actually stop the string vibration and don’t allow sustain. It is the power of the pick-up that gives the Höfner its Tuba-like characteristic punch and short sustain.

Playing a muted bass with the fingers is a great way to learn just how much you need to lean into the strings to get a good sound. Many early electric players were string bass converts and brought their right hand chops with them. Try stroking the string with the whole fingertip of the index finger or even the bone of the first joint and you will be surprised at how much bigger the sound can be. Then there is also the great sound of a muted bass played with a pick. The pick will give definition to the attack and as you move the picking hand from the bridge toward the neck you will find a wide range of usable sounds that no amount of knob twisting will give you.

Polytone Mini-brute

When it comes to getting the bass on tape or, better said, into the hard drive, less is always more. Mic’ing an amp can be fun but not always possible. The most desirable recording amp I can think of is the old Ampeg B-15. Another great amp if you can find one is the Polytone Minibrute. It’s a little solid-state combo just big enough to hold a 15″ speaker. Yeah, I know…it’s not a tube amp. But it is one of the most versatile little bastards on the planet. It gives you exactly what you put into it so the only reason not to love it is if you have a shitty sounding bass. I’ve also used a Trace Elliot tube pre-amp and sent the signal direct from the XLR output with good results. I spent a lot of time convincing myself that the PODxt bass models were pretty good…and they are fine to a point. But 90% of the time I find that plugging the bass into a cheap passive direct box gives me the most cluck for my buck. I’m lucky to have great sounding basses and it seems that the less I put between my fingers and the screen tends to result in the most sincere playing. With no sound sculpting toys helping you along, you are forced to come up with a convincing part based on your playing. And a well played fat-assed track can always be diddled with later.

To summarize:

Don’t get hung up on a high end bass unless you have a specific reason (or you have loot to burn).

Go to the source. Plug into a small amp, set everything flat and try to play like the great players that you admire.

Get physical. Watch Ray Brown use his right index finger to pull the sound out of his instrument.

Experiment with a sponge mute and a pick…go ahead, nobody’s looking.

If you mic an amp, don’t think you need to go broke. A low wattage amp that lets your bass sound like your bass will do. If you are working in a home studio you’ll do fine with a relatively inexpensive Shure SM7 or even an SM57. An expensive condenser mic can sound great, but it might also hear things that have nothing to do with your song…like refrigerator motors, traffic noises and helicoptors. The SM7 will only hear what’s right in front of it.

Get a cheap passive direct box and leave all the toys for your live gigs where they might impress someone.

And most importantly, realize that the electric bass is a bastard instrument without a hard and fast pedagogy as to playing or recording the thing. Don’t become a disciple of one method to the exclusion of others. Play it with your fingers, a pick or a can opener…but play it with intent and record it as honestly as possible.