Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Some basses sound better with distortion than others ... old school basses like a 4001, p-bass, and a jazz bass sound good distorted ... but some basses like the musicman bass is really designed to have a clean sound ...

There was something on this forum a few years ago ... it was a quote from a sound engineer who said "A good bass track should sound like there is a guy working on a buick in the background" ... all of that single coil noise, fret buzz, distortion, string noise, finger noise, pick noise, etc ... it all adds character to the bass sound ...

That was an article that quited a sound engineer who recorded Chuck Rainey. He said that when the recorded tracks of Chuck Rainey who is a great bassist are soloed, it sounds like someone is working on a Buick in the background. It was not intended to be a put-down. That's just the way many great bass track usually are.

Chuck Rainey is one of the best, did most of that great Steely Dan stuff.
A Musicman has a SS amp is it, passive basses sound better distorted to me than active basses, have a warm sound to them. I like just a touch of it like a lot of the late 60's bassists used. Doors: Lubahn, etc. Cassidy, Bogart, Bruce (used a little more than a touch) etc, lots of guys used it, especially in the studio back then.

Chuck Rainey, amazing bassist. Hes suppose to be like the most recorded bassist ever or something. That guy has worked with more people then we could name off. Its crazy. Bob is right, did alot of great work with Steely Dan. But I think Chuck could play a buick and make it sound like a bass.

Im not much on distortion. But there are alot of kool sounds out their that use it. Just like anything else, theres an art to using it right I think.

Played a gig a few months back with Chuck Rainey in the crowd. Yikes! He stayed til right before the end of the set, stood up, waved and gave me a thumbs-up. Cool.