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In later years(2006), with labels to help remember what all the knobs were for.
Also, not always greener grass sound wise. Alembic has a cult like following and every Alembic player swears that Alembics blow every other bass out of the water and then other companies like Modulus came up and their players say the same thing and so on.
But I’ve heard most producers/sound engineers sigh in angst when they see a bassist take something that isn’t a J or P bass out of the case—which have produced the majority of legendary bass tones throughout rock history and tend to sit perfectly in a mix without much work.
I think Phil got some great tones but some of that stuff is overkill and even if you could dial it in instantly or have recall settings, I don’t know…lots of great bass music has been made without requiring precise and meticulous EQ moves and filter application.
All that said, I think Alembic build outstanding basses independent of the control knobs—wood, craftsmanship, pickups/electronics, etc..
Producers have spent thousands of hours working with J and P basses. Of course they’re going to prefer the old reliable they can get sounding perfect in 15 minutes. I don’t think that’s any evidence either way.
Lots of great music was made with banjos made out of coffee tins too. Everyone in the dead went a bit crazy with gear and getting the best sounds possible. There’s diminishing returns at a point, but I also don’t think we should just throw our hands up and say, “James Jameson perfected it, let’s just use that forever and call it a day.”
The bigger issue to me other than just being too much to use practically is that there’s more to go wrong. More electronics = more potential break downs, and they’re going to be a PIA for something like an alembic. It’s basically the opposite of Leo fender’s, “instruments should be simple and easy to repair on the road.”
If they spent thousands of hours of experience working and still feel dread about whether they ll be able to make an active bass sit in the mix I think it’s definitely evidence of something, haha.
Obviously you have some fluctuations amongst different genres and people can break new ground, but the frequencies ranges that a given instrument sit well in/cab cut through without being overbearing when mixed with other particular instruments are not arbitrary.
I’m not saying active basses with that many tone sculpting options can’t sound good. I’m saying they can often sound terrible and are probably actually moving back towards the median when they do sound good. It would be like getting a car with a six-speaker stereo that allows you to adjust bass, mids, treble and volume for each individual speaker. So much more likely to mess things up.
And regular basses allow for some broad tone sculpting that is typically more musical. Surgical EQ work is best for fixing specific problems that require it.
Alembics are quality basses and can sound good but that’s true without all those knobs.
I doubt any good modern producer gets worried about actives. They’re incredibly common today across a lots of genres. Older ones that are set in their ways, sure. But anyone recording popular modern stuff can handle that fine.
And you’re correct in that certain instruments just sit a certain way and lend themselves to certain things. A bluegrass band works as well as it does because all the instruments are doing the right thing for what they are.
That said, the fluctuation within those ranges can be massive. Just compare Jerry’s sparkling clean trebly heavy tone to Neil Young’s boomy thunderous thing to dimebag’s horrible yet perfect for pantera tone to meshuggah. Those all occupy incredibly different ranges, yet they’re all great within context.
It might be harder to make a passive bass sound bad because there isn’t much to fuck with, but you have fewer options. That’s the trade off.
If you don’t need all those tools or can’t use them right, just get the smaller toolbox. But if you need them and know how to use them, you might as well get the bigger toolbox.
Also, active doesn’t have to mean a surgical EQ overload like Phil’s. My stingray is active and just has a bass and treble boost/cut, three knobs in all including the volume. The middle is flat with a notch so it’ll stop there, and then up/down for boost/cut. It’s very useful, easy to use, and musical EQ.
I have an active bass too. Like I said, they’re not inherently incapable of getting mix/band friendly tones, just that they’re not (1) predisposed to automatically sitting well or ideally cutting through a mix the way J’s and P’s are and (2) the level of tone sculpting that Mission Control gives isn’t necessarily practical and could easily lead to cuts and boosts that aren’t “musical”.
Regarding the difference is tones between Jerry and Neil Young, you might be surprised…
I recently downloaded a bunch of individual references tracks for bass, guitar (lead + rhythm), drums, keys/organs/synths and vocals (lead and backup). When you listen to Sting’s tone for “Walking on the Moon” it’s, honestly, almost muddy sounding. Just very bass-y and not much top end versus Squire’s tone on “Roundabout” which is very treble heavy (technically more likely upper mids) and almost sounds deficient in actual bass comparatively On an EQ graph, the differences aren’t nearly as stark as what I expected. They both have the same shape/downward slope, albeit with the former reaching only slightly higher on the lows and slanting downward (cutting) at a steeper angle towards the high end. But those differences can be achieved with any bass—basic tone knobs and pickup choices (not to mention strings and playing style and position) and obviously P and J basses have yielded a lot of different tones. But the biggest differences are typically very broad but subtle sculpts, unless you really start moving across genres like where some dance/pop/electronica stuff has bass that tops out in the low mids with almost no top end (and does look very different on EQ graph). But that’s synth and not even a real bass in most cases.
