[LAU] Piano and bass

[Ken Restivo]

On Wed, Dec 05, 2007 at 12:17:48PM -1000, david wrote:
> Miguel M wrote:
> 
> > I think that's about as realistic to a real sounding bass as you can
> > get.  
> 
> It was workable enough for them.
> 
> > A midi controlled bass instrument will not give you the same sound as a
> > real guitar.  (Hammer Ons, Pull Offs, Mutes, etc)  Of course this
> > wouldn't be done for professional audio, but it could be used to have a
> > nice practice session.
> 
> Definitely. I play keyboards in my church's band, and for a long while 
> we didn't have a bassist. So I played bass using the keyboard, using one 
> of the keyboard's bass voices. The tone was good enough, you might think 
> it was a real bass player who was at the level of knowing the scales and 
> a bit of rhythm - but it wasn't anywhere like a real bassist. I love 
> playing with real bassists! :-)

I agree. I played a couple gigs with a jazz combo as a "keyboard bassist", and it's just not the same.

Here's what that sounded like:
http://www.restivo.org/blog/podpress_trac/web/169/0/morning-bell-jam-2007-07-08.ogg

We played Saturday night using our new, real bassist, and it sounded a lot better.

I have video clips around that I need to edit and post, but haven't yet.

> 
> The Doors used a keyboard bass in live performances. Ray Manzarek played 
> it, using a separate small 1-2 octave keyboard. It sounded fine to me, 
> but the Doors didn't do a lot of fancy bass playing.


Actually what Manzarek used, was a Fender Piano Bass, which is basically the 2 lower octaves of a Fender Rhodes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_bass

-ken