Reggae Bass settings tips

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Reggae Bass settings tips

Postby CabralGroove » Sat Jan 05, 2019 12:28 am

Hi,

I’m new with Modo Bass and I’ve been experimenting with different settings to get the bass to sound like those old school reggae bass sounds.
Could you share some of your tips and settings to achieve the reggae bass sounds ? (Bass model, amp settings, etc.)

Thanks,
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Re: Reggae Bass settings tips

Postby puranon » Sun Jan 06, 2019 10:17 am

Experiment with Fender J and P basses. strum position and velocity matters. Try lighter playing and reduced treble.
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Re: Reggae Bass settings tips

Postby CabralGroove » Tue Jan 08, 2019 3:42 am

First getting the right models ( Fender J and P) helped to zero in on the right sounds.
It seems obvious now, but the playing style most definitely brought things home (soft touch and low velocity )
One of the things that also made a difference was dialing back the DI knob all the way to zero.
As i get more familiar with the settings i might blend the DI signal back in, but for now i like what i hear with just the AMP knob :-)

Thanks for the tips.
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Re: Reggae Bass settings tips

Postby AdDeRoo » Thu Feb 28, 2019 4:05 pm

Hi

I am new to this forum, using Modo for one day, but actually love it.

As a longtime reggae fan, the reggae bass was also my first edit

Searching the web I found the following, and this worked fine:
Fender Jazz Bass
Flat Wound Strings
Gauge: Heavy
Age: Old
Active Circuit, and then dial the Treble to zero; Increase the Bass to taste
Amp: Tube; reduce the Treble to zero
Playing at 8.00 inch, close to the neck (away from the bridge)

This produces for me a nice FamilyMan Barrett Bob Marley bass

Cheers

Ad
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Re: Reggae Bass settings tips

Postby CabralGroove » Sat Mar 02, 2019 2:07 am

AdDeRoo wrote:Searching the web I found the following


If you don't mind sharing your ''sources" (not sure if links are ok around here), but you can certainly point me in the right direction with keywords, with Google search, i'm sure i can manage to find it.
It could also be interesting to build on this topic about how to get the right reggae sounds in MODO.

Thanks for the great tips BTW :-) Greatly appreciated :-)
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Re: Reggae Bass settings tips

Postby AdDeRoo » Sat Mar 02, 2019 1:48 pm

several, but some of the tips I got from:

https://www.bestbassgear.com/ebass/arti ... rrett.html

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/low-end ... sound.html

A collection of remarks and text I collected from the internet:

• Use old or dead flatwound strings. To get a good reggae bass sound you could use any strings whether flat.
• Use the neck pickup. Again this may have being discovered through trial and error, but the reggae bass sound produce by the neck pickup is out of this world.
• Play close to the neck. Playing too close to the bridge will make the reggae bass sound too high, which is really not ideal for reggae.
• Aston "Family man" Barrett: 60’s Fender Jazz bass with flat wound dead strings
• Robbie Shakespeare: His go to bass is a 4 string Paul Reed Smith and his technique involves playing with his thumb.
• The 4-string Music-Man StingRay is also very good for reggae
• Any good bass amp should do the trick but, if you are in doubt go for something that can give you a very big deep and natural sound. Many reggae bass players back in the day used their bass with an acoustic amp. They used this combination mainly to mimic the upright bass which gave a more natural sound. So you could try an acoustic bass amp so long as it is loud enough.
• Ampeg makes very good amps and their reissue B15 is one you might want to look at. Other makes you should check out are Fender, Dean, Ashdown, SWR , Trace Elliott, Hartke, Orange, Roland and Gallien-Krueger. There are more manufacturers no doubt but, the high end models of these makes will do just fine.
• Reggae bass sound is traditionally very deep and natural - no bells and whistles. These days however, musicians are experimenting with different sounds and settings, so again it boils down to what tickles your fancy.
• So play around with the settings on your bass until you get a deep thumping reggae sound. Basically you want to get rid of the highs and use as much middle as is reasonable without brightening the sound too much.
• Play on and around the one drop. If you are just learning how to play reggae bass practice with a metronome or a drum beat. It is absolutely essential that you do this. The reggae bass line must be synchronized with the drums. Listen to the drums very carefully to hear how it holds everything together. Listen especially for the one drop. This is very important since you are either going to play around the one drop or you are going to play on it so to speak. If you find this hard to understand, listen to Bob Marley’s One Drop song. Hear how the snare and bass drum use the third beat of the song to free up space for the bass and other instruments to do their thing. Learn to play in the space around the one drop and at other times play on the one drop to give that Roots Reggae feel.
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Re: Reggae Bass settings tips

Postby CabralGroove » Fri May 10, 2019 11:31 pm

Thanks AdDeRoo :-)

Your tips and links were very helpful. Cheers !!!

P.S. Sorry for the late reply ;-)
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