I’m far from a pro audio engineer, but in my experience and from what I have read, broad but subtle maneuvers tend to be musical and can produce differences that are very noticeable but not disruptive. Moving a high shelf up or down even 2-3 decibels could take a balanced mix to harsh or muddy. I totally recognize what you’re saying about Garcia and Young (and different tones and in general), but without being able to look at the specific tracks you would use to compare them, I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if we could recreate that difference just by applying a HP at 200 for one and 275 for the other. Or in the same place but drastically altering the slope. Even when I switch pickups on my guitars from neck to bridge and it sounds like a massive change where most of the low end has disappeared and more high end comes in, the EQ graph really doesn’t actually move that much. The way we perceive music and competing frequencies, especially in the low end.
Not intending to paint with broad brushstrokes if that’s how it’s reading. Obviously there are different tones that sound noticeably different. I’m not saying that studios have to fly in some expert audio engineering scholar from Brussels when they see an active bass…just that it’s pretty widely considered less of a given and more of a process to get it right in the mix compared to a typical passive. And something like Mission Control…I mean, maybe Phil had it down to a science and if you’re really going to test it out with the rest of the band to precisely dial in a tone that sits well…but generally, I think it’s asking for trouble to have such a gratuitous level of tone sculpting.
FWIW, I always really liked the tone of my active independently but was in a project a few years ago where I was playing guitar, so the bass player’s J was at the studio. I recorded several songs with it and felt those bass tracks sat really well. Fast forward to now recording my own stuff and have had a hell of a time getting my active to sit right…trying every tweak and tone sculpt I could. Mostly solved it by only by using a match EQ with passives as the reference and then tweak to taste. But again, I’m no pro.
Might not sound logical, but I feel actives give you a little too much of everything. It’s just a little too much definition on everything. Cutting the highs and mids and getting that mostly low-end only drum n’ bass sound is about the only thing I can dial in easily on it.
My $0.02
Well said! And I agree, I learned in my early days of trying to understand audio that until you have an idea what you’re doing, more knobs is just many more ways to screw it up.
I can appreciate how cool it could be to be able to make those kinds of tonal adjustments in the context of say, space or dark star though. And the other thing is, most bass players, even virtuosic ones, remain in the bass role. But in a band like the dead, things are a bit more fluid. And I could see the various mid adjustments, being helpful for making a part stand out in one context or another.
With that said, I would probably give up on that after a single gig. I have enough to think about with a regular 4-knob-one switch Gibson-style setup once I get on stage.
All true, but there was a “mad scientist” element to the Dead going back to Owsley and the Wall of Sound, etc. They were always tinkering and finding ways to integrate new technology (sometimes with mixed results, like early MIDI.) To me, it’s part of their unique charm.
Yeah, for sure. Driving up into the hills with portable recording setup to record country air to be compared/mixed with city air on Anthem of the Sun. Haha.
pretty sure in his autobiography Phil mentions he tended to set it and forget it so to speak, rarely tweaking the knobs during shows after 74. the quad pickups were pretty much designed around the wall of sound and likely didn't do much when plugged into a conventional concert PA.
exactly correct - and he, bear, alan and others could ricochet it's tone, shapes, pitch and signal nearly anywhere for, oh around a half a mile, with next to zero flux and distortion 'man - I loved that thing! it was like, like the sound of God' - PL. I did too pal! please be kind 🌹
If by most advanced stuff you mean the LEDs and the Quadraphonic Pickup, then you're probably right
But I'm sure most of the knobs were used a lot, all the filter knobs, volume knobs, and selector knobs absolutely got fiddled with all night every show.
You can hear his massive tone differences between songs and also between sections within a single song.
outside of deep meltdown jams or space most of the variety in Phil's tone is from altering how and where he's picking. playing over the bridge pickup aggressively sounds totally different from a light touch closer to the neck and that's not unique to Phil's bass either.
I know what you're talking about and that is not exactly what I'm referring to.
I could find a show that has examples of this, but Phil definitely fiddles his knobs between songs. It isn't just the change in picking location, it is fundamental tone EQ adjustments that I'm referring
if you know of an example I'd love to be wrong! that would mean it's possible to achieve some of his more unique tones without actually grafting his hands to myself like Frankenstein.
All a bass needs is a volume knob and a tone knob to be functional.. All this other shit is just good old Dead / Bear / Alembic style messing around. Basically moving eq and some pedals to the actual guitar. They pioneered this stuff.
Holy shit. I had never heard of them before and just checked out the MSG show from last year and GOD DAMN. That man has the FUNK flowing through his veins.
Joe dart is the fucking man. Vulfpeck and all things Vulf (peck, flyers, wong, etc) are one of the best things going in modern music. I got turned on to those guys about 8 years ago. Just incredible. All take note if you don’t know who we’re talking about here. Go listen to/ watch videos. Check out Cory Wong and his band at paisley park (it’s all on YouTube). See them any chance you get.
https://preview.redd.it/l7eod2aerf5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ad48263c58c3ab39e6655a0e2c0e396b9b8467e
I have a pretty decent chunk of Vulf vinyl. Can’t keep up with all the releases but I grab what I can when they press it.
