Close To The Edge - bass tracking analysis

[walker]

Aside from this album having some of my favorite basslines by Chris, I've always been intrigued by the sounds he got from his basses - (yes, that's plural, more than one.) Some odd years ago, I heard that this was the album that Chris started experimenting with his fretless bass, which was surprising to hear about at the time, since I had just assumed without giving close listen that it was all his Rickenbacker. I can't remember where I gleaned this information, or if said "information" was just a theory, but it's a good theory and would explain the variation in his tone on this album. Some of you may have already noticed this aspect of CTTE, but it was fun to discover and investigate on my own as well. And if anyone has better factual info on the recording techniques used by Chris & Eddie Offord for CTTE, feel free to jump in and add on beyond what I'm speculating here.

Note the distinct differences in the tone of the basses - the Rick being deep & cavernous with a bright attack, and the fretless having a much mellower attack but very prominent lower midrange hump at around 400hz.

'Close To The Edge'

pt 1


It's funny how many times I heard this song without really noticing the places where Chris switches to the fretless, but here's how it breaks down according to what I think I'm hearing:

The song starts with the wild bassline, and it's all Rick. (Interesting that Wakeman is playing the bassline on organ at twice the speed an octave or so higher)
3:02 - the fretless is introduced, doubling the Rick, but more prominent in the mix
3:57 - the Rick by itself again
6:08 - the fretless comes back and the Rick is dropped altogether. When heard by itself, you can tell that Squire had quite a bit of distortion on that fretless.
7:13 - what's funny about this next section is that it starts out fretless for the first measure, then switches to Rick on the 2nd note of the 2nd measure.
8:04 - the fretless takes over again
8:31 - Chris does his volume swells through distortion and a wah pedal on two tracks, panned left and right. The right track is most noticeable. Hard to say for certain which bass this is, but I'm guessing it's the fretless since the tone here resembles the 6:08 section.

pt 2


0:00 - the song counter starts at zero again. Boooo! Oh well - so it goes using Youtube files as a reference.
4:22 - the full band kicks in again; Chris is using the fretless here, no Rick.
5:10 - this section is played just using the fretless. Interesting to note because Squire played this section using only the Rick when the same theme appears in the first half of the song. Here's the same theme played by the two different basses side-by-side - first the Rick, then the fretless:

Rickenbacker v fretless

Squire really makes good opportunity of sliding between notes on the fretless section! Sort of the "dead giveaway" part.

6:43 - the Rick is brought back in and finishes the song by itself (Yes; that's right - I hereby postulate that Chris wasn't even playing the bass in that last section - it magically played itself! That's just how good Squire was!)



'And You And I'



This song is interesting for how much Chris doubled the Rick and fretless in most sections of the song. I'm guessing that Chris used the Rick by itself for the low D line doubled with Bruford's kick drum.

2:56 - the fretless is introduced for the "Coins and crosses" section, being the dominant bass in the mix with the Rick quieter in the background carrying the bright attack.
3:50- The doubling is more apparent here where the Rick is panned left, and the fretless panned right.
7:12 - When the bassline returns after the break, it's all Rick, no fretless.
7:49 - Chris kicks in the vibrato effect, probably the Mutron - it's hard to tell if that's solely the Rick with the effect, or if the Rick is being played straight with the fretless doubled carrying the effect.
8:38 - it sounds like both basses doubled mono again for this last section



'Siberian Khatru'



It's all Rick.

There. At least THAT song was easy!

[ajish4]

Wow!

WHAT A POST MARK!

I'll be back with headphones in hand. My laptop speakers are HORRIBLE...it sounds like an old AM $8.00 radio.

This will be cool to follow it using your timing marks and give it a GOOD listen....

"I'll be back"!

[cjj]

Yeah, what a post! Headphones are a must!


'Course, it'd probably sound good through the Klipsch Chorus II's too. Hmm, I'll have to see about that...

[johnallg]

I agree, WOW Mark. I've listened to this music for decades and not heard all that, just accepting it all as one. I can't wait to hear this with headphones. Decent computer speakers but headphones are a must to really pick this all out.

I never noticed how "spacial stereo" is so prominent in AYAI at the 3:50 movement - all the parts go dimensional stereo. &:49 with the probable Mutron - I believe it is both basses there. Sounds like it to me over the speakers. Headphones will help with this.

[walker]

Thanks to Eddie Offord's brilliant production, a lot of this is discernable through decent-to-good speakers. Even the spatial stuff comes across well if you're sitting at the midpoint between your speakers. That's what also blew me away about this album (besides the music itself) as I learned to appreciate the engineering that goes into capturing music like this in the studio - how well Eddie blended ALL the instrumentation that Yes orchestrated in these songs.

