Author Topic: Series bass question (Read 687 times)

hifibassman · « **on:** August 26, 2003, 06:16:37 AM »

What combination of body wood and neck laminates would yield a combination of that impressive 70's classic buttery alembic series bass sound (which got me hooked on the series bass in the first place 20 years ago) with today's general preference for a punchy, tight bass sound- or is that impossible to get? Maybe the new series basses already have all of this (i can't afford one so i can't tell except by other recordings of it, and i've only played a series 1 once in my life- incredible experience at a music store with nice salespeople). All of the recordings of a series bass i've ever listened to (live or studio) sound like absolute bass perfection to me. In general, are the recordings i've been listening to over the years getting that buttery sound influenced more by the bass rig being used or the recording studio sound board using that over easy compression? Hope i didn't confuse anyone with my babling.

hifibassman · « **Reply #1 on:** August 27, 2003, 05:44:16 AM »

No one wants to answer my question?? Am i that bad at asking?? I thought this was a friendly forum.

palembic · « **Reply #2 on:** August 27, 2003, 06:30:14 AM »

No brother -no-no!
I mean yes-yes
(oh s**$!->?? ...I'm confused , maybe the babbling LOL me and babbling ...oh-o)
The question you ask is not THAT simple (AND i think we're all in a lazy mood). The sound of a bass from the past is brought to us by a lot of factors so evaluating them and comparing to now is not THAT easy.
You blame the wood for a buttery sound (love that word).
It's part of it in my opinion. Moder Mica pointed it out somewhere but (hopla) wood CAN mean a lot of difference (I think for sure in neck-through design) but is not the only thing. More: wood (and the guitar) changes by aging and being played.
I think I will hurt nobody by saying -IMO- that giving the known techniques of reproducing and amplifiing sound it's VERY difficult to have a bad sounding bass. Than you have the bass + the amplification (or recording) as creators of yout Buttery sound. Taking the bass as a stand-alone unit with amplification technmology constant (= we only change guitars and not the amplification) I guess you will truely HEAR what the Alembics can do!

About woods.
Somewhere on this club -in the dark ages of passed time (so let's say about a year ago)- I wrote in a thread about the tonal differences of wood (as far I could find them here and there and puzzle them together), I know that our Moder Mica has very definite ideas about this issue, also written down in that era.
She talked about the early experiments with woods.
Please be so kind to wander around and use the search function, it must be there.
I'm sure my collaegues will come quick and give some more insight! Brother Michael knows a lot of these older Alembics, I'm sure he will come this way soon!
(anyway ....I'm the bad one here, not them LOL)

Paul the bad one

(Message edited by palembic on August 27, 2003)

Manfred · « **Reply #3 on:** August 27, 2003, 06:55:35 AM »

Hi,

Have a look at http://club.alembic.com/Images/393/5724.html?1061230499
I had a similar question about the differences between the old buttery and the new sound.

Manfred

hifibassman · « **Reply #4 on:** August 27, 2003, 09:14:05 AM »

guys,

thanks for responding. whew! for a minute there i thought i violated some club rule or something by asking forbidden or awkward questions. you guys really are nice and i appreciate it.

mica · « **Reply #5 on:** August 27, 2003, 01:29:27 PM »

On older recordings using Alembic basses (we're talkin' 1970s here), many artists used flatwound strings. The preferred brand was Pyramid Gold made by Framus company in Germany. These sounded good for one song then the artists would restring for the next song they recorded.

I've heard from experienced players tha the Thomastik jazz flats are a good substitute string.

mica · « **Reply #6 on:** August 27, 2003, 01:36:48 PM »

Hey, maybe I should try answering your original question, huh?

You'll want less dense neck woods primarily - Mahogany, Walnut, Vermilion, Beech. The neck is the most influential wood for the tone. Maybe you should try a Brown Bass when you get a chance. That's made with a recipe of woods the same as bass number 80, and I've heard many people refer to its sound as buttery

We once made a bass for Stanley Clarke with the Purpleheart neck laminates - he didn't like it because it was too stiff for his pehead vibrato technique.

dela217 · « **Reply #7 on:** August 27, 2003, 07:35:36 PM »

I have a 1972 Alembic that I have flatwound strings on. It's neck consists of mostly walnut with 2 very small veneers of maple running through the neck. It has an ebony fingerboard with a maple veneer underneath it. The sound this combination gets is much more than buttery. It is the whole dairy.

hifibassman · « **Reply #8 on:** August 28, 2003, 06:10:05 AM »

