Hi everybody.
This time I've wanted to offer you fellow bass players the chance of comp
Hi everybody.
This time I've wanted to offer you fellow bass players the chance of comparing two instruments that many feel very similar in character, despite the big price difference: The Rickenbacker 4003 and the Peavey T-40.
For this task I've chosen the great rock tune "Cupid's Dead", originally recorded by the band Extreme. I had to remove the second verse for the video not to exceed the 10-minute limit. I don't want to give an opinion about which bass sounds "better" to my ears (Just to avoid preconceptions), so I'll only talk about how these instruments were recorded:
As usual, the sound was captured from the instruments' direct signal to my PC's sound card passing through my Kustom KBA30 practice amp. Since the amp's EQ affects the output signal, I took advantage of that to (Try to) compensate for a slight difference in the way I set my basses' tone and volume controls.
The T-40 has both pickups at full volume, neck pickup's tone at 10 (for single coil mode) and bridge pickup's tone at 7 (for humbucker mode). The Ric has both neck and bridge pickups' tone fully open, as well as the bridge pickup's volume. The neck pickup's volume is slightly rolled off. The standard/vintage tone selector is set to standard.
So, rolling off the neck pickup volume a bit puts the Ric at disadvantage in the bass frequencies area, but I made that difference because:
- The T-40 sounds too "honky" to my ears when the neck pickup's volume isn't at maximum.
- The Ric doesn't cut that well in the mix (To me) with both pickups full volume. Besides, I don't feel it that honky with unbalanced volumes.
So, to compensate for that, I set my amp's "Low" knob to around 7 for recording the Ric. Everything else was around 5 (Flat), including the "Low" knob for recording the T-40.
Both basses have old roundwound steel strings: Rotosound Swing 66 for the Ric and LaBella Hard Rockin' Steels for the Peavey (I think. The T-40 arrived with those strings with black silk wraps and I haven't changed them. Look like HRS to me).
And that's it. Hope you find this shootout interesting. My apologies for the strange effect in the video throughout my performance with the 4003. It seems that the camera had a problem, but of course I didn't notice it while recording. As always, my playing isn't flawless, but anyway hope it helps all of you interested in playing this super cool tune. I really like the bass tone on the original recording, but I hardly use a pick. Thanks for watching! :)
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Añadido: hace 1 mes
Reproducciones: 1915
Hi again.
Here's my version of "The Awakening", something I wanted to capture on video
Hi again.
Here's my version of "The Awakening", something I wanted to capture on video from long ago, but didn't take the time to create the drum track. Now, on the International Workers' Day, I've sat in front of my PC to record a MIDI accompaniment for this piece using Finale 2008. Not an outstanding drum track, but it works perfectly.
Here I played the tune at normal speed and then slowed it down to 75%, same as I did with YYZ. Taking into account that Les Claypool doesn't play this Dexter Redding tune exactly the same way every time but he sort of improvises over a basic theme and structure, what I tried to play is my interpretation of his playing, taking what I like the most. No strumming here (one of Mr. Claypool's trademark techniques) since I preferred to slap/pop the double stops. As usual, hope you find this effort useful, even with the mistakes and rhythmic inaccuracies.
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Añadido: hace 2 meses
Reproducciones: 2293
Hi again.
Now I just wanted to give my "new" Peavey T-40 the chance to appear on YouTub
Hi again.
Now I just wanted to give my "new" Peavey T-40 the chance to appear on YouTube with this classic and terrific bassline, courtesy of Mr. John Paul Jones. My playing isn't that terrific, but anyway I transcribed that line in its entirety and I can guarantee that, putting motor mistakes aside, the notes are 99% accurate (Well, I made some cool additions -IMO- at the very beginning and at the very end).
So I hope this video will be a good aid for those interested in playing this tune. There are two aspects in my playing that I tried to emphasize and they are present and prominent (on purpose) in 90% of this performance: The "one finger per fret" technique and NOT looking at the fingerboard. To me, these are two very important skills that any player should work on, and may this be the opportunity to encourage all fellow bass players to use these tools if you haven't done it before.
Since the Peavey T-40 is such a versatile bass, here are the settings I used for this recording: Both pickups on, with full volume and "in phase", neck pickup's tone at 10 (for single coil mode) and bridge pickup's tone at 7 (for humbucker mode). As usual, I recorded my bass' direct output from my practice amp to my PC sound card and replaced my camera's live audio track with the resulting wav file after recording the line signal.
Thanks for watching! Hope you find this definitely improvable effort useful. :)
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Añadido: hace 6 meses
Reproducciones: 10223
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OK, this is yet another Stu Hamm tune: "Terminal Beach". Not mistake-free, but anyway hope
OK, this is yet another Stu Hamm tune: "Terminal Beach". Not mistake-free, but anyway hope you like it and give it a try.
