How do you come up with your bass lines?A lot of songs call for the most simple, obvious parts. It’s mostly a matter of learning the song, then working in the studio to find the right tone. Once I have a demo, I’ll work out a few different approaches to the song, but I try not to get tied to anything. With this record, we composed a lot of parts in the studio. We never really know what works until the whole band gets together and puts it onto tape, so I try to keep an open mind until then.
What kind of music do you listen to?One record I’ve loved lately is from Rudresh Mahanthappa. It’s jazz influenced by Indian classical music, and it’s fantastic. I’ve also been listening to Todd Phillips and Tin Hat Trio, which is more on the instrumental folk side of things.
What’s your biggest challenge in touring as an upright player?Upright requires regular practice to keep your physicality up. An hour or so before soundcheck, I usually grab my bass and find somewhere to mess around. I also work on bowing exercises. If I don’t work on it every day, my chops fall apart.
How do you set your rig to get the best live sound?For electric, I put just enough on the stage that I can feel it. The programmable SansAmp is nice for slight overdrive, and it’s great for touring, since it saves settings. I keep my stage volume on the upright really low because we have in-ear monitors.
What strings do you like on your Lakland?I’ve used D’Addario Chromes for a long time, but I’ve started using Lakland’s Joe Osborne flatwounds. They feel heavier, and I like the way they sound when I play hard with my thumb or with a pick.
How did you get into playing upright?I played in my high school’s orchestra and jazz band, but I didn’t get my own upright until I had been a professional musician for a few years—I was the typical starving musician who couldn’t afford one. After seeing Edgar Meyer play with Jerry Douglas and Russ Beringburg in 1997, I worked overtime as a temp at the post office and used the money to buy an upright.
What do you look for when shopping for basses?For electric basses, versatility. With upright, it’s all about how quickly the note responds, and how rich it sounds. With my old plywood bass, some notes sounded really clear, and some had a weak fundamental. Now, my main recording bass is one made by Baranyai Gyorgy. With my fancy upright—especially playing arco—the response is really fast.
CHECK HIM OUT
The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love [Capitol, 2009]
GEAR
Basses Lakland Joe Osborne Signature, Samuel Shen e Willow upright (live), Baranyai Gyorgy upright (studio) Strings Lakland Joe Osborne flatwounds (electric) D’Addario Helicore (upright) Rig Aguilar AG 500 head and GS 212 2x12 cabinet, Tech 21 SansAmp Programmable Bass Driver DI (electric); Aguilar AG 500 head and GS 410 4x10 cabinet, Fishman Pro-EQ Platinum Bass (upright) Effects Roger Mayer Voodoo-Bass distortion, Electro- Harmonix Bass Micro Synthesizer Bow Fornichiati
Board Order
ONCE YOU’VE ASSEMBLED AN AWESOME collection of stompboxes, creating the perfect signal chain can be confusing. Here’s a quick guide, but remember, effects are all about experimentation, so don’t be afraid to try your own chain—you won’t break anything!
1. Amplitude modifiers. Putting a clean-boosting preamp or a compressor first buffers and grooms the signal for its journey through the effects down the chain.
2. Frequency-altering effects. Whether you use a full-spectrum graphic EQ or filter-based effects like envelopecontrolled filters and wah-wahs, placing them before an overdrive means that the overdrive will affect the frequencies accentuated in this stage.
3. Distortion. Now that the signal’s inherent quality has been established with the first two stages, it’s a good time to completely mangle it with a distortion, which will add a ton of new harmonic content and substantially alter your tone for its trip down the line. The order of stages 2 and 3 is the most flexible, though, with post-distortion EQ and filtering having a notably different effect than the other way around. Experiment.
4. Octavers and pitch shifters. This is a good spot to put your octave pedal, or if you’re even more ambitious, your harmonizer/whammy pedal. The additional amplitude and frequency content of the prior stages will help the pitch-shifting circuit latch on to your signal for better tracking.
5. Modulation effects. I like putting timeoriented effects, like a delay or phaser, near the end of the signal chain. Why not before? Their output is not ideal for the other types of effects and they have a blanket-like character that makes the most sense when applied to an already effect-saturated tone.
6. Volume pedal. The most underrated of all effects, a volume pedal is essential for balancing the effect-addled signal with a dry signal, and is also great for bow-like volume swells and stuttering tremolo effects.
— JONATHAN HERRERA