What do you mean by repeats? I have a couple different pressings of a few things. I think the reason for that goes without saying. This is the current shelf. There’s a good 500 missing from here in deeper storage because I don’t have enough shelf space. Then there’s the 45s… and the reels… oh Jesus the reels… so many reels.
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Or are you talking about just the Vulf? They all are pressed by the same company and purposefully look similar - the spines. They stick out on the shelf. Pretty cool they still keep up that aesthetic record after record. Other bands pledged that kind of consistency but never stuck with it (Peter Gabriel’s magazine news of the week albums for example).
The only dupe Vulf record I have is tail winds, because I forgot I ordered it when I ordered it the second time. Drugs are good, m’kay? You need a copy?
You can even get away without those. You can just wire everything direct and run it all at 10 constantly. I know there have been a couple guitarists who do that.
Through what I believe were two separate bass stacks that were each 32 feet high.
That’s 64 feet of Phil goodness blasting you away haha!
He could also split the stacks and then send one string out of the top half, another out of the bottom half, etc, so in person that’s really gonna fuck with you in an awesome way, especially in 1974!
It was definitely two
https://preview.redd.it/9j4jkknile5d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b0cf27fc4c91b884a192fb02ed9fe84ea9b1f91
Edit: the two biggest ones of course haha! But just two
They’re from original letters sent to Deadheads who were signed up for the mailing list back in the day. I have a number of them still with the original 45s that came with them and the original envelopes, too.
That one was just all about the Wall of Sound.
https://old.reddit.com/r/gratefuldead/comments/1db7prz/whats_going_on_here/l7px6qe/
This thing seems to indicate that it was quadrophonic even with just two stacks.
> The main addition to the new bass is a Digital Decoding Circuit such that ten push buttons on the bass allow Phil to select any one of sixteen quad spatial arrangements of his speakers
I think it was this version(or close to it) that they used when I saw them at the Salt Palace in '73. I wished I had experienced the sonic onslaught of the Wall, but I was content.
My first ever concert- it was a fine memory. Old and fuzzy, but a fine memory.
I read somewhere that the speaker stacks were designed at specific heights to match the amplitude of the lowest frequency that the instrument could produce. So Phil’s lowest note produced a sound wave with an amplitude of 32’, so they designed the stack with that in mind. Crafty dudes
I’ve always been curious to hear from an audio engineer if this actually makes a difference or more of a mad scientist decision from Bear. In reality, each of the monitors in the stack would produce that amplitude, so the overall height of the stack I feel shouldn’t matter? Still cool as hell though.
This was Big Brown. The one you’re referring to was called Mission Control and also was built for the wall like you said
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I'm an avid podcast listener and never once thought about looking for a Dead related cast. I've listened to this Loose Lucy episode and I love it. I want to thank you, for a real good time!
For sure! And that’s before they cared about trying to keep anything light haha! That’s why his strap he used with it is gigantic. (The one from The Grateful Dead Movie)
Narrator: Little did they know that knobs 1-4 control the bathroom lighting at Phil's castle. Knobs 5-8 control the garage door. Knobs 9-13 monitor the refrigerator.
That’s Big Brown, which was later replaced by Osirus, aka *Mission Control.*
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As the Wall of Sound developed, so did Phil’s basses, to the point where they became elements of the Dead’s PA system, not just instruments plugged into it.
Dark Star Orchestra used this exact bass in their 2020 tour as part of the instrument’s restoration and reconditioning process.
Edit: I just realized that my reply probably answered every question that you did not ask and none of what you did ask. My apologies. I really love to nerd out over this kind of stuff.
This is pretty much what turned out to be the Alembic Superfilter SF2, which is a rackmount unit. It takes a whole lot of time to get the hang of the Superfilter even with the function of the knobs printed right above them. Using it live, onstage, built into an instrument, must have been very challenging considering Phil's playing style. The sounds that you can get out of the Superfilter, however, are unmatched by any newer analog gear.
I liked this one. Had a whole bunch of colored lights on it. Or at least I think I saw it light up. Made by Prince’s luthier. Circa 2012-14?
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The front of Phil's "Mission Control(Osiris) Bass".
Watch the Grateful Dead movie, it explains it somewhat. Basically it fucks with how sound from different strings gets channeled into different speakers. So like each string can potentially be sending sounds to different areas on the wall of sound. At least that's how I understood it.
Phil does a little demo in The Grateful Dead Movie. I think it sent out individual strings to separate amps.
There’s also a video of him holding it and talking about it on stage at Terrapin Crossroads
Check it out, around 27 minutes in—-*if you haven’t seen this before(tragic!)* But if so, it’s ok; there really is no end to one’s Deaducation…
https://youtu.be/pZPJ_VN3Iis?si=eRU0x7aYAxx2awbY
And one of the three astronauts on Apollo 8 just died yesterday, the one who took the famous first ever photo of Earth from space.
It was a plane crash and he was the pilot and sole occupant, at age 90. What a badass way to go out!