The 70's basses that i'm used to listening to i believe had the roundwounds. i was into funk, soul, and disco back then and listened to groups like the blackbyrds, skyy, donald byrd, slave, mother's finest, and then was exposed to jazz fusion like stanley clarke (mostly). My favorites also included fleetwood mac, and the who. They all seemed to play buttery sounding series 1 and 2 basses with roundwounds on it except for fleetwood mac (i'm not sure).
Was John McVie the one who had the flat wound strings on their classic album with the thunder and rain song on it?

dela217 · « **Reply #9 on:** August 28, 2003, 07:41:50 AM »

Hifi - I caught a Blackbyrds show once. It was a small club here in New Orleans. It was the late 70's. There were about 25 people in the club! Great show. They had an Alembic bass and Guitar on that stage. I was pleased.

elzie · « **Reply #10 on:** August 28, 2003, 08:00:49 AM »

Mother's Finest??

I have not heard that name in years! Every time I would mention it, no one would know who they were. Next you are going to mention Angel

hifibassman · « **Reply #11 on:** August 28, 2003, 12:29:17 PM »

well Elzie... most everyone i talk to about mother's finest here know them. they were one heck of a funk rock group. i loved their live album- that alembic bass rocks the stage!

dela217- i've never seen the blackbyrds live, but they sure sounded good on their albums. i kinda miss all of those sounds back in the 70's and 80's. the stuff out here now just doesn't have that magic anymore. or maybe i'm getting too old.

tylere · « **Reply #12 on:** August 28, 2003, 02:02:59 PM »

Lemme back up mica on Thomastik-Infeld. They are absoluetly the best strings I've ever used. I use them exclusivly. Thomastik has 3 main lines of strings. The jazz flats are flat wounds, very warm and smooth sounding. Almost like an upright in some ways. There's very little loss of high frequencies like on many flats, so that DONT have the dead sound associated with, say, motown bass. I use these on my epic fretles. The powerbass strings are perfect for modern playing. Crystal clear highs for slap, and deep clear lows. Sustain forever. The jazz roundwounds are sorta in the middle.

Manfred · « **Reply #13 on:** August 28, 2003, 03:42:48 PM »

Mother's Finest is still active, but the Alembic sound is gone. Their live album is great, it has that typical sound Hifi is talking about, I dug up some old records like Rose Royce and Clarke/Duke project II which also has that sound on the song You're gonna love it. They all used roundwound strings. Those basses were brand new at that time, so I don't think it has anything to do with the age of the bass itself. My previous series one produced that sound as well, but the one I'm using now doesn't. Must be the neck or the thicker body. Maybe the Brown bass Mica is talking about. Does anybody have some sound samples of it?

Manfred

hifibassman · « **Reply #14 on:** August 29, 2003, 05:58:58 AM »

mica- like you said, if i want that classic old buttery sound i need to look for a brown bass. eventually i will purchase a used series 1 or 2, so i need to look out for one with low density neck woods. thanks for your valuable input.

tylere- can you slap on those flatwounds? for some reason i thought roundwounds were best for the slap sound. if you did slap on the flats, do they sound like rounds? regarding the motown bass sound- i think the bass is supposed to sound like that intentionally although i hardly believe that during those days they were even aware or cared about the ultra clean fidelity bass sound frontier that alembic was building at the time. i don't know, i kinda like that dull sound for some stuff- i absolutely love all that 70's classic isley brothers bass sound- and that was mostly a dull but deep fender jazz bass. if you listen to the early jackson 5 recordings i think jermaine was using a gibson SG bass which the pickup positions were similar to the series one, but were no where near refined like alembic. that gibson had a very dull but even tone sound to it- it sounded sweet to me for that type of music venue- probably because the bass body and neck was mahogany, like the core of a series bass. i'm sure an alembic bass would have definitely enriched that sound using those low pass filters at the right setting.

manfred- i don't know of any other group that had such a heavy handed powerful bass presence as mother's finest (except maybe john entwistle and the who). to me, their live album represents what an alembic series bass should sound like at the top of it's live performance envelope (the wizzard bass player had his filters set to low or medium Q which did not dramatically accentuate any resonance across the bass frequency range). At that concert you can hear every nuance of bass sound and resonance- VERY LOUDLY. must of had a heck of a massive amplification system to support that alembic (for back in the 70's).
i think the brown bass sound was stanley clarke's signature sound although most of his recordings (i think) had the bass tuned A,D,G,F with light gauge strings.

(Message edited by hifibassman on August 29, 2003)