D MINOR - COLOMBIA EP - MY SOLO BASS ARRANGEMENT
📸 - Melbourne, December 17, 2017
G’day Legends! I’m stoked to be delivering this video.
This is the third track from my 2014 EP release, Colombia, which was an amazing project to work on.
This track has different rhythmic sections and starts off with the slapping technique. I’ve written this piece to be quite a musical journey. I had the ideas as separate riffs in my head for a long time until Craig Newman and I pieced them together. This track features different playing techniques, including slapping, hammer-ons, pull-offs, machine-gun triplets, fingerstyle melody, and bends.
Sometimes I pick up the bass and noodle around without thinking about what I’m doing. It’s like a form of meditation for me. Slap ideas usually come from having the bass in my hands for hours at a time, trying out different variations almost unconsciously, and that’s often when a new idea or melody will emerge.
I’m using my Ernie Ball Music Man 2001 Sterling 4-String, my 2008 Warwick Custom Corvette 4-String, and my RJ’s Custom 5-String Macassar Bass. We captured the bass through my Avalon U5 DI and Craig’s Avalon 737—both of which are killer pieces of equipment. We used an MXR Carbon Copy delay pedal for the effected melody.
As always, I try to capture the sound I want to record at the time of recording, I’m a fan of that, and not so much a fan of complete digital tweaks in post.
The double-plucking throughout the song is actually hard to maintain perfectly, and it’s a great exercise for anyone looking to improve timing, technique, and stamina. The machine-gun triplet style of playing luckily comes naturally to me, and it’s a lot of fun to play. The outro is my favourite. It features fifth chords ringing out to complement and highlight the main samba-style bass line, which lays a solid foundation for a melody on top. This was the fun part—I specifically remember recording that line late at night with Craig.
Overall, the audio quality, mix, drum sound, bass tones, and mastering are 10/10.
Huge thanks to Craig Newman, Matt Darcy, Vish Vadivelu, and Joseph Carra for all your help on this EP.
You can view the video here.
I really hope you enjoy it.
Onwards and upwards,
Kade