Mark Sandman of Morphine and slide bass

[Jonesy]

There's a few topics over on TB about him, his gear and setup etc, but there doesn't seem to be much over here. I was just wondering if anyone has played any slide bass or setup a 2 string bass?

 

Here's some Morphine for your listening holes

 

 

[TheRev]

Yep. I  used an old Yamaha RBX250 fretless with just the A and D strings, tuned a 5th or a minor 3rd apart and the heaviest slide I could find.

To get the action high enough, I had to raise the bridge saddles up as far as they would go and run the strings over the top of the nut rather than in the string slots. It all worked well enough for what I was doing.

[spencer.b]

No but I'm a huge fan

[mcnach]

Nope. I love Morphine but I never tried to emulate that kind of sound.

[paul_5]

20 minutes ago, mcnach said:

Nope. I love Morphine...

Me too, but it is very 'moreish'...

[Jonesy]

On 06/11/2021 at 07:11, TheRev said:

Yep. I  used an old Yamaha RBX250 fretless with just the A and D strings, tuned a 5th or a minor 3rd apart and the heaviest slide I could find.

To get the action high enough, I had to raise the bridge saddles up as far as they would go and run the strings over the top of the nut rather than in the string slots. It all worked well enough for what I was doing.

 

Ah nice! I keep on toying with the idea of picking up a beater short scale and having a go, but then I think it may just sit in a corner gathering dust after a couple of weeks. I haven't got a band situation I could use it in, so it'd just be for noodling around on and playing some Morphine tunes on. Was there any reason why you chose fretless over fretted?

[TheRev]

42 minutes ago, Jonesy said:

 

Ah nice! I keep on toying with the idea of picking up a beater short scale and having a go, but then I think it may just sit in a corner gathering dust after a couple of weeks. I haven't got a band situation I could use it in, so it'd just be for noodling around on and playing some Morphine tunes on. Was there any reason why you chose fretless over fretted?

This was about 20 years ago - its quite likely the Yamaha was my 'spare' fretless at the time.  One day I just set it up to play along to some Morphine tunes. As a result of that, I came up with parts for a couple of songs the band were working on, which made it into the live set so I kept the bass as it was and used it live.

 

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited March 15, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[mr4stringz]

No, but I do very much wish I’d pursued my desire to buy one of the short lived Waterstone Sandman basses back when they were a thing. The scrolled horn on these (obvs copped from the Premier Multivox that MS is playing in this vid) is something I’ve always dug in a weird and wonderful kind of way.

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by mr4stringz

[Jonesy]

That Waterstone is lovely and I really like that scroll top horn. I was looking around at potential basses to use and the Ibanez Jet King really fits the bill with the retro look.

 

 

 

They're not the cheapest of cheap basses to use though. If a cheapo Bronco or Talman come up near me then I may be tempted for a bit of fun

[Passinwind]

On 05/11/2021 at 15:46, Jonesy said:

There's a few topics over on TB about him, his gear and setup etc, but there doesn't seem to be much over here. I was just wondering if anyone has played any slide bass or setup a 2 string bass?

Yep, I've been messing with slide bass regularly since the early '70s. My original inspiration came mostly from having heard Phil Lesh play with a wine bottle as slide on a pre-Grateful Dead gig with the Warlocks via a bootleg recording on reel to reel.

 

For most of that time my preferred instrument was my '77 Travis Bean fretless. I've made a number of my own slides, like so, bronze in this case:

 

 

A couple of years ago I sold the Bean after 40 years of enjoyment and had my friend Marco Cortes build me a new Marco Bass Guitars fretless with slide playing as an implicit design goal:

 

 

The electronics are still a work in progress, as I haven't settled on how to best leverage that XLR output jack.

 

 

 

[Eldon Tyrell]

There you go...