91_Bassblog 09: What is the Sound…?

I turned my ears on recently. Really turned them on.

I was listening to Sara Bareilles “Little Voice” CD (the majority of which was originally self-published – Anna owns this one), and the bass was grooving. On the liner notes the studio bassist credited is Chris Chaney, and I was digging his lines. I kept wondering why I hadn’t heard of him – not that I’ve heard of everyone, but a studio musician that dug-in the way he did, and added so much without getting in the way – I’ve heard many of the greatest bass players in Nashville, heck, in the country, but this guy was awesome.

The more I searched, the more I learned (note that I’m listening to the CD all the time at this point – on my iPhone at the fitness center, on my laptop at work, and in my wife’s car – and every chance I get, I’m grabbing the nearest person and saying things like “Did you hear that? That was awesome what he did! I wonder how he gets that sound…?” My wife is over it already. :) Chris is credited on a LARGE number of albums, performed with Alanis Morissette on a couple of tours, was in Jane’s Addiction – the reformed version – and subsequently, with Dave Navarro, created The Panic Channel.

I didn’t make it ou to see my friends in Strat5 perform at the Gibson Summer Jam (where they WON, by the way, and are on their way to Cleveland this October for the final competition at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!), but if I HAD, I would have actually SEEN Chris performing with the all-star band at the after-the-contest party.

He’s done some writing for Bass Player magazine, and in an interview with them in around 2003 he talked about his gear. And this guy’s got some gear. I won’t relist everything here, but I finally invested in an EBS Octabass pedal and have been shopping for a couple of other pedals totally based on this list. It may also explain why I didn’t recognize his sound – as a talented and prepared studio chameleon, he puts the sound down that is appropriate for the song…

I sent an email to Eric Rosse, Sara’s producer, begging him to reveal Chris’ sound secret on “Little Voice”, especially “Many the Miles”, and “Love on the Rocks”. It’s so greasy and groovy. The notes are so ROUND… I don’t know how else to explain it, but I just LOVE that sound. And I want to duplicate it (read: steal it).

A lot of a bass player’s tone is in the fingers. It’s technique. Certainly your instrument – pickups, neck and body woods, bridge weight, and a million other debated things – and the strings one uses make a huge difference, but technique is sometimes the hardest thing to get “right” when you’re trying to find a sound. It doesn’t take as long to ape someone else as it does to develop your own style, but it’s still quite challenging.

The next thing, according to my friend Tommy, is the preamp. Solid state or tube? In Chris’ case, it seems the Aguilar DB 680 pre, or possibly the Aguilar DB 900 DI or Avalon U5 DI are responsible for the buttery syrup on the Bareilles CD.

So, next step to getting the round sound… I had a name brand multi-effect preamp, still fresh in the box – midi enabled, and all the bells and whistles – but it wasn’t tube, and I couldn’t get it to duplicate what I was hearing. I played with combinations of my Hartke HA3500 (using only the tube pre) and my ART StudioV3 Tube MP, but that only served to tease me with the potential of real tube growl. I started watching Craigslist for a tube preamp.

When I finally found one for sale, I sent the dude an email and suggested a swap. To my great joy, he agreed to an exceptional deal, and last Sunday I became the proud owner of an Ampeg SVP-Pro. The SVP-Pro is the preamp that Ampeg built into their SVT3 bass rig, and legend has it that they stopped producing it because bass players discovered they could purchase a simple power amplifier, pair it with this fairly inexpensive preamp, and get the same sound as the SVT bass amps were delivering… at near-half the overall price.

But I digress. I started playing with the SVP and the rest of my bass rig… and although I could only get close to the sound I was hearing on “Little Voice”, when I started combining the tube preamp with my late 70’s passive Vantage 4-string, I started hearing all kinds of things I had barely imitated before. Johnny Colt’s deft bass work from his time in Train (Meet Virginia, etc.). Stefan Lessard’s depth on Crush and groove on Ants Marching. Matt Malley and everything he did in Counting Crows. Back in the day it was guys like Eric Brittingham, especially the live tracks (I’ve recently learned that he primarily used a Demeter pre while on tour with Cinderella), and all the other rock bassists that I’ve copped licks from over the years.

I never heard back from Eric Rosse, but I’m going to track Chris down. If you see him, tell him that I would love to buy him a Starbucks decaf double-tall, sugar-free vanilla, breve latte and pick his brain for a few minutes about his syrupy, greasy, groovy, and very round notes.

Be free,

Jeff