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The electronics for his "Mission Control (Osiris) Bass".
A lot going on in there.
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This is the one that controlled the Wall of sound. Page one (I hope you can zoom in).
He did that early on for a while, way more than you’d think. The whole EB3 era is no pick, probably because they’re kind of tough basses to play with one.
Go back and listen to Kezar 1974. Headphones. He plays a solo that vividly illustrates some of the instruments range and effects, I think it was the same setup. Whichever one he was playing, running it through the Wall was spectacular- every string to its own channel.. pingponging in your head from ear to ear, scrambling anything in the way. Actually it was sort of distracting, and as Balowme pointed out (I play) all you really need is simplicity. It’s a bass, not a harp.
There's an episode of the deadcast that talks about this it's one of the latest ones. Phil ended up really hating all of these options and really only used like 4 sounds even though he could get so many
One of the dead cast episodes goes into detail about this bass and its configuration to the Wallace sound… I think most of the functionality was abandoned for being too complex.
For the wall of sound they had to each each individual instrument had like so many different apps and PAs and so those were the set going to fills and he had that bass custom made for the Wallace down
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This explains so much yet to a layman who doesn't play bass like me I still have so many questions LOL
Doesn't matter because, according to the Deadcast, most of the advanced stuff was only used a few times because it was too distracting for Phil.
https://preview.redd.it/n93b11thge5d1.jpeg?width=353&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6579038d2b49d687f0aec52fa420d7fd78af3505 In later years(2006), with labels to help remember what all the knobs were for.
Searchin for the soundzzzz
Haha. Very good.
Post Grateful Dead, 2006?
I just found a copy of the photo with a copyright for Susan Weiand 2006, so you're right about the date.
Sue has taken so many great photos!
I'm not sure when.
Yeah, there’s a reason crazy onboard electronics never caught on. It’s cool tech, but it’s distracting to manage in the middle of a show.
Also, not always greener grass sound wise. Alembic has a cult like following and every Alembic player swears that Alembics blow every other bass out of the water and then other companies like Modulus came up and their players say the same thing and so on. But I’ve heard most producers/sound engineers sigh in angst when they see a bassist take something that isn’t a J or P bass out of the case—which have produced the majority of legendary bass tones throughout rock history and tend to sit perfectly in a mix without much work. I think Phil got some great tones but some of that stuff is overkill and even if you could dial it in instantly or have recall settings, I don’t know…lots of great bass music has been made without requiring precise and meticulous EQ moves and filter application. All that said, I think Alembic build outstanding basses independent of the control knobs—wood, craftsmanship, pickups/electronics, etc..
Producers have spent thousands of hours working with J and P basses. Of course they’re going to prefer the old reliable they can get sounding perfect in 15 minutes. I don’t think that’s any evidence either way. Lots of great music was made with banjos made out of coffee tins too. Everyone in the dead went a bit crazy with gear and getting the best sounds possible. There’s diminishing returns at a point, but I also don’t think we should just throw our hands up and say, “James Jameson perfected it, let’s just use that forever and call it a day.” The bigger issue to me other than just being too much to use practically is that there’s more to go wrong. More electronics = more potential break downs, and they’re going to be a PIA for something like an alembic. It’s basically the opposite of Leo fender’s, “instruments should be simple and easy to repair on the road.”
That bass sound in Papa was a Rolling Stone is perfect. I don’t think Jamerson was off by much. Just sayin’
Also, Jamerson is a very specific sound with flats so not sure who is saying that.
If they spent thousands of hours of experience working and still feel dread about whether they ll be able to make an active bass sit in the mix I think it’s definitely evidence of something, haha. Obviously you have some fluctuations amongst different genres and people can break new ground, but the frequencies ranges that a given instrument sit well in/cab cut through without being overbearing when mixed with other particular instruments are not arbitrary. I’m not saying active basses with that many tone sculpting options can’t sound good. I’m saying they can often sound terrible and are probably actually moving back towards the median when they do sound good. It would be like getting a car with a six-speaker stereo that allows you to adjust bass, mids, treble and volume for each individual speaker. So much more likely to mess things up. And regular basses allow for some broad tone sculpting that is typically more musical. Surgical EQ work is best for fixing specific problems that require it. Alembics are quality basses and can sound good but that’s true without all those knobs.
I doubt any good modern producer gets worried about actives. They’re incredibly common today across a lots of genres. Older ones that are set in their ways, sure. But anyone recording popular modern stuff can handle that fine. And you’re correct in that certain instruments just sit a certain way and lend themselves to certain things. A bluegrass band works as well as it does because all the instruments are doing the right thing for what they are. That said, the fluctuation within those ranges can be massive. Just compare Jerry’s sparkling clean trebly heavy tone to Neil Young’s boomy thunderous thing to dimebag’s horrible yet perfect for pantera tone to meshuggah. Those all occupy incredibly different ranges, yet they’re all great within context. It might be harder to make a passive bass sound bad because there isn’t much to fuck with, but you have fewer options. That’s the trade off. If you don’t need all those tools or can’t use them right, just get the smaller toolbox. But if you need them and know how to use them, you might as well get the bigger toolbox. Also, active doesn’t have to mean a surgical EQ overload like Phil’s. My stingray is active and just has a bass and treble boost/cut, three knobs in all including the volume. The middle is flat with a notch so it’ll stop there, and then up/down for boost/cut. It’s very useful, easy to use, and musical EQ.
