Why do the session legends all use P basses? Here's why.

the first thing that actually happened was i was at a session at a guy's home studio and i played my one bass which was active and they loved my playing and didn't like the sound really it was there was talk of like oh that's cool what will we do to fix it in the mix will we hey guys so you all know that i am a huge p bass fan like just check it i've got the mulan i've got the p bass of doom i've got the av bass and i've also got a ton of other basses that are at my other studio they're just not here at home so you know i'm a p-bass fan so the clip that you just saw was sean hurley who is like a la session legend right he's he's worked with like the best of the best he's like played for john mayer um he's played for robin thicke and recorded for robin thicke in fact the conversation the clip that you just saw was sean talking about being in the studio with robin thicke and when he recorded on his active five string they were like as he heard great playing we don't really like the sound so we've just the back story of this is we filmed an entire course with sean and he talks about all of the like session secrets that i nerd out about you know what basis to take on a session how to interact with the producer and the engineer and you know how to what questions to ask and specifically what not to ask what to take to the gig stuff but what to leave in the car and not take into the studio and why you should do that all of these like kind of sort of like crazy secrets that somebody like sean knows but nobody else knows right and within that course came up the obvious you know hey why why do you play p basis so i wanted to take the conversation that sean and i had around p basis from that course and just share it with you guys because i think it's really insightful and if you're anything like me if you're a bass nerd if you're a bass nerd in fact give me a like down below but if you're a bass nerd like me it's the stuff like this that's really interesting why do you play like so many session players play p basses why do engineers like p basses this discussion hopefully will shed a bit of light on it and obviously if you want to check out more stuff like that go to scottsbasslessons.com and that's where you'll find me and a ton of other bass nerds just like you okay so here's the conversation hopefully you enjoy it take it easy not to go too far off topic but i know that a lot of guys will be thinking um well why the p bass and interestingly enough that you didn't used to play a p bass if you rewind time you used to play a active laptop i i really got my start of my current career with a active maple top maple board uh you know bartolini lakeland five string the thing the thing it was 1998 i got it it was happening i saw the shift coming what was that shift what well you know some of it might just simply be hey voodoo came out and we all knew pinot played a p bass on it with flats and it sounded awesome and everybody even when you're not trying to mimic voodoo everybody's going yeah but that's the coolest stuff so let's try to do something like that yeah but at the time i was also dabbling with a jack cassidy epiphone with flat wounds on it and that was my first long scale base that had flats and i was doing some of that it it just things looked less cool in my little pocket of la when there were more strings on the bass and i started hearing comments and the fir the first thing that actually happened was i was at a session at a guy's home studio and i played my one bass which was active and they loved my playing and didn't like the sound really it was there was talk of like oh that's cool what will we do to fix it in the mix well we oh so yeah yeah yeah yeah terrified i was like aghast because the previous record i had played on that had had a hit song in this band the producer loved that lakeland yeah and he was raving and called me he was like man your base is so much sustained i love it you got to come and play on this next band on producing's record i had not done many sessions so i didn't know what happens when they don't like your side and you only have one base yeah yeah yeah and uh complicating the fact was that i had flown out from boston because i didn't hadn't moved to l.a quite yet so i'm just flying with one base but my buddy handed me a p bass in the session on the session because he was a guitar player he was around this was kind of a family vibe at the studio the guy's house this is with robin thicke he was he would fly me out and we would just kind of live at his house while he was demoing songs and my buddy handed me the bass this was all it was all happening in real time like yeah we don't they didn't say explicitly we don't like the sound they did say what we're going to do to fix that yeah they would say like hey cool we love the part so i'm talking to the engineer and i'm going my my friend is there to save me and i said oh let me play it with bobby's base and wouldn't you know same guy same hands i start playing and they go ah oh it's fitting in the track better and so at that moment i said well i gotta get one of these and i gotta i just started testing things out as hey should i use this more often within two years it was i was using a p bass on every session i was sometimes using a jazz bass when the p bass wasn't quite right or if there were any doubts like oh let me switch to my vintage jazz bass which i had yeah but it it quickly took over and then as my ears developed it's like becoming a wine drinker which i red all the time now i'm i've spent the last two years whatever yeah does it have a screw top it can keep reporting so yeah i call scrooge i've gotten into whites because i had a european friend who's