An alternate source of bass...

[Gordon -10]

Im looking for a different source for bass, other then the bass guitar. Im a pretty strait forward rock guy, you know drums bass guitar. But some of the stuff i've been listing to lately (peeping tom, portishead) some songs have some more synth ambience bass stuff happening. Im wondering if i wanted to experiment with this stuff what kind of tools would i need?? Im assuming some sort of synth?? That world is new to me so any help would be great.

[Bob Ross]

Find a tuba player. Seriously.

[max cooper]

I always thought many of McCartney's bass lines were tuba-influenced.

Get aquainted with some of the different synth bass sounds. Moog is a pretty distinctive one.

[Kyle Ashley]

I second the Moog idea. MiniMoogs do a lot of cool bass stuff.

[joeq]

start toughening up those calluses

[Bob Ross]

That's great, Joe! I might have to ask Seth Gussow to cobble one of those together in his metal shop for me.

That bass kalimba reminds me of my favorite bass marimba story: I was working at Carrol Musical Instrument Services (combination equipment rental shop & rehearsal facility) in the late 1980's. Max Roach's M'Boom scheduled a rehearsal, & sent us their instrument rider...which included "(1) bass marimba"

The guys in the basement (where the obscure and/or over-sized percussion instruments lived) were thrilled, as apparently no one had rented our bass marimba in ages. And for good reason: This thing was 6' high, requiring the player to stand on a high riser just to reach it. The bars were the size of 2x4's, and the mallets required to get these bars sounding were like a 16oz carpenter's hammer. I think the low note was C0 or A-1 or something sick like that. The basement boys wheeled it up into Studio 5, and we all took turns trying to (literally) hammer out the basslines to Pink Floyd's "Money" & The Beatles' "Come Together" while waiting for Max to show up.

Max walks in, takes one look at this monstrosity, and exclaims "What the hell is that?"

"Bass marimba, sir" says one of the basement boys.

Max shakes his head and says "That's too bass for me."



(Turns out he just wanted an extended-range marimba w/ an extra half-octave in the bass.)

[pulse_divider]

---analog synth--- most of the best bass sounds come from discrete analog monosynths. It doesn't necessarily have to be a Moog (as an aside, I've found that most people who think they need a Moog are referring to analog synths in general and don't even know how to pronounce the name Moog) and doesn't really have to be ridiculously feature-laden for just bass sounds. Most of my favorite synth basses come from a single oscillator/sub oscillator/24 db lowpass filter/dual envelope architecture. There are a ton of good sub-
$500 bass machines. I'd recommend the earlier Roland SH stuff for pure sound Nirvana---SH2, SH9, etc.

----Wurlitzer or Rhodes

----ditto on the Tuba

[squeegybug]

I've done some fake bass with an acoustic guitar with magnetic pickup to octave pedals or Peavey Kosmos.

Steve

[Santiago]

My favourite "non-bass guitar" bass is a simple sine wave. you can program it in most synths and it sounds powerful.

Santiago

[Gordon -10]

Thanks guys. I like the idea of a moog, but shes a little pricy. Any more sugestion of somthing in the $500 - $1000(Canadian) range?

[max cooper]

Man, that Arturia Moog Modular is a great sounding soft-synth. It's a CPU hog, but it's got some serious fat bass. If you run it out thru some preamps with trannys, it get's even bigger sounding.

Most soft synths I've tried fall short in the low end fatness dept, but that one's great.

[RadioBox]

Try to find a Yamaha CS-15. I just got one for <$400, and it can get loooow. Very underrated synth IMHO. It doesn't look sp good specwise(no sine wave for example), but believe me, it can do bass. My nord lead has been relieved of synth bass duties.

[Sizzleboy]

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

Find a tuba player. Seriously.

Yep,

Listen to the song "Shrimp Boots" from "Grease Factor" by Shane Theriot. One of the best bass lines ever, by any instrument.

[jamieboss1]

Juno 106
Cant go wrong.

[Sizzleboy]

Originally Posted by Gordon -10

Thanks guys. I like the idea of a moog, but shes a little pricy. Any more sugestion of somthing in the $500 - $1000(Canadian) range?

You may be able to pick up a used Studio Electronics SE-1 in your price range, but you would need a controler. The Dave Smith Evolver keyboard also does nice analog bass, plus some cool ambient and sequenced stuff.

[Stefan Elmblad]

Left side of a piano.

[Mystr Tiger]

Take a look at Spectrasonics Trilogy. I just installed it last night and will be playing around with it this weekend. It has acoustic, electric, and synth samples with the ability to layer and tweak. Their website has MP3s. I don't know if it will do the trick for me yet, but it seems like it has a lotta respect.

[kbjazzman]

I'll second to Yamaha C15 too This unit was under rated indeed my friend

[Bimini]

Any of the Novation Bass Stations work great. Analogue.

[Tukar Studio]

How about this?

http://antti.smartelectronix.com/

Second synth down. Pretty good for free

[klaukholm]

A very good bass clarinet player can be just what you are looking for. Moog is a great sound, but Bcl can be much more "organic' and "alive".
More versatile than Barysax both in terms of colors as well as fluidity.