When I first relocated from Miami (and Grad School) to Nashville, it was with an eye to establishing myself as a studio bassist. My path had been laid out for me by such greats as Carol Kaye, Joe Osborn, Max Bennett, Lee Sklar, Will Lee, and the myriad of other bassists I was hearing on Jazz, Pop, and Rock records in the late 60s and early 70s.
Imagine my surprise when I got to Nashville and found out that my hard-won reading chops would mostly be irrelevant, my technique would be a hindrance - something I would have to strategically hide from some folks - and my beautiful Alembic bass would have to be augmented with a Fender Precision and a Music Man to get the sounds folks wanted (and tone down the over-the-top Stanley Clarke inspired tone I used at the time).

Through trial and error over a period of 20-something years of dues paying in town, I became confident on sessions playing in a "farm team" system of custom albums, demo sessions, and "spec" sessions (as in " don't 'spec to get paid ever….").

A while back I did a typical "Old School" record date for an up-and-coming Country singer-songwriter with members of B. J. Thomas's Band, a producer who had worked with John Denver, and members of the former Nashville Now staff band. The lineup was electric guitar, steel/acoustic and electric guitar, keyboards (the session leader), bass and drums. The entire band tracked live, with the drummer using a click (when I have a choice, I prefer to let the drummer listen to the click and I listen to the drummer. The songs were charted in advance using the Nashville Number system (more about that in an upcoming column) with the charts being prepared by the session leader.

We cut at The Bayou, a great Old School studio in Music Row in Nashville, with the instruments going to 2" tape just like in the Old Days. If you made a mistake, you made a mental note and took the locator number off the time code of the tape machine so you could tell the engineer when to punch you in and do a fix. It was great fun, and sadly these sorts of sessions seem more and more scarce with the advent of Home Studios and Digital Audio Workstations (the ubiquitous Pro Tools and it's kin).

The chief tools the bassist needs to bring to this sort of session work is a variety of clean-sounding, well-intonated basses with good tones available. A lot of players, including yours truly, plug into some sort of studio preamp to tweak frequencies and give an even tone. I've actually used my Eden WT-600 preamp for a number of years for this. If the engineer has a pet direct box or studio preamp, however, I will use that instead, since the engineer is used to that piece of gear and can get the tones he needs out of it.

I always carry a fretted 5 or 6, a fretless 5 or 6, and a Fender type bass of some sort. If asked, I will augment that with upright or electric upright (handy in smaller rooms and where they're inexperienced with micing an upright bass).

The name of the game is tone. You want (need!) to be able to get any sort of tone from your gear including tone that fits in hard rock, country, acoustic singer-songwriter, or whatever else you need to record that day. Personally, my session tool kit includes fretted and fretless Modulus 6 basses and a Squier Jazz Bass with redone electronics. The Fender-type is in case I run into a really Old School Producer/Artist who is nervous about me having too many strings. The Fender type sounds good and shows they've hired someone who understands the function of what he's doing which is to help support the song and lyrics. Other session players I know use basses by Lakland, Yamaha, Tobias, Sadowsky, Fodera, and Carvin among basses too numerous to mention. You name it, someone uses it in the studio.

I've found it useful to listen to what I'm recording in the context of the whole. A cool solo bass tone might totally disappear when surrounded by two or more guitars, keyboards, and assorted other tones. I try to find a frequency that no one is using in the midrange and gently boost it. Some useful ones I've found are 1KHz (really ugly but good for that P Bass Rock and Roll Grind), 600-800 Hz (great for commercial fretless bass), and 180Hz ( a great frequency to dip if your sound is too bass-heavy and indistinct). Sometimes just a gentle boost or cut on your EQ and sweeping of frequencies will tell you what needs to come or go.

When I'm recording, the two most important people I listen to are the drummer and the singer. I have to get a lock on the time with the drummer, stay out of the vocalist's way (bass fills don't sound good when they're stepping all over a lyric) and hopefully underpin the vocals/lyrics with some good ideas. A good exercise is to take a favorite song and really study what the bassist is playing, analyze why it works against the lyric, and how it fits in with the rest of the band. You're not the star here, but are hopefully adding parts that make the star (the singer in my example) sound good.

After I've checked out what the vocals and drums are doing (usually locking in with the kick, snare and hi-hat of the drum set on Rock or Country) then I'll listen to the piano and rhythm guitar. In really Old School Nashville sessions, it's not uncommon to completely (or, in part) double the pianist's left hand. If I can also create a good time feel with the rhythm guitarist while all of this is going on, even better.

We'll look at recording further next month and examine the New School ways of doing sessions that are popping up all over. We'll also cover how to break into this demanding, highly competitive field. (Hint: It's about like playing High School Football and setting your sights on the NFL.)

Peace and Low Notes,
Roy C. Vogt
Teach Me Bass Guitar
Bass Instructor, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

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