Bananarama Venus - Bass Sound

[stewblack]

I spent a joyful afternoon playing along to Banananananarama's cover of Venus yesterday. Why? I hear you cry. Well I nailed the bass sound and it's a joy to play with that synthy almost percussive sound.

So here's my Q to you. What other well known 80s pop hits employed the same, or at least similar, synth for their bass? I want to squeeze a few of them into our Bandeoke set if I can get away with it. I think its a Roland 303 - but to chaps of my vintage a 303 is a rifle so this is pure guesswork.

If you don't know any well known ones just hit me with whatever you've got.

Ta

[casapete]

I think their cover of ‘Venus’ was a Stock Aitken & Waterman production, so maybe look

for more of their stuff from the same era? They seemed to have a recognisable trademark

sound with most of the artists they produced - Kylie, Rick Astley etc, but I’m no expert

Stew so could more to it than that.

[Happy Jack]

 

[BigRedX]

The arrangement on Bananarama's version of Venus was entirely inspired by SAW's production work on Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round", which was their main reason for picking SAW to work with on that song. And in turn the Dead Or Alive arrangement was inspired by any number of HiNRG disco songs of the time. 

 

Edit.

 

It almost definitely won't be a Roland TB303, as no one used them when they first came out because they simply didn't sound any good (for what was considered "good" at the time) compared with even the cheapest monosynth. Also their main selling point when released was the sequencer which was designed to compliment the matching TR606 drum machine. Unfortunately the programming was less then straight-forward, and the memory limited. My synth band at the time had one on trial from our local musical instrument store where one of the band members worked, and we not impressed. Weedy sound (in comparison to the synths we already had) and limited sequencer memory - IIRC we could only get one song at a time programmed in and there was no simple way of saving the sequences. We decided to wait another 6 months for the newly announced MC202which had a better on-board synth, was 2-track and could control a second separate synth and you could save what you had written as data to a cassette tape.

 

The TB303 only became popular with the rise of House Music in the late 80s when they could originally be picked up fro a fraction of their original price.

Edited October 16, 2022 by BigRedX

[Woodinblack]

33 minutes ago, stewblack said:

I spent a joyful afternoon playing along to Banananananarama's cover of Venus yesterday. Why? I hear you cry. Well I nailed the bass sound and it's a joy to play with that synthy almost percussive sound.

 

Seems you forgot to attach the recording to your post!

 

 

33 minutes ago, stewblack said:

So here's my Q to you. What other well known 80s pop hits employed the same, or at least similar, synth for their bass? I want to squeeze a few of them into our Bandeoke set if I can get away with it. I think its a Roland 303 - but to chaps of my vintage a 303 is a rifle so this is pure guesswork.

 

The internet says alpha juno 2.

 

So I would say most pop songs produced in 85-87?

[BigRedX]

SAW were notorious for getting hold of new synths just before they became widely available and plundering all the decent pre-sets for their next hit before everyone else had a chance to use them, so the synth in question may well have been something that was brand new just before either the Dead Or Alive, or Bananarama songs were released.

[MacDaddy]

1 hour ago, stewblack said:

I spent a joyful afternoon playing along to Banananananarama's cover of Venus yesterday. Why? I hear you cry. Well I nailed the bass sound and it's a joy to play with that synthy almost percussive sound.

So here's my Q to you. What other well known 80s pop hits employed the same, or at least similar, synth for their bass? I want to squeeze a few of them into our Bandeoke set if I can get away with it. I think its a Roland 303 - but to chaps of my vintage a 303 is a rifle so this is pure guesswork.

If you don't know any well known ones just hit me with whatever you've got.

Ta

 

What fx are you using for the bass sound?

[Grimalkin]

 

https://www.mixonline.com/recording/classic-tracks-thomas-dolbys-she-blinded-me-science-365232

 

"Most of “Science” was recorded on synthesizers. A Moog Source synth played by Dolby’s bass guitarist, Matthew Seligman, was used for the prominent bass lines. Instead of going direct, however, Friese-Greene fattened up the synthesized sounds by feeding them out to Seligman’s miked bass amp in the studio."

