Jimmy "Flim" Johnson

[jacko]

Jazzy... I can recommend 'Sand' and 'Secrets' for some really tasty bass playing. However, I'd also suggest you listen to some of Jimmy's playing on the later James taylor albums; Hourglass, New Moonshine and October road.
 
Jimmy... Any sign of James bringing out an album of new material any time soon?
 
Graeme

[JimmyJ]

Thanks Jimy & Graeme for jumping in, I never know what to suggest when asked that question.  
 
Since we're talking about sound I will tell a detail that could only be appreciated by folks in here...  On the Holdsworth records and the ancient Flim & The BB's stuff I recorded the Series basses in stereo - separate tracks for each pickup - and then panned them ever so slightly left and right.  Since my pickup balance is more bridge pu than neck pu, the pan pots end up around 11 for the bridge and 2 for the neck on the clock face.  
 
The result appears to be mono, even in headphones, but it's not.  What happens is a bit more openness and some overtones that get cancelled when summed to mono are allowed to pass.  An already large sound becomes even wider.  (Cue the diabolical laughter: boohoohahaha!)  
 
Also back in the day I often used a chorus (on the bridge pu only) when soloing so you'll hear that in some of the above examples.
 
I still dig the tone after all these years.
 
And as we say over here; your mileage may vary...  Everybody gets a different sound just based on their hands, so...
 
Thanks all,
Jimmy J

[JimmyJ]

Oh Graeme, your other question.
 
We cut some demo things about 2 years ago, just JT, Gadd and I.  Eight little groove ideas that he'd come up with which are the seeds of new tunes.  I don't think he has found the time to work further on these yet and I think he's shooting for fall of this year to get back to it.  I hope so, it's been quite a while and we'd all love to hear something new from the guy.  It will happen when it happens.
 
Jimmy J

[mario_farufyno]

Great tip Jimmy!

[jacko]

Thanks for that Jimmy. Another reason for me to look forward to 'Fall' :-)
 
And, it looks like Jazzy is going to have to build a stereo rig. Hope he can fit it all in his Smart car!  hah!
 
graeme

[jazzyvee]

Yes We Can.... :-)
http://club.alembic.com/Images/394/70265.html?1262842514
 
Jazzyvee

[tbrannon]

Jazzy-  
 
I'd also recommend the James Taylor concert recorded at the Beacon Theatre.
 
It's a pretty impressive performance (by everyone up there on stage) and is a great sounding DVD.

[jacko]

a pretty cool video of James' rehearsals has been posted on youtube.
 
Graeme

[jseitang]

that tip from you jimmy, is awesome! super subtle but i now understand how that fundamental is achieved in those recordings!
did you do that with the wayne johnson stuff too?
i always wondered, some of the fretless sounds on the arrowhead album like on the cut  mole the viber has almost some fretted and fretless tracked together or you use the for separate parts??

[jazzyvee]

Ok I had a look through my iTunes collection and it seems I have a james Taylor album called Hourglass. It must have been in the cd's I got from a guitarist friend of mine a few years back and never realised when copying everything to iTunes so I will give that a listen today.
 
Jazzyvee

[tmimichael]

Jimmy...
First post to you, so hello!  
AND, thank you for your input, ideas and such consistent friendship with everyone who calls themselves family on this site. I have been amazed since I began reading (and posting) on the club site, that you take time from your obviously hectic schedule to stay in touch with everyone who follows you in your career.
So I'm posting in reference to your comments about recording in stereo, and with the chorus on one pickup. I've been thinking about a similar rig for our live gigs, because I run direct into the PA from my amp on stage.  The PA is set up in stereo, but most everything is panned straight up so it is in effect a mono system. I thought running my Series II in stereo, with a chorus on the bridge PU (and maybe a low octave sometimes on the neck PU) would sound great out front.
Have you had an opportunity to try running in stereo out front?
THANKS!
Michael

[JimmyJ]

Hey Michael, welcome to the forum and thanks for the kind words.
 
I've never thought about doing it in the PA but you could.  I guess the thing about that is that the folks standing over near the left side would hear a different balance of your bass and effects than folks on the right side of the room.  For recordings you assume listeners will be able to hear both speakers at once.  (It's always funny when you're in a restaurant and can only hear the right channel of the radio when a song like All My Lovin comes on and all you get is vocals.)
 
What I describe above is pretty subtle anyway.  My ultimate version of the chorus on the bridge pu was when I used an ADA Stereo Tapped Delay, had it set to only pass the wet signal only, and summed the L&R outputs with the unaffected bass.  When I turned it on the direct bass signal did not change, only the chorused returns were added to the signal.  Worked great!
 
You know, there are no rules for this stuff so if you think of something that might be cool just try it!
 
Jimmy J

[bigredbass]

So like the 'Today' show, 'Where In the World is Jimmy Johnson?'  You said you were in a hotel, who are you out with right now?  Or are you sequestered in an 'secure undisclosed location'? Hope it's all going well and you can get home before long !
 
Jimmy, what about compression?  What do you like, what do you think about it, recording and live?
 
All the Best,
 
J o e y

[jacko]

Good question Joey. I've just bought a second hand rack mount compressor to slot between my pre and power amps in an attempt to tighten up the bottom end a bit so I'd value anyone's insights. - No hurry though - this thing has 8 knobs, 8 buttons and 30 LEDs per channel so it's going to take me a while to figure out how it works :-)
 
Graeme

[JimmyJ]

J o e y,
 
In Italy this month with James Taylor and a small band; just Steve Gadd, Jeff Babko (to be traded for Larry Goldings in 10 days), and me.  I can't complain about being away from home when THIS is what I get to do!  Even the wife agrees.  (Luckily!)
 
Good question about compression.  I generally don't like it in a live context, preferring to have all the dynamics available to my fingers.  I like the note to have a shape to it, think piano string or even upright bass.  Even with the sustain these basses have the note still has a natural decay.  If you compress that out I miss it.  I've been in clubs where the FOH guy will squash the daylights out of it and when the ballad comes up your bass is blasting away at the same volume as the previous metal song.  OK, so maybe those two musical extremes never go together, but you know what I mean.
 
But a recording engineer can do wonderful things with this audio tool.  It's almost hard-wired to the bass channel in many studios.  Maybe the best sound I've ever heard was running through a Neve 1073 pre and a UA LA-2A compressor - not doing too much compressing / limiting, but that combination made the bass sound amazing, in my opinion.
 
You've jogged my memory - I once owned two Inovonics compressors as part of my LARGE live rig.  They were in the audio signal path but in fact NOT doing any compressing.  I just liked what they did to the tone.  In the end, it was probably the input transformers that I was digging and not the actual processing.  HA!  
 
So I don't know enough about compressor / limiters to really know what I'm talking about.  I'd be interested to hear how you guys use them.
 
thanks,
Jimmy J