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Añadido: hace 6 meses
Reproducciones: 3031
Hi again! At last I've found some time to record new stuff. This time I wanted to perform
Hi again! At last I've found some time to record new stuff. This time I wanted to perform my version of Stu Hamm's "Flow My Tears (The Policeman Said)", a true favorite from my bass hero. I just cut some repetitons since the tune tends to become boring with the bass alone (The original recording has additional stuff played by other instruments that allows for repeating the bass part many more times).
As usual, this version is far from perfect. Hope that you Stu fans come up with a much better version. That's why I've included some explanations at the end of the video. The biggest problem in this performance (Aside from not having at least one thousandth of Stu's musicality in his playing) is that HORRIBLE URGE OF RUSHING IT BECAUSE OF THE FEAR OF HITTING A WRONG NOTE, which becomes very evident in the tune's second section, from 2:52 (I didn't want to use a metronome for playing this). Something to work on. It's interesting to notice how speed helps to hide some potential problems like notes out of tune because of unintended string bending, as you'll notice in the explanation (The G note played with my right hand's index finger starting from 5:58 sounds out of tune because of that).
Again, I plugged my practice amp's line output into my sound card and then replaced the live audio track (from the camera) with the resulting wav file from the direct signal. No effects were applied aside from normalizing the track to 96%.
Mistakes aside, hope you find this effort useful. Thanks for watching! :)
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Añadido: hace 6 meses
Reproducciones: 2636
Hi again.
Here's another attempt at teaching. Now I wanted to show the final tapping p
Hi again.
Here's another attempt at teaching. Now I wanted to show the final tapping part of Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" at two different speeds. He plays it entirely on his half-step downtuned guitar's B string and, translated to the four string bass' range, it can be played on the G string. Please notice that my version sounds a half step higher than Eddie's, and that's because I wanted to make it sound the way it would if he used standard tuning. A remark I feel very important to make: Honestly, I can't imagine myself as a bassist playing this stuff at a gig. While it's a very cool chord progression, I (respectfully) think that it's a showoff for guitarists. But aside from that, I also think it's an excellent exercise on endurance and accuracy (both tonal and rhythmical).
As usual, no effects here. Just my practice amp's line out connected to my sound card's auxiliary input. Hope you find this effort useful.
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Añadido: hace 1 año
Reproducciones: 21532
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Hi again.
Another aid for my students and fellow bass players interested on nailing thi
Hi again.
Another aid for my students and fellow bass players interested on nailing this line. I used my fretless just because I like flatwounds' tone for this kind of stuff. Not trying to get "mwah" here, just pumping sixteenth notes ala Rocco Prestia. Hope this far from perfect effort helps.
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Añadido: hace 1 año
Reproducciones: 38689
Hi again.
This time I wanted to record my performance of Rush's "YYZ" as a workout for
Hi again.
This time I wanted to record my performance of Rush's "YYZ" as a workout for my advanced students. The thing is, no transcription for them this time, so I recorded two versions. I mean, at two different speeds: 100% and 75%. I really hope this will help anybody interested on learning this great tune.
And of course, I am the first one who must follow my own advice (Keep practicing!). The slower version wasn't that difficult (it doesn't mean a "perfect" result, of course), but getting a half-decent live version a tempo was a real problem. Among the many speed-related problems to fix, I feel the most important are that the main riff can sound much more articulated and the overall performance feels very rushed (no pun intended) at several points, but for didactical purposes, I think it works.
As usual, I plugged my bass into my practice amp, which line out was plugged into my sound card's auxiliary in. Normalization is the only effect applied to the recording, which was made using Sony SoundForge. Transcribe! software provided the backing track at both speeds. Video editing with TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress and MPEG Video Wizard DVD.
Geddy Lee is a true master and Rush is synonym with genius. No doubt of that.
Again, hope you find this effort useful. Thanks for stopping by! :)
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Añadido: hace 1 año
Reproducciones: 70703
Here's the other Stu Hamm tune I mentioned in my "Linus & Lucy" video. "Count Zero" is ano
Here's the other Stu Hamm tune I mentioned in my "Linus & Lucy" video. "Count Zero" is another masterpiece from this astounding musician and again, I want to show you my modest version hoping you give it a try. The audio from my Linus & Lucy video is a bit distorted (too loud - unfortunately I only noticed it after uploading the file), so I tried to make sure that this one has a more appropriate output level. Hope you find it useful.
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Añadido: hace 1 año
Reproducciones: 7587
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