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Isolated Bass Tracks


Thebassman75
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I'm becoming quite fascinated by these.. Not only a great source for study of the actual parts but a fascinating insight into the actual tones of the bass. Whether the sound is good or bad is subjective but I'm quite suprised by how different the bass sounds in isolation to how it sounds in the mix. It throws alot of light onto the constant 'tone-quest'!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmtgYeJ5BBo - I Want You - Beatles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMo1wcHn7gg - Seven Seas of Rhye - Queen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68ka0Af87dI - You're my best friend - Wueen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLDqlgRK100 - James Jamerson - Bernadette

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[quote name='leroydiamond' timestamp='1416414943' post='2609972']
Just wondering how these bass tracks are isolated from the rest of the mix?
[/quote]

I guess by just having access to the master-tapes and making digital copies and then distributing. The power of the internet and the digital age I guess..

I suppose the main thing that fascinates me is that when I'm trying out new rigs or basses, I rarely do so in a studio environment and then listen back. It's most often in live and isolated situations but I'm certainly going to do more of this..

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As said it does make me wonder about the chase of the perfect tone, and how the bass on many isolated tracks sounds fairly uninspiring on its own yet great in the mix. Plus not much low end or high end on those tracks either. Maybe there lies the story - the bass staying in it`s own area rather than trying to invade another.

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[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1416424912' post='2610122']
As said it does make me wonder about the chase of the perfect tone, and how the bass on many isolated tracks sounds fairly uninspiring on its own yet great in the mix. Plus not much low end or high end on those tracks either. Maybe there lies the story - the bass staying in it`s own area rather than trying to invade another.
[/quote]

I think you've hit the nail on the head there.. I hear so much about 'this cab goes to XX low frequency' and 'sparkling highs' etc etc but to me, alot of these basses sound fairly flat in the EQ dept, straight to the desk in most cases but they are some of the signature sounds that I've certainly built my career on. The first EP I ever did was cut to vinyl and we kept blowing the fuses of the cutting machine because in our inexperience as 19 year olds, we didn't know how to mix for vinyl and had completely overloaded the bass. I listen back to that now and it still sounds way over the top..

I'm taking a serious look at my tone at the mo and experimenting on tape is going to be a must..

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A number of these were on No Treble a few years back. Heart Of The Sunrise and Ramble On well worth a listen. Thanks for the Bernadette link, it was a dead link on there a few months back, seems to be OK now.

[url="http://www.notreble.com/buzz/tag/isolated-bass/"]http://www.notreble..../isolated-bass/[/url]

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As an oldie, the secret was the cab was Mic'ed up from about 1m away and cranked to stage volume and a separate DI in to the desk and yes it sounds awful on its own.
But that is how you get the old school tones.
In today software emulators give you a great sound, but stick it in the mix and you might as well have played a Tuba.
Engineers just want the bass out of the way, over and done and you really have to grab them and say, stop, I am just as important as any other member, stop been lazy and record the ruddy bass properly and people might actually know it was a bass guitar on the track.

I once heard Going underground bass isolated from a studio master, what a clank of noise that was, but in the mix it sounds awesome.
Those clanky mid tones are what make a bass guitar hold its own in the mix.

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Its amazing to hear what is almost a "dead" sound that James Jamerson had, but what great groove, and the way he played off the vocal melodies not just mindlessly following the bass drum, I have always said the bass guitar is a great melodic instrument when used right, and James was the master of that. I remember listening to a Steve Harris track (Phantom of the opera) that played isolated, sounded like it was all over the place, but when but with all the others instruments showed what a great bit of playing that is, Isolated bass tracks are very raw and insightful I find.

Edited by Lynottfan
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I'm currently working on a fairly serious recording project and went for a Precision with LaBella 'Jamersons' on it, with a miked Ampeg 410 cab and a DI from a gk700 head. We really pushed up the high mids, which raised a few eyebrows from the rest of the band but myself and the engineers were confident with what we would have in the mix. So, as has already been said, what sounded not so good to some when soloed, sounds spot on in the full band mix. Its been a while since I've done some recording but this was a good reminder about tone cutting through.

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Came across some Steve Harris isolated bass tracks from one of their live albums on Youtube a while ago.

Suffice to say that they were pretty shocking - out of time, missed notes, vague approximations of bass runs all over the place. Canna blame the guy too much, like, because he's usually charging around at 100mph whilst playing. And I never noticed when listening to the original albums.

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I do agree that the 'in the mix' sound is often amazingly good compared to what it sounds like soloed.
But I warn ye...
Some of these isolated tracks are taken from the Multi-track tape as is. These are the raw recorded tracks without EQ, compression etc. that is added in the mixdown, so possibly not a reliable indication of how the bass sounds in the mix at all. Add to that the Mastering process where things change again.

Back in the days when Pro-tools first came along I worked in a studio where we transferred many a 2" multitrack to digital. From the Sex Pistols to Phil Collins and lots in between. We didn't run the tracks through any outboard, and kept the signal path as clean as possible. So what you got in the digital domain was only what went to tape.

Usually slightly in the red for a bit of tape compression, and as far as the bass goes, lacking in significant bottom end because they ran the tape at 30ips and generally stuff went to tape as trebly as possible to minimise tape hiss (if you turn up treble once its on tape you turn up the hiss too so it was common practice to have as much going to tape as you'd ever need).

Still, fun to listen to eh?

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It doesn't so much matter what the tone is like... that is fixable..it is about how clean your playing is...as that isn't.
Solo's is ALL about how good or bad your playing goes down..and will be highlighted.
A good engr will get past that but it will take a a lot more time than it should and that is money.

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[quote name='tonyquipment' timestamp='1416422200' post='2610078']
Why not just feed the track through a filter?
[/quote]

I'd be great if it was that simple! :D

Trouble is, the bass guitar doesn't [i]just[/i] occupy a neat section of the low end frequencies... it spews out harmonics across the range, so there's no easy way of filtering out everything besides the bass, without filtering out a lot of the bass too.

It is possible to isolate things like vocals quite nicely by using an exact instrumental copy of a track to kind of 'mask off and chop out' everything apart from the vocal (I've used this technique myself to create bootleg acapellas for the purpose of remixing). But it's a generally a huge pain in the ass.

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Here's couple of notables for me...

Deacy demonstrating how sloppiness disappears in the mix...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aNogqF7Bac

Not bad for a sax player:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z91l_lPz1oc

And finally... I'm sorry, Mr. Jones. No matter how much you protest, you did use flats in the old days:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ANwQW8aspI

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I was going to put Felder first.... but JPJ is very good and clean on that track, at least in the first segments of the tune..
By contrast, John Deacon is way behind.

Also, by the standards of the day, I doubt bass would have had many drop-ins and certainly not if Motown were paying :lol:
Zep might have indulged JPJ a bit with a punch in and out here and there...??

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[quote name='Dazed' timestamp='1416678399' post='2612602']
And another.... Ain't no mountain high enough

[media]http://youtu.be/kAT3aVj-A_E[/media]
[/quote]

God that was good...

PS Mentioned before but here with link and well worth a listen is Squire's masterful 'Heart of the Sunrise' with his grit-tone of death..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwhMw5lwzNg

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