In response, you lay back a bit more, move down an octave, pass on a fill that would clash with the busy guitar part, give a friendly look over to the horn section while motioning to your headstock, signal the soundman to bring down the background vocals, and make a mental note to suggest to the singer that the song’s key be changed. You may not realize it, but you have producer potential.
Ask around and you’ll discover the musical maxim that we bass players make the best producers. To find out how valid this theory is, we asked seven top bass-playing producers for their take, as well as for practical and technical tips. Their collective insight reinforces the notion that it can indeed be a short trip from the bass to the board.

Marcus Miller

As a Grammy-winning bassist and producer for the likes of Miles Davis, Luther Vandross, Roberta Flack, and David Sanborn, Marcus Miller knows his stuff. Still, he’s not sure it’s only bassists who make natural producers. “I think among musicians, you get the best producers out of the cats who play support roles because they’re trained to see the big picture. I know when I’m producing, after a doing a few takes I’ll ask the musicians which one they like, and the sax player will say, ‘I played the best on this one,’ and the percussionist will say, ‘I snuck some Afro-Cuban 6/8 beats on this one.’ But the drummer and the bass player will say, ‘Well, take three felt the best.’ They’re not so concerned about their own performance or how technically perfect it was. Those are the guys you can trust.”
Miller made the transition to producing through composing. “First it was, Can you help us with the arrangement? Then it was, Can you help us get it to sound like your demo? Finally it was, Why don’t you just produce the track?” For neophytes, Miller recommends settling on a pair of playback speakers. “No two models reproduce bass the same way. Really get to know how they sound; listen to your music on them and listen to other artists’ CDs on them, so you can compare.”
Marcus, whose new CD will be released in August, touches on the personal side as well. “Producing is more about communication and making people feel comfortable than anything else. You have to really know how to talk to somebody. If they’re doing something bad or wrong, figure out a way to correct it without losing their enthusiasm. If they’re doing something well, it’s often best not to say anything. Sometimes the worst move is to say, “I love what you’re doing here.” All of a sudden you pull their attention to it, and it’s never the same again.”

Favorite Bass Recording Gear

“The two most essential pieces of gear are your ears. Beyond that, it’s a good instrument and good strings. The benefit I had, from being a studio musician back in New York, was spending eight hours a day listening to my bass through headphones, so I really got to know how to tweak my sound. These days, I like the Radial Bass Bone DI and the API Lunchbox, which I use as a mic pre. As for compressors, I still like the dbx 160 for subtle compression and the Empirical Labs EL8-X Distressor for more extreme compression.”

Meshell Ndegeocello

Meshell Ndegeocello added producer to her cap out of necessity. She explains, “I started producing my records in 1992, in the world of Prince, Babyface, and David Gamson, who all produced themselves. At the time, I didn’t have another producer, so I did it myself, too.” Meshell, who recently handled the board work on her upcoming CD and some film score work, feels bassists do make fine producers. “It’s because we’re the foundation of the harmony, while also setting the groove with the drummer. Plus, bass players are observant of their surroundings, whether onstage or in the studio.” As for advice, she offers, “My style is to do as many of the roles that fall under the current use of the term ‘producer’ as I can: songwriting, arranging, contracting, producing, and time and money management. But I find as an artist producing other people’s music, it’s most important to create a comfortable atmosphere for the artist, help facilitate their ideas, and help them realize their vision, as opposed to creating something in my own image.”

Favorite Bass Recording Gear

“Most essential for me is my right hand and my left hand; it’s all in my hands. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I had a piece-of-shit bass for years and I had to make it sound like what I wanted. I’m not a tech geek, so I think a compatible engineer is also essential. I do like the Aguilar DB 680 bass preamp, though.”

