The First Time in Years, and it's Five to Five
By fc on January 29, 2012 6:06 am
So this morning my girlfriend and I went busking, and I realised how out of practice I am on my instrument (bass), due to spending most of my music time either researching or doing notated/other type compositions. I had also attempted to write a different piece for this week's submission, however due to various changes in circumstances, I am unable to complete it until next week. Which is okay, new motivation to return to my earliest recording styles, but with more experience and whatnot. Also a good excuse to bust out three of my bass guitars and use them for recording.
I could definitely have spent more time mixing/getting it to sound good. But a) I was quite tired/rushed, and b) I really quite like a dirty, unrefined sound, particularly from largely improvised music.
So this piece is a bass guitar piece. It features three different bass tracks, and two synth tracks. The first bass track was provided by my 4 string Spector bass, tuned EADG (the reason I am explaining this will become apparent), and is the harmony that guides the first chunk of the piece. The second bass that I used is my Ibanez fretless 6 string (BTB406Q) tuned BEADGC, because of the great sound of fretless bass, I thought this would make a killer bass line. The final bass is my 4 string tenor bass, strung ADGC, and is the only one of the three with 70s style P/J passive pickups, the other two have a preamp. This final bass provides the opening motive and the ongoing solo part.
I then just added some processing and MIDI parts, polished it up and exported it. Done with Ableton Live.
Was a lot of fun, and made up for the DISMAL money we made busking this morning!
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)
fretless bass. Great playing and nice overall structure.
Interesting composition.
I love the mood of this one. Beautiful, but there's some lurking danger or general disarray sneaking up on us.