[Grimalkin]

Need a five string, and the ability to swing...

 

 

[Grimalkin]

 

[Grimalkin]

 

[Woodinblack]

29 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

SAW were notorious for getting hold of new synths just before they became widely available and plundering all the decent pre-sets for their next hit before everyone else had a chance to use them, so the synth in question may well have been something that was brand new just before either the Dead Or Alive, or Bananarama songs were released.

 Yep, that is what I read. The alpha Juno 2 came out at the time they were recording that, so presumably it is one of its presets.

[Woodinblack]

2 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

 

 

That one is almost certainly a DX7 - different from the bananarama one.

[Grimalkin]

 

[Grimalkin]

2 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

That one is almost certainly a DX7 - different from the bananarama one.

 

indeed. I'm just posting synth lines I found useful to play along with, on bass.

 

On you go.

[stewblack]

1 hour ago, MacDaddy said:

 

What fx are you using for the bass sound?

EHX Micro synth, TCE Chorus, octaver and compressor.

 

[stewblack]

36 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

 

indeed. I'm just posting synth lines I found useful to play along with, on bass.

 

On you go.

Thank you - that's a great one. I don't have a clue about the synths used - and I don't really care. But if others enjoy discussing it that's cool.

[Grimalkin]

Just now, stewblack said:

Thank you - that's a great one. I don't have a clue about the synths used - and I don't really care. But if others enjoy discussing it that's cool.

 

I've always liked interesting synth lines, synth players tend to approach things in a way that wouldn't naturally occur to a bassist.

 

 

[BigRedX]

53 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 Yep, that is what I read. The alpha Juno 2 came out at the time they were recording that, so presumably it is one of its presets.

 

Although the synth engine is the same as that in the original Alpha Juno. I don't recall if the sounds it came with were different though.

[Sonic_Groove]

8 minutes ago, stewblack said:

EHX Micro synth, TCE Chorus, octaver and compressor.

 

There is an outtake on one of the OGWT videos where Edwin from Orange Juice explains how they did “Rip it up” (303 in studio) live  & they used very similar effects  on the bass as you

[Woodinblack]

3 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

Although the synth engine is the same as that in the original Alpha Juno. I don't recall if the sounds it came with were different though.

 

The alpha juno 2 I think is most notible for the rave scene, which is one of its presets.

[musicbassman]

10 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

synth players tend to approach things in a way that wouldn't naturally occur to a bassist.

 

This is the key point - getting the right sound is only half of it - getting the clipped sixteenths and the swing and syncopation right is the other half.

I love taking 80's and early House synth bass lines to pieces and playing them- yes, a different approach, and an education for me, anyway.  🙂

When you get a bit of spare time, take a listen to Rick Astley's Never Going to Give You Up  - this has the mother of all synth basslines

[Grimalkin]

5 minutes ago, musicbassman said:

 

This is the key point - getting the right sound is only half of it - getting the clipped sixteenths and the swing and syncopation right is the other half.

I love taking 80's and early House synth bass lines to pieces and playing them- yes, a different approach, and an education for me, anyway.  🙂

When you get a bit of spare time, take a listen to Rick Astley's Never Going to Give You Up  - this has the mother of all synth basslines

 

It's a proper bass part, and one I don't think would come naturally to a bassist.

 

I think Freddie came up with this line, fun to play along with but quite tricky:

 

 

[stewblack]

2 hours ago, Sonic_Groove said:

There is an outtake on one of the OGWT videos where Edwin from Orange Juice explains how they did “Rip it up” (303 in studio) live  & they used very similar effects  on the bass as you

Nice one

[stewblack]

2 hours ago, musicbassman said:

When you get a bit of spare time, take a listen to Rick Astley's Never Going to Give You Up  - this has the mother of all synth basslines

I shall get right on it. Thank you