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Motown bass sounds


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Ha, my favourite subject...love reading about how it all worked and Mr Babbitts certainly got a way with words!. Nowadays we are all about this and that piece of gear but for these guys it really was all in their fingers it seems and not much else.

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18 minutes ago, oldbass said:

Ha, my favourite subject...love reading about how it all worked and Mr Babbitts certainly got a way with words!. Nowadays we are all about this and that piece of gear but for these guys it really was all in their fingers it seems and not much else.

That's where I think it is now tbh. 

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1 hour ago, dannybuoy said:

There was certainly a fair bit of drive in those bass sounds though. I'm a big fan of the Aguilar Tonehammer for replicating that with modern equipment!

 

Yep, always amuses me, the quest for completely clean bass sounds, yet one of the most revered bassists of all had a really warm, gainy, driven sound. Each to their own, but I`d rather have a sound that sounds great in the song than great on its own (though I must admit I do like the above, but accept it`s probably not to everyones taste).

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IMO the engineers were responsible for a lot of Jamerson's sound. If you listen to the before and after videos on Youtube, they cleaned up his sound. . . a lot.

What would they be sounding like now? As Bob Babbitt ended up playing PJB, very clean sounding gear, don't assume that JJ would still be sounding distorted/saturated.

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I just wonder if he`d be so revered if the bass didn`t have such a warm rounded presence in the songs.I take the point that the engineers cleaned it up  but if it had gone a lot more cleaner and defined would it have suited the music style as much.

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As far as I know, there was not a lot of tidying up. The tone is a P with flats, with crazy high action, going through those transformers, which colour the sound in a much more subtle way than you'd think, with most of the tonal characteristics actually coming from the tape saturation - just an artefact of old school crusty tape recording. 

All of that has a fairly minimal impact on the sound. 95% of that tone is down to Jamerson's talent, ability, technique, life experience and whatever he happened to be drinking that day.

There's a giant thread about this topic over on talkbass btw, but these techie discussions almost always completely miss the point. It's a bit like talking about how to make a delicious cake, and only focusing on what fork you should eat it with. Doesn't make that much difference.

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19 minutes ago, project_c said:

As far as I know, there was not a lot of tidying up. The tone is a P with flats, with crazy high action, going through those transformers, which colour the sound in a much more subtle way than you'd think, with most of the tonal characteristics actually coming from the tape saturation - just an artefact of old school crusty tape recording. 

All of that has a fairly minimal impact on the sound. 95% of that tone is down to Jamerson's talent, ability, technique, life experience and whatever he happened to be drinking that day.

There's a giant thread about this topic over on talkbass btw, but these techie discussions almost always completely miss the point. It's a bit like talking about how to make a delicious cake, and only focusing on what fork you should eat it with. Doesn't make that much difference.

Do you have a link to the thread on Talk Bass?

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I've been through quite a few pedals and software plugins trying to find a tone I like for that Motown feel, and the Aguilar Tonehammer is my favourite - I've just knocked up a quick clip!

('05 USA Precision with very old TI flats, tone about 70%, into Tonehammer DI with AGS on, gain at 9 o'clock, slight bass and low mid boost and treble cut)

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ApKsVfvGwYkOiqV6Q61pUu3yvWelVg

The One Control Sonic Silver Peg, Catalinbread SFT and VT Bass are also good for this sound, where it's on the edge of cleanliness and a harder pluck makes a rubbery sound with no harsh fizz up top. I didn't get as much joy out of the Creation Audio Grizzly or SolidgoldFX Beta, both of which are often recommended for this kind of tone but didn't quite work out for me.

I'd love to try some recordings through a REDDI though! Or one of these:

http://acmeaudio.net/product/motown-di/

web_MTdi.jpg

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