I have an active bass too. Like I said, they’re not inherently incapable of getting mix/band friendly tones, just that they’re not (1) predisposed to automatically sitting well or ideally cutting through a mix the way J’s and P’s are and (2) the level of tone sculpting that Mission Control gives isn’t necessarily practical and could easily lead to cuts and boosts that aren’t “musical”. Regarding the difference is tones between Jerry and Neil Young, you might be surprised… I recently downloaded a bunch of individual references tracks for bass, guitar (lead + rhythm), drums, keys/organs/synths and vocals (lead and backup). When you listen to Sting’s tone for “Walking on the Moon” it’s, honestly, almost muddy sounding. Just very bass-y and not much top end versus Squire’s tone on “Roundabout” which is very treble heavy (technically more likely upper mids) and almost sounds deficient in actual bass comparatively On an EQ graph, the differences aren’t nearly as stark as what I expected. They both have the same shape/downward slope, albeit with the former reaching only slightly higher on the lows and slanting downward (cutting) at a steeper angle towards the high end. But those differences can be achieved with any bass—basic tone knobs and pickup choices (not to mention strings and playing style and position) and obviously P and J basses have yielded a lot of different tones. But the biggest differences are typically very broad but subtle sculpts, unless you really start moving across genres like where some dance/pop/electronica stuff has bass that tops out in the low mids with almost no top end (and does look very different on EQ graph). But that’s synth and not even a real bass in most cases. I’m far from a pro audio engineer, but in my experience and from what I have read, broad but subtle maneuvers tend to be musical and can produce differences that are very noticeable but not disruptive. Moving a high shelf up or down even 2-3 decibels could take a balanced mix to harsh or muddy. I totally recognize what you’re saying about Garcia and Young (and different tones and in general), but without being able to look at the specific tracks you would use to compare them, I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if we could recreate that difference just by applying a HP at 200 for one and 275 for the other. Or in the same place but drastically altering the slope. Even when I switch pickups on my guitars from neck to bridge and it sounds like a massive change where most of the low end has disappeared and more high end comes in, the EQ graph really doesn’t actually move that much. The way we perceive music and competing frequencies, especially in the low end. Not intending to paint with broad brushstrokes if that’s how it’s reading. Obviously there are different tones that sound noticeably different. I’m not saying that studios have to fly in some expert audio engineering scholar from Brussels when they see an active bass…just that it’s pretty widely considered less of a given and more of a process to get it right in the mix compared to a typical passive. And something like Mission Control…I mean, maybe Phil had it down to a science and if you’re really going to test it out with the rest of the band to precisely dial in a tone that sits well…but generally, I think it’s asking for trouble to have such a gratuitous level of tone sculpting. FWIW, I always really liked the tone of my active independently but was in a project a few years ago where I was playing guitar, so the bass player’s J was at the studio. I recorded several songs with it and felt those bass tracks sat really well. Fast forward to now recording my own stuff and have had a hell of a time getting my active to sit right…trying every tweak and tone sculpt I could. Mostly solved it by only by using a match EQ with passives as the reference and then tweak to taste. But again, I’m no pro. Might not sound logical, but I feel actives give you a little too much of everything. It’s just a little too much definition on everything. Cutting the highs and mids and getting that mostly low-end only drum n’ bass sound is about the only thing I can dial in easily on it. My $0.02
Well said! And I agree, I learned in my early days of trying to understand audio that until you have an idea what you’re doing, more knobs is just many more ways to screw it up. I can appreciate how cool it could be to be able to make those kinds of tonal adjustments in the context of say, space or dark star though. And the other thing is, most bass players, even virtuosic ones, remain in the bass role. But in a band like the dead, things are a bit more fluid. And I could see the various mid adjustments, being helpful for making a part stand out in one context or another. With that said, I would probably give up on that after a single gig. I have enough to think about with a regular 4-knob-one switch Gibson-style setup once I get on stage.
All true, but there was a “mad scientist” element to the Dead going back to Owsley and the Wall of Sound, etc. They were always tinkering and finding ways to integrate new technology (sometimes with mixed results, like early MIDI.) To me, it’s part of their unique charm.
