Originally Posted By: Mike Halloran
Love the lyric, vocal and groove — almost everything except the bass.

The bass sounds like one of those auto-generated, one-button arpeggiated chord lines from a Lowrey or Yamaha home organ from the 1970s. The drum kit you chose has a nice pocket but that bass line is nowhere near.

BIAB has better samples (not all, of course) as does just about any DAW and VI library. Really, though, this song is begging for a P-Bass in the hands of a real player locking with those drums if you can swing it.

If I didn't like everything else so much, the bass wouldn't have bothered me.


Thanks for weighing in, Mike.

There are not a lot of Swing electric bass choices in BIAB and depending on tempo, even fewer. There are more acoustic bass choices, but I did not want to have to deal with the leveling issues that they typically need addressed.

I'll also admit that for this particular song (and production) I was not too concerned with the bass other than for it to provide a solid bottom. A bass that "moves" a lot can be an option (if that is the sound you are wanting to hear), but in this case, I felt there was plenty of movement happening in the other instruments - acoustic guitar, dobro, harmonica... a busy bass might have been a distraction. In the end, my ear was sufficiently busy with other lines that it did not "ask" for a "peppy, take-notice-of-me bass line".

Quote:
Who's your PRO?


ASCAP. I was with BMI for a number of years, but they never did anything for me. Ralph Murphy (then an ASCAP VP) heard some of my songs at a writer's night and asked if he could help. I told him I was with BMI - he said "I don't care"... and over the course of many months set up appointments with most of the major players in Nashville - which eventually led to an offer of a staff deal with HoriPro Entertainment Group. Needless to say, as soon as my then-current BMI period was up, I changed to ASCAP.
I haven't registered any new songs in over 15 years. There doesn't seem to be any real point. Once I quit the Music Row scene (15 years ago), there wouldn't be anything worth chasing anymore anyway....