Steve Rodby

Longtime Pat Metheny Group bassist Steve Rodby spent years sharpening his producer instincts as a Chicago session musician before officially stepping behind the board in 1987, for Metheny’s Still Life (Talking) [Geffen]. He has since produced or co-produced over a dozen of the guitarist’s projects, as well as CDs for Oregon, Lyle Mays, and Michael Manring. Rodby is a true specialist these days, often hired to “polish” jazz tracks via Pro Tools in post-production, without losing the vital organic nature of the recordings. Steve agrees that bassists make the best producers. “Bass players learn early on that the way to get gigs isn’t as much by sounding good yourself as by helping other people sound good. They tend to see the bigger picture. They also understand bass is powerful in a stealth way. By contrast, drums are powerful in an obvious way—you know when it’s the drummer propelling the music—but when a bass player drives the track, it’s often almost hidden and mysterious. If you have the temperament to tolerate that and to think about music in those terms, you’re well suited for the producer chair.”
Rodby, who most recently co-produced the late Michael Brecker’s final CD, Pilgrimage, offers, “If it’s your first time producing, you need to have your pre-production together and start off with a light touch. Record as much of what’s being played as possible. A basic rule is that if it sounds good, it is good. You never know whose suggestion is going to make the music work, so you can’t get too wrapped up in how you think it should be. What the great artists all have in common is an incredible honesty about their music. They play their hearts out, and then in playback they listen with open ears. They don’t care whose input steers the music in the right direction; they just want to face the truth. You need to be able to hear through your own ideas to get to that same truth.”

Favorite Bass Recording Gear

“Generally, the only two pieces of gear I find essential are your bass and your fingers. But for amplifying or recording acoustic bass direct, the one essential that is so often overlooked is matching the output impedance of the upright’s transducer pickup with the input impedance of the first device it’s plugged into, be it an amp, a preamp, a DI, or an effect. If the device’s input impedance is too low, as it frequently is, you’ll lose the bottom. What I did was build a box that varies the input and allows the transducer to be loaded with the correct impedance for the sound you want. I’ve found an impedance level of between 1Mž and 2Mž ideal. Now I have variable inputs built into all my gear, and you wouldn’t believe the tone difference. I’ve become known for playing my upright through an amp or through the board at loud volumes, and that’s my secret.”

Lee Alexander

Lee Alexander made the transition from bassist to producer by putting the word out. His girlfriend, pop star Norah Jones, recommended him to her label, Blue Note, when they were looking for someone to produce folk-rocker Amos Lee. Alexander has since produced Jones’s latest, Not Too Late, Noam Weinstein’s We’re All Going There [MM], and an upcoming disc from Crescent & Frost. He offers, “I’m not sure if bassists make the best producers, but I will say good producers know how things fit together, are patient, and don’t let their egos dictate how something is going to sound—which is also true of good bass players.” For novices, he advises, “Always keep your cool. No matter how stressful it gets, don’t lose control. Because if you—the supposed leader of the project—look stressed out, then you’re going to stress everybody else out. And that’s not a good way to get the best performances out of people. Also, keep an eye on the budget.”

Favorite Bass Recording Gear

“The most important thing is a good instrument and someone with a good relationship to that instrument. For upright bass, I use a Royer R-121 ribbon mic and a Telefunken U47 tube condenser mic. For electric, I like miking with a Neumann U47 FET.”

Randy Jackson

Producing has been a key link in Randy Jackson’s path from bassist to American Idol judge and all-around music impresario. He agrees his bass roots made for a natural transition to the other side of the glass. “Bass players are the heartbeat of the song. We get our rhythmic side from getting tight with the drums, and we have a great melodic sense, thanks to the contributions of McCartney, Jamerson, Jaco, and others. It’s the most well-rounded spot in the band, which gives us a producer-like perspective.” Jackson got into producing in the early ’80s, when he was part of Narada Michael Walden’s San Francisco studio team. “I had ideas, like everyone does,” he recalls, “and eventually I got a chance to try them.” He admits, “I was always a song guy—melody and lyrics—even though I broke onto the scene playing fusion.”
Jackson, who has since produced the likes of Eddie Money, Nancy Wilson, Kenny Loggins, Patti LaBelle, and Mariah Carey, advises maintaining a song focus. “To me, first and foremost, a producer should know what a great song is and where to find it. Listen to Top 40 radio and try to learn why those songs are clicking with the public. Hone your own songwriting skills; get together with friends and have writing sessions, like the Motown writers did. Then make home demos of the songs and play them for people you respect—not to get a deal, but to get their critique of your production skills.”
Jackson is working toward a September release for his debut CD, a Quincy Jones-like guest-laden affair. As such, he stresses, “Producing is really a group format. It’s about community; it’s not the me principle, it’s the we principle, because you can’t do it all by yourself. A good producer knows the ‘art of the phonebook’: who to call on each instrument that will give them exactly what they want for a track. And they know to go with someone else’s idea if it’s better than their own. Humility and compassion are two key ingredients to have, not just in producing, but in life.”