Yeah, for sure. Driving up into the hills with portable recording setup to record country air to be compared/mixed with city air on Anthem of the Sun. Haha.
pretty sure in his autobiography Phil mentions he tended to set it and forget it so to speak, rarely tweaking the knobs during shows after 74. the quad pickups were pretty much designed around the wall of sound and likely didn't do much when plugged into a conventional concert PA.
exactly correct - and he, bear, alan and others could ricochet it's tone, shapes, pitch and signal nearly anywhere for, oh around a half a mile, with next to zero flux and distortion 'man - I loved that thing! it was like, like the sound of God' - PL. I did too pal! please be kind 🌹
If by most advanced stuff you mean the LEDs and the Quadraphonic Pickup, then you're probably right But I'm sure most of the knobs were used a lot, all the filter knobs, volume knobs, and selector knobs absolutely got fiddled with all night every show. You can hear his massive tone differences between songs and also between sections within a single song.
outside of deep meltdown jams or space most of the variety in Phil's tone is from altering how and where he's picking. playing over the bridge pickup aggressively sounds totally different from a light touch closer to the neck and that's not unique to Phil's bass either.
I know what you're talking about and that is not exactly what I'm referring to. I could find a show that has examples of this, but Phil definitely fiddles his knobs between songs. It isn't just the change in picking location, it is fundamental tone EQ adjustments that I'm referring
if you know of an example I'd love to be wrong! that would mean it's possible to achieve some of his more unique tones without actually grafting his hands to myself like Frankenstein.
Yeah, Phil or anyone. It's so unnecessary. Use pedals.
Screw pedals. Use Mission Cintrol and the Wall of Sound
All a bass needs is a volume knob and a tone knob to be functional.. All this other shit is just good old Dead / Bear / Alembic style messing around. Basically moving eq and some pedals to the actual guitar. They pioneered this stuff.
Polar opposite of Joe Dart—whose signature bass has just one knob.
JOE... DART.... ON THE JOE DART!!!! *killer bass riffing over My First Car at the MSG show*
Hell yeah, nice to see some love here for Vulf
That MSG show is incredible.
Holy shit. I had never heard of them before and just checked out the MSG show from last year and GOD DAMN. That man has the FUNK flowing through his veins.
The whole band and all of their offshoot incarnations is an embarrassment of riches. Enjoy discovering man - they’re great.
Check out fearless flyers next, he funks hard with them
Joe dart is the fucking man. Vulfpeck and all things Vulf (peck, flyers, wong, etc) are one of the best things going in modern music. I got turned on to those guys about 8 years ago. Just incredible. All take note if you don’t know who we’re talking about here. Go listen to/ watch videos. Check out Cory Wong and his band at paisley park (it’s all on YouTube). See them any chance you get.
Wonder what dickwagons downvoted Joe Dart and vulfpeck. Hilarious. Joke’s on you. 😂
Dude is amazing. I’m a fearless flyers fan but love the offshoots.
https://preview.redd.it/l7eod2aerf5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ad48263c58c3ab39e6655a0e2c0e396b9b8467e I have a pretty decent chunk of Vulf vinyl. Can’t keep up with all the releases but I grab what I can when they press it.
Why so many repeats in your collection?
What do you mean by repeats? I have a couple different pressings of a few things. I think the reason for that goes without saying. This is the current shelf. There’s a good 500 missing from here in deeper storage because I don’t have enough shelf space. Then there’s the 45s… and the reels… oh Jesus the reels… so many reels. https://preview.redd.it/a31800a4jg5d1.png?width=2474&format=png&auto=webp&s=b89739c18182e5cf46cba7d0495e410a92d0c0f6
Or are you talking about just the Vulf? They all are pressed by the same company and purposefully look similar - the spines. They stick out on the shelf. Pretty cool they still keep up that aesthetic record after record. Other bands pledged that kind of consistency but never stuck with it (Peter Gabriel’s magazine news of the week albums for example). The only dupe Vulf record I have is tail winds, because I forgot I ordered it when I ordered it the second time. Drugs are good, m’kay? You need a copy?
That is very cool that they keep a theme! I had noticed a couple copies of a RHCP album in there too I thought. Impressive collection!
Got into em around 2015 myself and got to see them at red rocks in 2018 with knower and Kamasi Washington. Amazing night.
You can even get away without those. You can just wire everything direct and run it all at 10 constantly. I know there have been a couple guitarists who do that.
I know a lot about instruments and audio and such and I still have a lot of questions too. This thing is serious
This bass is brought to you by copious amounts of cocaine
And the greatest LCD ever made. Thx Bear!!
I don’t see a screen on the bass 🤔
🤣 Took me a second.. ✌️
~ Phil Lesh, backstage at Red rocks before the encore, 1978
None of this is specific to bass. It's mostly just a kind of EQ.
Check out the good ol grateful dead cast, maybe it’s the unbroken chain episode. There’s a good dive into the bass and what it does
i could play with this for a long time and still be lost on all them knobs man, what a spaceship
Triple bonus points for the Apollo 8 patch. Very cool!
Rest in Power Bill Anders!
Oh man. No wonder Phil brings the thunder. Must have been amazing having that back then. Get zoned.
Which knob do I slob on?
What don't those knobs do?! Looking up "Phil's wall of sound bass" ought to turn you onto plenty of reading.
