70's Disco Bass Lines Question???

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:confused: Does anyone know how they got those great sounding 70's disco bass lines so fat and tight back in the day of tape? The equipment, recording techniques? What gives those bass tracks such fatness and tightness? Anyone have any idea?

thanks,
Bob the Mod Guy
 
Go direct, use semi-roundwounds (aka Bright Flats), heavy compression, and practice, practice, practice. IMO, the 'tightness' comes from the bass and bass drum being in perfect sync. I know, that wasn't really the question, but that's all I could offer and I thought it might help get the ball rolling.

I was one of the few players that I knew during the disco era who didn't hate disco. That's because to me, aside from the prog-rock of the day, that's where the bass finally got some recognition and moved forward, not to mention the fact that that's where the interesting bass lines were.

What can I say, I was just a white boy playin' that funky music. And when you're in an almost all-white little town in the midwest in the 70's, that ain't so easy.

Good luck, I'll be watching this one.
 
Depends upon the recording, it's not as if all disco recordings used the same recipe (except for the 4/4 kick, of course ;) .)

Several possibilities and probabilities come to mind. First is the combination of that 4/4 kick with a bassist who plays his line right on the beat instead of just ahead or just behind - which is fairly common in disco and dance mixes where the beat is more important than the feeling - and you get a lot of bass/kick synergy.

Then play that on-the-beat stuff on a Rick with an agressive slap technique, and pump that through fairly heavy compression set to medum attack and long-ish release. Perhaps brighten the attack with a little track EQ in the 4-6k range.

Then set that bass compressed line high/forward in the mix, almost as if you were laying in a lead vocal.

Then take your recording down to the old Comisky Park, put it in a pile in center field and blow it up with some cheap-ass pyrotechnics. And throw Steve Dahl in that pile while you're at it.

G.
 
The style and feel of the tracks is not the issue for me, its that fatness and tightness thats coming from the recording technique in the studio. I've got a decent bass sound but its not like those recordings. Nothing I try with my gear gets me to that fatness. If figure if I can move the bass track tone up a notch I'll really have something as the balance of my tracks are just fine.

I challenge anyone to take their DAW recorded bass lines and compare them to some of those super disco hits and tell me their digital rendered bass sounds better than those old tape recorded tones.

Bob
 
I don't know if any of the tape sims are any good, so I can't help you there, but a lot of guys will either track to tape and then dump it to pc, or use tape essentially as an effect by tracking to pc, then sending it out to tape and recording it back in. Still others just use the electronics of a tape deck, but then I think you'd be losing a lot of the desired result. On the other hand, some big time guys do it, so what do I know.

I think tape generally has 4 desirable characteristics. One is saturation, aka 'warmth' aka distortion, albeit a pleasing one. One is compression, which is almost required for bass, and is the thing that gets talked about most in regards to tape . Another is limiting, also very helpful for bass, as well as a major reason drummers like it. But the one I think people forget about is the sort of 'rounding off' of the high frequencies, which tends to make things sound 'smooth'. So you might try dialing back on the highs just a hair.

Just trying to keep the discussion going, really.

How ARE the tape sims, guys?
 
And aside from Rick James

I can't think of any other disco players that I associate a Ric with. Jazz or P. Alembics were making strong inroads at the time, but I associate that more with funk.
 
The sound that was specific to that era may well have been due to the tape and a UA 1176 compressor. I know I can't recreate it. I wonder how much recording of bass tracks direct was common at that time. I think micing the amp had been the way it was for at least up to about 1970. Maybe going to a tape machine as you say is the only way. I've never used a quality tape simulator but the one I do have is lousy, the Cakewalk Tape Sim. Its nowhere close.

I do low pass the high end Cardio but that still doesn't do it.
 
Oh yeah, gotta go direct

Although nothing is a hard and fast rule, I think that one of the things that defines the disco bass sound is going direct.

Maybe one of us should start a separate tape sim thread, as it specifically pertains to bass. I don't have much luck getting answers, though. Maybe my questions are too specific. :confused:
 
Card....I believe getting super sounding recorded bass lines really helps the rest of the mix sound so much better. That is why I brought this subject up. Its not very difficult to record pretty good tracks of other instruments but bass appears to be the more difficult one to get to sound stellar.

I retried my old Tape Sim plug in which I put away long ago and found it does add a more tape feel to bass and as such, gets me closer to the type of bass sound I like. Thanks for jogging my memory on that idea. The Cakewalk Tape Sim does seem to help.
 
Most of those guys were using those "extremely large pickup" basses ... like the Ernie Ball Music Man. And the strings were usually fairly new.

After that, it's all in the playing. You're likely to get a much better and more relevent answer to your question if you visit the guitar and bass forum. Very little of this has to do with any sort of recording technique.
.
 
Minimoogs were use for some funk and they are fat.
Also old fender basses cant be beat when recorded onto analog tape and saturated.

mmmmmmm - FAT

-Stew
 
i was just about to say that .....the fender bass had alot to do with that fat disco sound, if you notice in disco, reggae, & tejano, the fender bass is used to get that deep fat bass of plus going direct helped too.
 
scorpio01169 said:
i was just about to say that .....the fender bass had alot to do with that fat disco sound, if you notice in disco, reggae, & tejano, the fender bass is used to get that deep fat bass of plus going direct helped too.
Click to expand...

A precision or jazz bass? or just any fender?
 
A Fender P or J bass, sometimes a Music Man. P bass is still the most popular all-around recording bass. Besides that - it's all in the fingers. It's the actual parts that were played that are "fat" and "tight".

Very little "recording technique" to it - other than going through a large-format console to tape with some decent compression added in. And actually being in the 70's to get that 70's sound didn't hurt, either. : )

If you want something gearwise to help you get there, check out the A Designs REDDI DI box. http://www.studioreviews.com/reddi.htm
 
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