Ableton Forum

Anybody know what they used? I'm guessing maybe reverb and chorus... but I'm no name-that-effect expert. I dug up an old Morphine CD the other day... Cure for Pain. I can't get the songs Candy and especially I'm Free Now outta my head. I want that bass sound.

I suppose links would help...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M34iZH4- ... re=related <--- perfect example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJH4hXWuV_I <--- didn't know a triangle could be this cool.

Great CD - I believe he used a 2-string fretless type bass (you-tube blocked at work so can't see the videos). Maybe a little chorus, but I think it's his technique - slides and stuff - that makes the sound, probably not the efx so much.

it's the sound of a big double bass. no clue how to transform an electric guitar to that silk classic sound. he talks a bit about his basses in the Music section of his wiki entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Sandman

"His instruments were extensively altered and sometimes built by hand to create unique sounds. In Morphine, he played primarily a two-string slide bass guitar usually tuned to a fifth, but he also was known to play a unitar (named after the one-stringed instrument in American blues tradition), and three-string slide bass with one bass string and two unison strings tuned an octave higher (usually A). He sometimes paired bass strings with one or two guitar strings, creating the "basitar" "tri-tar" and "guitbass." The guitbass and basitar were later used by The Presidents of The United States of America (with whom Sandman was close friends).

For Sandman, the result was a murky, slurring sound that, particularly when paired with the baritone saxophone of Morphine's Dana Colley, created what Sandman termed "low rock." His baritone singing completed the sound. "We're just baritone people," he once told an interviewer. "And the cumulative effect of all these instruments is that it sounds really low, but you can still hear what's going on between the different instruments. It hits the body in a peculiar way that some people like a lot."




great band, got to see them once with Soul Coughing.

actually quite inspiring...

thanks Tone... doesn't help me emulate it, but could anything emulate it for real? Definitely one of the coolest sounds I've heard come from a bass guitar. I knew about it being 2 strings, but I figured there was still some effects on there. Between tuning and the fact that those strings were altered in ways outside of my skillset I guess I'll just have to admire from afar.

@ hennessy if you're on the forum later when you get home... and you think about it... check out the link I posted with the triangle. tres

Tone Deft wrote:great band, got to see them once with Soul Coughing.

I missed this ^ earlier... DUDE! That should have been one sweet show. I was turned on to Morphine pretty late, when Yes came out in 95. I would have loved to have seen a show, but alas the Sandman went to his final resting place while I was locked up.

...so did Bradley Nowell from Sublime and my friend Chris... RIP to them all. They each inspired me in different ways.

Opium cab be a motherfucker...

A little octave and wah is probably your best chance at getting a similar sound with out building out some instruments of your own.