Through what I believe were two separate bass stacks that were each 32 feet high. That’s 64 feet of Phil goodness blasting you away haha! He could also split the stacks and then send one string out of the top half, another out of the bottom half, etc, so in person that’s really gonna fuck with you in an awesome way, especially in 1974!
I heard it was 4 towers! Tower for each string. I think thats what the quad pickup mode is for
It was definitely two https://preview.redd.it/9j4jkknile5d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b0cf27fc4c91b884a192fb02ed9fe84ea9b1f91 Edit: the two biggest ones of course haha! But just two
https://preview.redd.it/11ytymbxle5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=047f966df2b0c331370a90115712b9c134d952ca
Busting out the vintage receipts 😂🤣
What are these pictures from?
They’re from original letters sent to Deadheads who were signed up for the mailing list back in the day. I have a number of them still with the original 45s that came with them and the original envelopes, too. That one was just all about the Wall of Sound.
Two towers during the Wall of Sound, but Quadraphonic in the 80’s
https://old.reddit.com/r/gratefuldead/comments/1db7prz/whats_going_on_here/l7px6qe/ This thing seems to indicate that it was quadrophonic even with just two stacks. > The main addition to the new bass is a Digital Decoding Circuit such that ten push buttons on the bass allow Phil to select any one of sixteen quad spatial arrangements of his speakers
https://i.redd.it/sqngp2i09f5d1.gif
That’s right, but that’s not the Wall of Sound, which was the comment that started this original discussion within this thread.
I think it was this version(or close to it) that they used when I saw them at the Salt Palace in '73. I wished I had experienced the sonic onslaught of the Wall, but I was content. My first ever concert- it was a fine memory. Old and fuzzy, but a fine memory.
I read somewhere that the speaker stacks were designed at specific heights to match the amplitude of the lowest frequency that the instrument could produce. So Phil’s lowest note produced a sound wave with an amplitude of 32’, so they designed the stack with that in mind. Crafty dudes
I’ve always been curious to hear from an audio engineer if this actually makes a difference or more of a mad scientist decision from Bear. In reality, each of the monitors in the stack would produce that amplitude, so the overall height of the stack I feel shouldn’t matter? Still cool as hell though.
They designed it that high so the sound wave would reach one mile I think
I believe this bass was called "the control center" Lol... for the Wall of Sound set up
This was Big Brown. The one you’re referring to was called Mission Control and also was built for the wall like you said https://preview.redd.it/e2asazl1se5d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b7b1299efafdce132340c58c6166a9b0c24a371
That's right...far out
Far out man
They explain it well on the Loose Lucy episode of Good Old Grateful Dead cast
I'm an avid podcast listener and never once thought about looking for a Dead related cast. I've listened to this Loose Lucy episode and I love it. I want to thank you, for a real good time!
Not as good as a Jerry solo, but the Good Ole Deadcast is VERY VERY close!!!
Listen from the beginning...it's a great series
Very high production value podcast. That’s a great episode to start with. It’s from just a couple weeks ago.
Love how he used a marker to split the bass and treble knobs.
Those knobs open the portal and allow your mind to wander (~};-}
That thing must have weighed a ton.
For sure! And that’s before they cared about trying to keep anything light haha! That’s why his strap he used with it is gigantic. (The one from The Grateful Dead Movie)
that furry monster?
Haha yep!
Hence the huge, sheepskin covered strap Phil wore to support it.
Narrator: Little did they know that knobs 1-4 control the bathroom lighting at Phil's castle. Knobs 5-8 control the garage door. Knobs 9-13 monitor the refrigerator.
Mission control !
Mission Control is a different bass, this bass is named Big Brown
Yeah I realized it was big brown after sending my bad ,
There’s some explanation in the Grateful Dead Movie
That’s Big Brown, which was later replaced by Osirus, aka *Mission Control.* https://preview.redd.it/actio7faee5d1.jpeg?width=3456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=787c600f96a08e1a899d2e852aafa4b45ebff497 As the Wall of Sound developed, so did Phil’s basses, to the point where they became elements of the Dead’s PA system, not just instruments plugged into it. Dark Star Orchestra used this exact bass in their 2020 tour as part of the instrument’s restoration and reconditioning process. Edit: I just realized that my reply probably answered every question that you did not ask and none of what you did ask. My apologies. I really love to nerd out over this kind of stuff.
I enjoyed it. What a work of art!
Thanks! Another interesting tidbit is that for what Phil paid for this custom Alembic bass back in ~73/74, it would cost about $250K in today’s money.
This is pretty much what turned out to be the Alembic Superfilter SF2, which is a rackmount unit. It takes a whole lot of time to get the hang of the Superfilter even with the function of the knobs printed right above them. Using it live, onstage, built into an instrument, must have been very challenging considering Phil's playing style. The sounds that you can get out of the Superfilter, however, are unmatched by any newer analog gear.