Favorite Bass Recording Gear

“I’m a very hi-tech/lo-tech kind of guy. I need a bit of ghetto in my sound, because that’s what makes it work in so many different styles. I like the combination of a direct signal and the miked sound of a vintage Fender Bassman or Ampeg B-15. Plus, I’m never without my Demeter tube DI and Neve mic preamps and compressors.”

Larry Klein

Veteran producer/bassist Larry Klein, who has helmed CDs by Joni Mitchell, Shawn Colvin, and Julia Fordham, as well as numerous movie soundtracks, got into producing while married to and working with Mitchell in the mid ’80s. “I got depressed and frustrated by hearing how bad the records I played on sounded. Tracks that sounded fantastic as monitor mixes on the tracking date would end up being buried in overdubs and bad mixes. Plus, I wanted to find a way to unite everything I did. I already had a strong sense of how I thought the music should sound, and I was developing my songwriting. Of course, as I pursued it, the complexities of the job and the things I needed to learn expanded exponentially; I still feel like I learn a lot from every record I work on.”
Klein, who just finished producing CDs for Steely Dan guitarist Walter Becker (which he also co-wrote), vocalist Madeleine Peyroux, and his wife, Brazilian vocalist Luciana Souza, points out great producers come from a variety of backgrounds, both musical and otherwise. However, he does feel a bass player’s perspective is “a great angle from which to approach musical architecture and design.” He adds, “A bassist can bring to the producer’s table an innate sense of space, the subtleties of groove, and the overall contour of a track. But the ability to know how to get the best performances out of people is as important as knowing how to design the record’s musical and sonic aspects. Know that when you say something is as important as what you say; you can completely destroy a day of work in the studio with one ill-advised remark. Always praise musicians and artists when they excel.”

Favorite Bass Recording Gear

“It’s a good idea to have quality DIs and analog compressors handy. I love the Eclair Evil Twin tube direct box, and I also use some old Simon Systems DIs and the Avalon U5. There are so many great tube compressors; I like the dbx 160x for some tracks, and I’m really digging the compressors and mic preamps made by a company called Inward Connections—they’re really soft and warm sounding. And you can’t beat the Teletronix LA-2A for some things. I definitely think it pays off to put the bass through analog gear on the way to Pro Tools. To me, none of the plug-in compressors come close at this point.”

Mark Hoppus

Blink-182 bassist Mark Hoppus got into producing at the request of his friends in Motion City Soundtrack, who asked him to produce their second effort, Commit This to Memory [Epitaph]. He went on to produce CDs for Match and for his other band, alt-rockers +44. He feels the reason bassists often make the best producers is the common ground connecting the two chairs. “Bass players are the glue that holds the song together between the rhythm and the melody. A bass player needs to know what is working in a song—when to lay back and when to get flowery. Same with a producer. A producer needs to know where a song is going, how to get there, and where to stop along the way.”
Hoppus, who is currently working on a CD with the indie pop/rock/disco band Something For Rockets, alerts first-timers: “Listen to the song from your heart. Say what you think, offer your advice, and always know it’s the band’s song, not yours. If they want to do it one way and you think it should be a different way, speak your mind passionately and then let it go.”

Favorite Bass Recording Gear

An Ampeg SVT rig and a Fender bass: the best bass sound ever!