Earth, Wind and Fire

[thedontcarebear]

How can I get that sort of sound in the studio? Recording a funky sounding song in a few weeks, and I bum Earth, Wind and Fire so would quite like a tone a bit like Verdine White used to get.

[BIG.J]

I would also like to know!! Cracking stuff...

[Johnzy]

I would have a guess by saying 70's Jazz bass, strung with heavy roundwounds, medium action, plucked heavierly over the front pickup. Mr White's tone is a real growler!! on tunes like fantasy and september the bass has a real cutting quality, sounds like DI signal to me, not much "tone compresion" (associated with recorded bass amps).

A good bass with front pickup soloed, and heavy plucking should do. the tone is in the hand though dude!

[Pete Academy]

Verdine used a Jazz on their main recordings. He seems to play hard, so I would think it's really compressed.

His sound is terrible live.

[Guest]

Does everyone think its the neck pickup then?

I have 2 jazzes, will give them both a go.

[MacDaddy]

[quote name='thedontcarebear' post='655867' date='Nov 16 2009, 11:59 AM']How can I get that sort of sound in the studio? Recording a funky sounding song in a few weeks, [b]and I bum[/b] Earth, Wind and Fire so would quite like a tone a bit like Verdine White used to get.[/quote]

[Raslee]

Ever heard E, W & F's tune called 'Bad Tune' ?....man its a bad tune-i still have that album on L.P.....funky as fock-then they went all disco cheese-paid the bills though !

[4 Strings]

Verdine is a great musician, big part of my early bass practice routines.

I would lay a bet on flat wounds. No doubt DI, very clean playing (so maybe wind the action up a little and cut fingernails!).

Couldn't guess at the pickup though, someone with more Jazz Bass experience than I will have to advise on this.

Nice and simple, but classy.

[lee650]

I did read once that verdines early recordings he used an old 50,s precision with flats, ive a great early concert on DVD where he,s using a white late 60,s/early 70,s jazz (block markers) with what look like dimarzios in and it sounds great - lee

[Guest]

I gave up on copying him, and just went with something I liked the sound of, and this is the result from earlier today: -

[url="http://www.myspace.com/stringfinger"]http://www.myspace.com/stringfinger[/url]

[Marcus]

I saw a DVD of EW & F where VW was miming

That's P*ss poor for a bloke of his ability !

[lee650]

[quote name='Marcus' post='669015' date='Nov 29 2009, 11:52 AM']I saw a DVD of EW & F where VW was miming

That's P*ss poor for a bloke of his ability ![/quote]

+1

[Pete Academy]

[quote name='lee650' post='669058' date='Nov 29 2009, 01:02 PM']+1[/quote]

I don't think I've ever seen a recent live DVD where Verdine isn't miming. The whole thing sounds too good to me, so I reckon a lot of post production goes on. Same with the Eagles DVD.

[greyparrot]

I think he used a yamaha bb300?