Bass sounds on Inner Visions

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 9:13 pm

Anyone know what effect is getting some of those bass sounds on Too High and Living for the City especially?

NitroLiq · Post by **NitroLiq** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 10:40 pm

I remember reading an article by a couple of his old engineers/programmers from around that time and IIRC, he used a moog for that stuff. Not sure which one but f it was more than a mono synth, he could've detuned a couple of oscillators to cause slight phase shifting. If it was mono, he could've run it through a phaser...that was pretty en vogue around that time from rush to zep to stevie.

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 2:19 pm

Its just a wierd sound. Very cool tho. I guess it is a moog. Like a Taurus or one of those.

NitroLiq · Post by **NitroLiq** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 2:42 pm

Nah, I'm pretty positive it's just a regular moog modular synth not taurus pedals. The two guys responsible for the synth programming are Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil. I wish he'd go back to that style....all those albums, Innervisions, Talking Book, Songs in the Key of Life...some of my fav examples of the warmth of 70s recordings.

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 4:58 pm

I really thought it must be a bass hearing all the slides where I swear I could hear fret noises, and just the way he plays it it sounds like a bass player not a key player playing bass. The guys a genius what can you say.

NitroLiq · Post by **NitroLiq** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:29 pm

Well there is real bass on the albums as well but those particular tracks sound like the moog to me....could be a bit of both. The moog almost sounds like a fretless.

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:43 pm

Maybe there is a bass mixed in on some of it. The Moog songs I mean. Good stuff. Tough to play those songs, as written, on guitar. Well, I guess its tough to play songs written on keys on guitar period.

NitroLiq · Post by **NitroLiq** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:14 pm

I don't if you sing also but "Too High" is so difficult accapella to get the pitches right.

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:19 pm

I sing a little backup in the past. Im so barritone I just dont have any range. I know that most people probably dont realize how hard it is to sing in chromatic scale. To be able to have intonation when all the pitches are so close together is tough. It probably seems easy to most but I bet most people sound worse trying to do it then normal modal scales.

I remember trying to play Sir Duke in a band before. Every time we got to the breakdown it was hysterical. If you were watching youd laugh your ass off. Noone was playing together and some couldnt play it at all. I could play it easily but I always had problems locking in with the band, especially then, things like syncing up hits at the end of a song- free time hits or hits comming back in from a pause. Sir Duke was laughably painful. I later played with a bass player who was really good just not overly technical and had a habit of 'hating' songs they couldnt play

Sir Duke was very hated lol. Right along with all the super vibrato-type one finger trill in the bass lines in I Wish. The lines in Sir Duke are unreal. Not in a super technical Victor Wooten way but in a Detroit way. In the pocket but really movin!