Jimmy "Flim" Johnson

[dead_head]

That was awesome! Thanks for posting, Joey.

[David Houck]

Just finished watching.  Wonderful!!

[keith_h]

Rene and I watched the Austin City Limits show on WUNC over the weekend as well.

[JimmyJ]

Hey thanks for the link Joey and all of you for the nice comments.  That show came out pretty good despite JT fighting off a cold.  I'm a fan of ACL and have seen some great music on that program.  Surprisingly it was the first time James had done it.

Carry on. Best to everybody,
Jimmy J

[jazzyvee]

I hope I'm not repeating a question you have already answered elsewhere JJ.
Do you personally use effects pedals when gigging?
(1) If so are they because you require them to get 'your sound" or does your client request that you use them?
(2) If so what type of pedals are they?

I personally have never used them on bass as I prefer the naked sound of my basses. I have noticed when I've been to gigs that more and more, bass players are using effects pedals especially the ones that add a lower octave, and digital multi effects units. A number of bass heads have some kind of sub enhancer/octave divider built in and I just turn them off when they are in a backline I'm using at a gig. It was once suggested to me that I should use a boost pedal when doing a solo but that is not yet a big part of my bass playing at the moment I tend to just dig in a bit more.

What's your take on them?

[JimmyJ]

Hey Jazzy,

Keeping in mind that I am approximately 1000 years old...  I do not have any pedals or effects in my sound palette.  Aside from fretless bass I only make one kind of rumble.

That said, I have huge respect for those who do have these options available and under their control.  Folks like Matt Bissonette and Kaveh Rastegar can make some very cool sounds.

I just never persued that angle.  Partly because back in my experimental days most pedals were built for a low-level, hi-Z loads and that's not how I was running my basses.  I also felt that many effects interrupted the main job of the bass by messing with the fundamental.  And if there was a studio situation where they wanted something - most likely they had a rack effect that would do it best.

BUT ... because I played in a lot of guitar trios back then, I did have a chorus effect that I liked to use for soloing.  I set it up in a weird way (of course). 

I was running in stereo those days - 2x12" for the bridge p/u and 2x15" for the neck p/u - and the direct bass signal always went straight through with nothing in its path.  But I had an ADA stereo-tapped delay which was always being fed (line level) signal from the bridge p/u.  When I turned that on, it fed only the stereo shifting side of the chorus into BOTH the A & B channels of the amp, summing with the unadulterated direct bass signal.

So the effect was only additive and didn't interrupt the main signal.  It slightly boosted the level and put a bit of movement into the sound which I enjoyed.  Pretty subtle but fun to have that little extra thing when soloing.

These days I'm almost always running mono and if a solo comes up I count on the band to lay back a bit and I try to dig in as you do. 

Jimmy J

[jazzyvee]

Thanks for responding Jimmy J, I always appreciate your insight into the business of bass and plan to stay away from effects. Does the SF-2 count as an effects unit? I do have one that I bought before I could afford an Series bass but found it hard to use because the cabs I had couldn't take the bottom end I wanted to use at any reasonable volume. Now that I've got a barefaced cab i've used it on few reggae gigs where the bass wasn't in the PA and I wanted to fill the room better.

[JimmyJ]

I don't think of the SF-2 as an effect, but it's an amazing EQ.  Makes sense to shape your tone to meet the needs, especially in a reggae band setting.  Absolutely!


Jimmy J

[HyAlembicK]

Hey Jimmy, I see you are coming to Portland soon! 😂

[eddievig]

Jimmy,

Me and the fam just got back early this AM from a trip to London...we missed you guys in Hyde Park by a day! I hope the weather was as awesome as the crowd- 60,000 folks is what I thought I saw on the FB post.

Best,

Ed V

[JimmyJ]

Hey Ed,

Yes, that was quite a day in Hyde Park.  Good to play some Series II low notes for all those folks!  And it was a fine representation of singer / songwriters on the bill.  Surprisingly hot weather for London and we played our set in the direct sun, but the crowd seemed in a good mood and the response was very nice.  I'm pretty sure that was because of the bass tone.  HA!!

Cheers all,
Jimmy J

[jacko]

13,500 in Glasgow seemed a lot. I can't imagine what it must be like looking out at 60,000!

Graeme

[eddievig]

Hey there Jimmy!

I just heard about the Ramin Partovi project  "27 Faces of a Broken Heart", and the concept intrigued me. I just bought it this morning, so I haven't gotten through all 27 tracks yet...

You and Simon are awesome as usual. Any scoop on how that came together?

Best,

Ed V

[JimmyJ]

Hey Ed V,

When you do a recording session there's just no way to know what will become of the music.  More often than not you never hear of the project, or actually hear the music again.  But then you'll run into somebody who says "Hey, I really loved your playing on the _____ record" and you have to think ...was that me?  Ha!

So it took me a minute but yeah, I remember now.  Mr. Partovi is a pilot for Lufthansa (I believe) who also plays guitar.  He decided to do a project of his own and he called Simon Phillips to organize part of it.   Simon called Carl Verheyen and I into his studio (at that time) in February of 2016 - and we cut a tune or two for the guy.  Being his first ever music project I think he really enjoyed the experience despite the fact that we were kind of, um, guiding his decision making.  Ha! 

And apparently he kept going and did several other sessions resulting in a double CD's worth of tunes.  Not uncommon for somebody who's been playing a while but never tried to record anything original.  They often have a LOT of ideas ready to go.

So that's the story.  We did one session for him and I can't remember how many of the 27 songs we played on...  but probably not more than 3.   


Jimmy J

[eddievig]

Jimmy,
From what I can tell, he used the same rhythm track ( with bass and drum solos) and sent them to about 25 other guitar players to do their thing over it... Mike Stern, Scott Henderson, Oz Noy, Brent Mason, Dean Brown are notable. It ended up being 27 tracks...or 27 interpretations of 1 track, which is an interesting listen. 

Getting to hear your bass solo 27 times made my work day a whole lot better too!
All the best,
Ed V