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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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No Precision Bass guitars were harmed in the making of my recording. Indeed, no Precision or P-style basses were used at all ... nor any active pickups or onboard active EQ.
Even with a touch of Mr East's active circuitry.
Just to satisfy your curiosity, I had a go with the Yamaha. Mudbucker + piezo but no P middle pickup. Plectrum applied close to the end of the fingerboard yields something that could pass for the R neck pickup sound. The only way to get any clack is to play very close to the bridge.
The mudbucker aspect makes sense to me. As a teenager, one of my favourite bass guitar sounds was Barry Adamson of Magazine. His fretted bass was an Ibanez 2389B R-style with the big humbucker in the neck position. Smother liberally with BOSS CE-1 Chorus Ensemble and you have that sound.
thanks v mych for the demo. the rubberiness is great. that's why i love neck pickups best, all the bottom middle boing without the toppy twang.
was your idea to feed in just enough bridge pickup output to give it definition at the top, and rasp-buzz if you hit it hard, but keep the neck pickup prioritised? (btw what's the guitar and output of the pickups?).
as to whether it sounds rick-ish, i'm not sure i hear any characteristic clanky-clunk. it's an organic woody tone, not a mettalic one. but maybe that could be added in with an effect. hint of ringmod or something. there's substance to work with there, so i see where you are coming from (or so i think).
... or maybe this is really a ricky with all the clank dialled out (flat tone) and you are testing us??
https://static.cdnbridge.com/resources/18/160536/picture/C7/85414599.jpg
bloody hell! that will do. if it's not a dead on match it's easy close enough for me.
what brand is that one? if i could find an affordable copy that sounded like that i'd be thrilled. congrats to you for finding a decent one.
of the others you have (whole and bits), have you tried any of them when they were complete and got similar results, or does it vary?
i can honestly say that this (and one other hondo i have heard on youtube) are the best copies i have heard yet.
something else i noticed during this video (that i hadn't thought much about until seeing it) is action. i get the feeling this has a superlow action, to that point that it even seems to dead out at the very top frets (maybe it was just in need of a tweak, nut/bridge? or maybe a little bow/twist).
do you think having a low as possible action (and maybe baggy strings, or tone down even) helps with adding that buzzy grit in the attack and getting your copies as close-sounding to the original as possible?
that seems to add a lot of grit-buzz and metallic clank. maybe not in the same way that ricky pickups distort, but it hits a similar spot.
do they have glossy fretboards? that's another thing i've been wodering about. not sure that would be a huge factor but maybe it means something.
anyway, thanks for that clip. it's really opened my eyes. most i have heard are lookalike but sound generic.
is it full (34"/33") or shortscale (30")? if it's short then i think i will have to find one, because that's easily good enough for my rick-fake needs.
Unless you press down very hard or use piccolo bass string gauges, your fingertips will very rarely come into contact with the fingerboard. When they do, it will usually be between the G string and the edge of the 'board. On a RIC or posh copy, that is where the binding is. Thus, the varnish makes very little difference.
i;m guessing yours is full scale 34" or 33"? i'd like to find a shortscale (30") copy, if the typical mij's can be tweaked to soundas good as yours. nmost of those i have hear just sound like cheap sub-precision copies.
low action is definitely something i need to do next time i want to fake it. hadn't thought about that at all really, but it seems so obvious. best ricky basses are low frets, glossy fretboard making the fretboard to fret-crest height even shallower, and an action so low you an play just by thinking about fretting a note.
as for other copies i think are convincing, the swamp ash copy here (first one of three) i think is as good as any difference doesn't matter. i keep the video in my bookmarks as a reminder how good a faker can be (will add yours to that).
for that classic low end clunky thump and top end nasal spank it's all there in spades. delicious.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
D'oh!