[walker]

I have to wonder about how many tracks Eddie had to work with (in 1972!) and how much he may have had to rely on sub-mixing.

This offers some speculation - in this video of YES miming along to 'America,' there are some shots of the mixing console starting at 6:17. At 6:25 you start to see good wide shots of the console and how it seems to be divided into 3 sections, and at 8 minutes it shows what looks like 8-10 faders on the left portion of the board being used to mix. I'm guessing that the left side of the board was controlling the output of the tape machine, indicating an 8-track - (hard to say what format without seeing the tape; 1 inch? 2 inch?) and that the faders & channels in the center of the board going all the way to the right are used for controlling the mic & line inputs for tracking the sessions and setting levels to outboard FX gear, reverb chambers & so on.



I couldn't see the tape machine in this poor-res video, but from what I understand, 8 tracks was the industry pinnacle in the early 70s, (which doesn't exclude those who synched two of them together. I think the cats who produced the 'Jesus Christ Superstar' soundtrack for the TV version employed this technique with marginal results. There are a number of places where you can hear the vocals totally losing sync with the instrumentation. It's amazing that these engineers were pioneering all this stuff mid-project before creating a sync-generating code for music studio use. I think movie studios had the sync-code gear long before the smaller recording studios did.)

[jps]

I have to wonder about how many tracks Eddie had to work with (in 1972!) and how much he may have had to rely on sub-mixing.

This offers some speculation - in this video of YES miming along to 'America,' there are some shots of the mixing console starting at 6:17. At 6:25 you start to see good wide shots of the console and how it seems to be divided into 3 sections, and at 8 minutes it shows what looks like 8-10 faders on the left portion of the board being used to mix. I'm guessing that the left side of the board was controlling the output of the tape machine, indicating an 8-track - (hard to say what format without seeing the tape; 1 inch? 2 inch?) and that the faders & channels in the center of the board going all the way to the right are used for controlling the mic & line inputs for tracking the sessions and setting levels to outboard FX gear, reverb chambers & so on.



I couldn't see the tape machine in this poor-res video, but from what I understand, 8 tracks was the industry pinnacle in the early 70s, (which doesn't exclude those who synched two of them together. I think the cats who produced the 'Jesus Christ Superstar' soundtrack for the TV version employed this technique with marginal results. There are a number of places where you can hear the vocals totally losing sync with the instrumentation. It's amazing that these engineers were pioneering all this stuff mid-project before creating a sync-generating code for music studio use. I think movie studios had the sync-code gear long before the smaller recording studios did.)

Funny, I happen to be listening to the studio version of this song, right now!

[walker]

It is your density, Jeff!

But yeah - amazing what Offord accomplished with the gear available in the early 70s. I offer into evidence that 'Close To The Edge' could be the best recording of it's time, and for some time after that. There are tons of albums produced to this day that fall short of the benchmark that CTTE set.

[johnallg]

Why do I think that song has been slowed from how they recorded it? But that has to be close to or at the top of my favorite Yes songs. I also love playing it b2b with Simon and Garfunkel's original.

[walker]

The audio to that vid DOES sound slowed a bit. I'm guessing that Yes tuned standard, but this video mix suffered from being transferred and reformatted up the wazoo.

[Billsbro]

Again...WOW!
You have EARS my friend. I want to print out your analysis and strap on the 'phones so I can try to follow.
And I also feel that it is one of the best examples of fine engineering from that time frame. What a song! It is hard to imagine how these guys were able to create such a masterpiece with the technology at the time.


Thanks so much!

[just_bassics]

Very good post, Mark, thanks!

I knew Chris used the Guild fretless on CTTE, as he mentioned it in an interview that appeared in Tim Morse's book "Yes - In their own words". The book was a clever was a compilation of Yes interviews over the years. I didn't know the extent of the overdubbing between the two basses or that he used it on And You And I.

[walker]

Aaah! That was the next question - "What kind of fretless was it?" Thanks, Jim!

[Gerb]

Just started listening to Yes a few weeks ago, but I never really heard the differences between basssounds until now. That should've been a hell of a work for the engineer(s) back in 1972.

[Billsbro]

Just started listening to Yes a few weeks ago, but I never really heard the differences between basssounds until now. That should've been a hell of a work for the engineer(s) back in 1972.

Wow! You have some wonderful music waiting for you Gerb! Keep listening to YES and you will be very happy!