I meant "what's going on" in terms of the sound, the production, the processing, rather than the musical composition or performance. Yes, I like the bass sound and I'm wondering how the engineer or bassist obtained it.It's unusual, but the same pattern just played in different places. I'd consider some notes a strange choice, but as they're repeated over and over again, it's an artistic decision I guess. What were you thinking? You like it, don't like it?
You may be right about the DI. It's hardly a high-fidelity recording. But I've been recording various basses DI for over 25 years and have never obtained a sound like that, not even plugging a bass direct into a cassette portastudio.Broke 80s punk band with a dry, lows heavy tone? It's probably a DI
Probably a very cheap bass. Based on the lack of attack and sustain, it might even be fretless.
He's playing in the higher registers in general too.
Fretless basses have always been cheaper.....Expensive nickle is in the frets. The companies save money with less material costs.I don't recall fretless basses being inexpensive.
I'm not attributing anything magical to anything. I'm simply using my ears. The bass in that song sounds quantitatively different from the others. I'm trying to determine what those quantities are. Whether you like the song or punk in general is irrelevant. This is a technical forum and my question was a technical, not an artistic, one.It doesn't jump out at me for any reason. Maybe you had to like punk. I hated it. I think you might be attributing something magical to what was usually, back then, plug and play. I suspect Steve is right. Just plugged in and thrashed and that's what you get. I remember a friend in a punk band back then and in a magazine he read about how this was done and that was done and the rawness and energy were created. His memory was the drummer saying he was going for fish and chips and 9 and if it wasn't done they could all F off. He went for his chips, and what was released was just what was recorded before everyone got stressed and bored. I'm sure a few recordings were well honed and multi-takes, but studio time was expensive and if you started at the same time, finished at the same time and nobody got too bad in the middle it was a tick in the box!
Have they? I don't see what material costs have to do with it. The smaller the market for something, the higher the cost to the consumer, regardless of the materials used. Fretless basses have always been a niche product.Fretless basses have always been cheaper.....Expensive nickle is in the frets. The companies save money with less material costs.
Even today fretless basses are more expensive than their fretted counterparts, let alone back in 1984 when there weren't budget lines like Squier and Epiphone:Fretless basses have always been cheaper.....Expensive nickle is in the frets. The companies save money with less material costs.
It is? It's just people, man. We like to record at home.This is a technical forum and my question was a technical, not an artistic, one.
I meant "what's going on" in terms of the sound, the production, the processing, rather than the musical composition or performance. Yes, I like the bass sound and I'm wondering how the engineer or bassist obtained it.
It might not be immediately obvious how unusual the bass sounds from listening to the song in isolation. You can hear the entire compilation it was on below. The song starts at 14:55. Start listening a few minutes before this point, then listen to a few songs after. When you do this, the bass really jumps out at you.
It is? It's just people, man. We like to record at home.
Do some research on the band in 1984. See if there are studio pics. Also limit selections to what equipment was around then. If it was a DI into the desk, try a DI. Steve knows what's up. The two DI's I hear and see a lot on youtube were, the Tech 21 Sansamp DI, and the Line 6 Bass Pod XT Pro Rack. Have you tried either of those? There is a video claiming the Bass Pod has 100,000,000+ models and combinations.
Hey, finally an answer that's on topic instead of "punk sucks" or arguing about the cost of fretless basses!The Bass is bandwidth limited - and probably something like a 4001.
Lazer, who's normally into playing said it - DI'd bass - hens e the cleanish but funkily played tone. I don't know what's going on in the mix - many recordings of that type (and in the 80s I had to suffer quite a few of these sessions) were about getting levels up, rough EQ, hardly any effects - maybe compression on the vocals and drums and not much more. Raise faders to taste and that was about it - raw and undeveloped sonically. Many punk bands hated post production. They wanted the recordings as quickly was possible.I meant "what's going on" in terms of the sound, the production, the processing, rather than the musical composition or performance.
Hey, finally an answer that's on topic instead of "punk sucks" or arguing about the cost of fretless basses!
The Crass Bullshit Detectors were notoriously lo-fi. One guy has even written an article calling them "shit-fi":An interesting bass line, but a crappy recording.
My question was "How to get bass to sound like this?" What's ambiguous about it? Maybe you should stop blaming your reading comprehension problem on others.Whoa - it takes time to get a feel for a new forum. In our defence, you kind of posted a very non-technical question, open to many interpretations, and the one we took was that you were talking about the style of the playing - either not sitting right or being a bit unconventional. I certainly didn't think we were talking about the mix - the mix is what a great deal of tracks from that time were - a bit of a mess, but correct for the rawness of the genre.
Perhaps we should start again. What exactly is the reason you posted? What were you hoping to get back? You never said - so we're groping in the dark. You said
Lazer, who's normally into playing said it - DI'd bass - hens e the cleanish but funkily played tone. I don't know what's going on in the mix - many recordings of that type (and in the 80s I had to suffer quite a few of these sessions) were about getting levels up, rough EQ, hardly any effects - maybe compression on the vocals and drums and not much more. Raise faders to taste and that was about it - raw and undeveloped sonically. Many punk bands hated post production. They wanted the recordings as quickly was possible.
You really know how to find the etiquette of a forum with your post
You know - maybe a few folk here might draw some conclusions. Next time - maybe ask a sensible question and explain it a bit better before kicking off!