like i know you're anti-white wine but try this out so now i've been more into whites lately but we always stay on topic by the way yes it has to be yeah it's absolutely related with peabody what will we choose choosing the base so i developed better you know the ears the taste what is it about a p bass it's the harmonic thing the mid-range somehow that works between the kick and the snare there's this range that for the way i hit the strings the p-bass seems to maximize all the good stuff yeah and you know it's like when you're doing something and people like it you just keep doing it and expand and yeah you know then it went okay i'll have one with rounds and one with flats and see where this goes and it's really served me well the p bass has taken over it it never looks uncool it's never it hasn't gone out of style yet it's like yeah the cycle of what's in and out of fashion has determined it's like jeans hey man genes have always been it right p basis of always that right and just stay with that because you'll never go wrong and you'll also that's part of that confidence walking in choosing a base if they don't doubt your base by the look by the thing there's something they know a lot of these guys that that hire us as bass players they have experience in the business and they know p basses have had a lot of home runs yeah and i suppose they know exactly what to do with it like how it feels how it sits in the mix they're really experienced with that right and what it's like oh if i need more definition i can bump up the 3k whereas sometimes the scoop of the active things it's like it's right yeah they sound completely different and like i've had exactly the same experience where i turned up um i was doing a session in studio in london turned up with a uh like fancy ass bass probably like yeah gorgeous looking you know and the engineer was wow he like he was like and then pulled this pulled this p bass off the wall and said can we do it with this and it was it wasn't even a real p-value it was like probably like a 400 bucks people sounded great right so i recorded the track on that uh mark a friend of mine from the pledge of florence in the machine which i've hung out with all right okay so we've had the p bass guys did he tell you about the p did you tell me what happened i think it was with the german producer working yeah yeah yeah it basically was like yeah you're not using any of them actually and none of those bases and you'll be playing this this base right he said the action was just incredibly huge and this b15 that's what you're using yeah i thought it was really fantastic i basically had the same experience with the amp and with the base where the first record you know i brought in my eden rig and my stuff okay guys so hopefully you enjoyed that conversation as i said earlier it's actually from a um a full course where we flew uh sean up from la to new york with us and filmed some great stuff just to wrap up this this video i want to give you or show you a trailer of that course so you can check it out it's very cool david ryan harris came up and he was like singing he did a whole vocal thing with sean and the band and it was really cool here's the trailer as always take it easy and i'll see you in the shed here [Music] the type of student that would benefit from this course would be anybody who wants to get ready for the studio and be able to go in and execute what's expected of a proper modern studio basis [Music] the topics that are covered within the course are how to prepare for a studio session how to know how to pick which base is appropriate for a song how to get your instrument ready to go in the studio how to create a bass line and generally how to excel when you're in the studio and being asked to record new bass [Music] lines so i'll be playing with a couple of friends of mine a singer-songwriter david ryan harris and my good friend rich mercurio on drums we're going to illustrate some of the things that i do when i do play with singers and do sessions and this will be an example to watch it in action [Music] some of the common mistakes that i find that uh we basis can sometimes make when getting ready to record the music is you know picking the wrong instrument or possibly over playing or not starting with the simplest idea first and not being aware of the vocalist and the vocal phrases or the melody of the song [Music] hey this is shawn hurley and if you want to get prepared and be ready for that studio call this is the course for you shutting down [Music] you

Channel: Scott's Bass Lessons

Views: 1,258,182

Keywords: scott devine, bass lessons, bass guitar, soloing, funk, cover, groove, jazz, slap, tuition, masterclass, beginner, beginners, clinic

Id: BRlsSC400pM

Length: 11min 54sec (714 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 29 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/ArjanGameboyman]

Oke I'm tempted to whatch this. But most of his videos are 90% filler which he does in a super annoying way.

[u/t0wdy]

I guess the video looks like this: Dudes, you won't believe what I have found out. Jamerson, Duck, Pino they all played... precision bass because it sits in the mix and it is bonkers! By the way, I've got a great 70% discount on my new REVOLUTIONARY course - it's called "monster jazz enhancer fretboard challenge in 7 days amazing". After the discount it only costs 395$! It's never gonna be cheaper!

BTW Tony Levin, Nathan East and Joe Osborn did their job wrong.

[u/nakedchorus]

I used it live because it sat well in the mix. A pbass with dimarzios through a mic'd and direct svt. Always ampeg, never lets you down.

I'll always watch pbass porn. Even though all I use now is short scales. It's nostalgic. Sniff. A single tear falls.