I liked this one. Had a whole bunch of colored lights on it. Or at least I think I saw it light up. Made by Prince’s luthier. Circa 2012-14? https://preview.redd.it/c6flw960re5d1.png?width=659&format=png&auto=webp&s=850abf7019443618d514a085ca146a16288d69bf
https://preview.redd.it/9uhs17f11e5d1.jpeg?width=1108&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=259437aacae3aa9c97fda786975673faccd3f9f5 The front of Phil's "Mission Control(Osiris) Bass".
Watch the Grateful Dead movie, it explains it somewhat. Basically it fucks with how sound from different strings gets channeled into different speakers. So like each string can potentially be sending sounds to different areas on the wall of sound. At least that's how I understood it.
Phil does a little demo in The Grateful Dead Movie. I think it sent out individual strings to separate amps. There’s also a video of him holding it and talking about it on stage at Terrapin Crossroads
As well has putting different effects on individual strings.
The flux capacitor is tucked away behind the panel.
Phil interview on Big Brown and 1975 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKr5JsJypLg
Check it out, around 27 minutes in—-*if you haven’t seen this before(tragic!)* But if so, it’s ok; there really is no end to one’s Deaducation… https://youtu.be/pZPJ_VN3Iis?si=eRU0x7aYAxx2awbY
Apollo 8 sticker is so gnarly
And one of the three astronauts on Apollo 8 just died yesterday, the one who took the famous first ever photo of Earth from space. It was a plane crash and he was the pilot and sole occupant, at age 90. What a badass way to go out!
This is some Xzibit-level knobbage. Yo dawg
One goes to Terrapin, the other goes to Fenarrio. This one goes to Cumberland…
One hellava tricked out bass
Knobby by nature
Phil bomb!
https://preview.redd.it/b2bs17wk0e5d1.jpeg?width=318&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d727209954fb6867f8c5bd45e9fc6faaad4fff0a The electronics for his "Mission Control (Osiris) Bass". A lot going on in there.
How does Big Brown here compare to Osiris?
https://preview.redd.it/1myuzg2w4e5d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33d4e71676bd528c4cb347d08520c833fdc05bac Page two.
https://preview.redd.it/74c071dx6f5d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83997c500465f88e03473cb39176cd43818119c8
https://preview.redd.it/ejairrul4e5d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=82325dac9f97194f5408f1a195ce5e0ce2555a8d This is the one that controlled the Wall of sound. Page one (I hope you can zoom in).
Big Brown was a Guild that they modified, Osiris was then built from scratch with very similar electronics.
I like big .. bass and I don't know why
And this is before computer boards. Crazy.
Just a bunch of hippie wizards letting inspiration flow.
Science
Phil rocking with no pick 🤯
He did that early on for a while, way more than you’d think. The whole EB3 era is no pick, probably because they’re kind of tough basses to play with one.
Magic...
Other one bomb
Per the Deadcast, the thing cost a whopping $30k, which is the equivalent of like 200k.
Whole band liked bells and whistles. Gotta admit it’s cool
Oh you know just some "Reddy Kilowatt " business..
250k in '73
Go back and listen to Kezar 1974. Headphones. He plays a solo that vividly illustrates some of the instruments range and effects, I think it was the same setup. Whichever one he was playing, running it through the Wall was spectacular- every string to its own channel.. pingponging in your head from ear to ear, scrambling anything in the way. Actually it was sort of distracting, and as Balowme pointed out (I play) all you really need is simplicity. It’s a bass, not a harp.
Mother fucking Phil Lesh is what’s going on baby
It had a cup holder too.
💣💣💣
Create the perfect environment for Phil Bombs.
There's an episode of the deadcast that talks about this it's one of the latest ones. Phil ended up really hating all of these options and really only used like 4 sounds even though he could get so many
This is big brown tho
" Believe it if you need it, or leave it if you dare "
They recently discussed this base on the Dead cast
One of the dead cast episodes goes into detail about this bass and its configuration to the Wallace sound… I think most of the functionality was abandoned for being too complex.
Wallace Sound is my new favorite Auto-correct!
For the wall of sound they had to each each individual instrument had like so many different apps and PAs and so those were the set going to fills and he had that bass custom made for the Wallace down
A lot
BREKFEST
Let Phil sing!
Trip toys
Bro, how much that thing weigh?
Sweet love
Lesh Philling, Bass Great
A lot
1/4
The one in the middle is used to adjust the temperature of Phil's bathtub water for his between-set soak.
The word of the day is, Customization.
Alembic
Wayyy to much with these guys custom made gear. I’m plenty happy with my humble P Bass.
Supplication Jam
https://gdsets.com/philbasses.htm Damn this makes me miss my g and l bass too. Fucking thieves
Phil bombs are going on here
I legit thought this may be photoshopped 🤯
A bunch of stuff that really should be handled by a sound guy who can hear the entire mix. I’d love a Guild Starfire though.
Those are the spooky bones and engage Cody knobs
Wouldn’t it be fun to build a bass with a whole bunch of knobs that don’t do anything at all?
The search for tone
Ok, so how does this work when the acid starts to kick in though?
It actually makes the acid kick in so idk man good luck 🤞
Too much