Monday, July 27, 2009

Long Day but a Good Day!

I had a double session today starting at 10:AM. That was fun, long day but a great day. The first session was for a young band (Average age 17), great writing and playing. I brought my NS/Stick but they opted for the standard Fender Jazz. Thought they might select that as it has a less intense low end. They had several basses to choose from as well as the NS. I played each with pick and fingers for them to decide.

The compression used was the Tube Tech CL 1B (Out board gear - not a plug in). I really like the response and umph it adds to low end. I've wanted one for my own rig back in the day when I rolled around with a 15 space rack. I never splurged for the price is high and the studios always had one or something comparable. I guess I figured, (Okay I was being cheap) and thought "Why buy the cow when you get the milk free" or something silly like that.

The hardest part of the session for me was the simplicity. No flash, no flare just play under the guitar chords like an extension of the lowest note of the chord. I'm always 'seeking the creative line' to link the chords, rhythm and harmonies together, the last thing I would think to do was just play roots.

After hearing me warm up the producers first words - in a sincere and apologetic tone, where, "I'm so sorry we are not going to be using all your talents today, you'll just play "beyond simple bass lines"... . And so I did just that. My ' internal reward to myself' after the session was just knowing they got exactly what they were after and were very happy with it. The band will have great success, there is a lot of talent, excellent production team and connections behind them. I'm sure they will have a YouTube video up of the song and I'll hear my bass part... but see a teenager with tatoo's rockin' my part.
Ya gotta love it.

The next session (2:PM) was a two song session as well but for two different projects. I played both projects with the NS/Stick "with the intensely fierce low end". This producer uses the Pultec Eq and Fairchild plug ins for the NS. 'That' sound really works for me. Huge clear intense low end - with sub low end punch.

This project I got to stretch out on, be creative and throw a few gymnastic NS bass parts in. Just enough to let the Producer/engineer know, 'hey there's a player on board here!" without 'taking over' the tune. (There's kind of an art form to that... you always want to address a song with 'your style' but not get in the way, as you want to 'enhance' what the writer envisioned - not cloud it.

The second tune was a theme for an upcoming TV show. Very exciting tune that was the kind of a production tune that had rock and swing elements in it. In this kind of session I feel so glad I have a lot of experience in many styles of music. You can just 'grab on" to the elements that make 'swing' swing and Rock 'Rock' with authority and intensity and drive the track where it needs to be. In the end when you accomplish that, you have Happy writers and producers and that makes for a happy session.

Hopefully lots more where all that came from as it was a wonderful musical day.
Have one for yourselves!
Don

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