Added: 1 year ago
From: BlisterFingered
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  • There is something about the sound of a felt pick on the strings of a hollow body electric bass!

  • Killer bass here!

  • Best bass line by far:D

  • This is my favourite Beatles' bass line!!...

  • @Beatlemaniac1960 Mine too! Paul rocks!

  • Nice. Is there a bass solo on She Came In Through The Bathroom Window?

  • The Nylons he used were Rotosound RSM88M, on his hofner, the only Flatwounds I'm aware of are the Labellas he put on his Ric.

  • 4:07 ♥

  • Hofner did eventually fix the intonation problem for Sir Paul. Even with that problem, Macca made some amazing bass from that wacky Hofner.

  • It's his Rickenbacker, but he's getting this tone with nylon-coated strings. You can't play that high on a Hofner, it goes out of tune (That's why he switched to the Ric in the first place).

  • @Verbeke7 Are those nylon strings? I assumed they were the Rickenbacker/Maxima flats that came with the Rick. That's how mine sounded with the stock stings when I bought it back in 1973. But it's definitely the Rick

    The Hofner also plated out of tune on some low notes. You can hear that in Rain.

  • Pretty cool

  • Impresionante esto!!!! Siempre pense que Paul fue el mejor bajista  de los primeros tiempos del rock y esto no hace otra cosa que confirmarmelo ....GRANDE MAESTRO

  • Sounds a lot like the Hofner to me, having played one myself.

  • Mad skills even with the clams. Maybe he was a little baked for this session.

  • Rickenbacker? Hofner? Fender? I'd guess Ric, but its the strings that are most important here. Strings are definitely Rotosound Tru Bass 88 nylon tape wound. There is no mistaking that dark swelling tone with the snappy attack. Put these strings on just about any bass and you will get this 'sound'. Really! He uses the Rotos on a Hofner in the rooftop film - black strings with gold threads. On Abbey Road, there is more sustain and better intonation (limited at best with 88s) so likely the RIc.

  • @Humtagut Sounds like the stock flats that came with the Rics back then. In photos from Paul at this time the strings on his Rick are not black. The Roto 88s are cool though, I used to use them on my Norma violin bass.

  • @DavidRavenMoon Strings are definitely nylon tape wound. You're right about the photos - no nylon strings seen on the Ric, So, must be the Hofner.

  • @Humtagut He didn't use the Hofner on Abby Road. He started using the Ric on November 8, 1965 on the track Think For Yourself. He used the Ric on recordings up until Let it Be, when he used the Hofners. That was because it was being filmed. He used the Ric on all of Abby Road. There are no photos of him with nylon tape strings. On the photos of that time, the Ric is sanded natural, he had a big piece of foam under the strings, and the strings are silver flats. See thecanteen (.) com/mccartney6

  • @DavidRavenMoon Get yer best cans on and listen to 'Get Back' isolated bass. Then 'Something' isolated and this one. Same woody snap and swelling 'mwah' decay. Tapewound. Unmistakable. Sketchy intonation: tapewound on Hofner. Alan Parsons engineered latter AR sessions: "I know that the Hofner was around. I think it's a classic Hofner sound on 'Something' but I can't be sure". That Hofner would have been the one with tapewounds (roof). The other one (Revolution vid) was stolen during LIB.

  • @Humtagut Have you ever played a vintage Ric with the original Maxima flats? You are hearing the toaster pickup with flats. Listen to Baby Your A Rich Man. That's those strings. Now listen to any Sly and the Family Stone song with Larry on bass. Those are nylon tape wounds. My Generation by the who... Joe jackson with Graham Maybe. Those are nylon tape wounds. They have a bright clicky top end. The Maxima strings are what you are hearing. Plus, Paul never had nylon strings on the Hofner.

  • @DavidRavenMoon Did you really mean to say "Paul never had nylon strings on the Hofner"? Nylon clearly visible on Hofner in Let It Be film, rooftop. Photo: tinyurl dot com slash 6nh6boy . Get Back indisputably played on nylon: watch?v=SxfYXP9Y4UM . Listen to that and this together. Same sound and much different than the distinctive Ric on tracks like watch?v=EWGLRaH57YY . Listen the others filmed on Hofner/nylon: Don't Let Me Down, Dig A Pony, I''ve Got a Feeling, One After 909.

  • oye no tendras la cancion de "oh darling!" solo en vocal

  • shouldn't paul be walking

  • Geez...Thats SOOOOO COOOOOL!!!

    

  • Comment removed

  • ...little like the intonation is off (in a way that works for the song).

  • I've read somewhere that he still used the Hofner sometimes at this time. Whether this is the Hofner can be argued, but this sounds a

  • im in shock, tank you, thank you,soo much my friend, i love the beatles , im from mexico

  • It's the Rick. I have one of each(R & H). That's pure Eastern Hard Rock Maple driving those notes.

    The transition was during Rubber Soul, by which time the Hofner's intonation is shot.

    A 4001C64 will totally nail this thru an AC50. (With Thomastiks)

  • hofner all the way

  • pfff...los pelos de punta!!!!

  • Who do you YouTube suspend accounts with these fabelous bass tracks (I use as a tool when learning Beatles songs)? Just look after the "Polythene Pam" bass track under the related videos! The new YouTube sucks!

  • I'm leaning toward the Hofner the more I listen to this.

  • really great. Harmonix must have need the original multi tracks at Abbey Road Studios to do this.

  • this is sex

  • I play guitar, but this song I'd rather learn the bass just to play it. 

  • Using a pick on his Rickenbacker. As Sir George Martin said " all you need are ears ".

  • fingers or pick?

  • if theres ever been a cooler thing on youtube, i dont wanna know about it. Mccartney really is the king!

  • Anyone who thinks bass is easy anyone can do it needs to try it. It's not that easy to do it well. Add in singing at the same time and it becomes 10 x harder to do.

  • @MonkeySeeism Amen! Singing along with rhythm is do-able....singing alongside a bassline can be very tricky :S

  • I agree to @andrewcasarsa, but, let me tell you one more bass line : Drive My car. This is complex. Imagine play it and sing at the same time. It's no easy. Sir Paul Mc Cartney can do that!...simply : he is GREAT.genial. Long Live for paul. we love you.

  • This is fantastic, epic bass playing Paul :D

  • I feel like the bass-players are the unsung heroes of bands. Well, Paul was also a writer, singer, pianist, guitarist, etc. but this is incredible, and his bass playing is hardly ever mentioned!

  • My favorite Beatles bass line!

    Top 5 (in my opinion):

    5) Nowhere Man

    4) Something

    3) Hey Bulldog

    2) Rain

    1) I Want You (She's So Heavy)

  • You people think of paul as a bassist but hear him as a guitar player... he is also damn amazing! and in that solo in "Taxman" was amazing.

  • @zeromant80 FYI, George played the bass on Taxman.

  • @MAMAZEUS1 I said 'guitar player', That's why i've said 'Taxman' (the main guitar solo was his work) and yes, i already knew that George played Bass on 'Taxman' (except the brige, in the 'If you drive a car..." part.) Also George both played Bass and Guitar on 'Old Brown Shoe' (double tracked, means that he played the exact same notes on his Bass just like he did on his Guitar)

  • @MAMAZEUS1 George played the bass on She Said She Said because The Beatles had had an argument that Paul walked out on during the last day of sessions for Revolver. Paul plays bass on Taxman as the bass during the middle eight section is distinctly his. Also the tone of the bass sounds like Paul's Rickenbacker.

  • @zeromant80

    and he is also a genious bass player.... 2 words.... come together

  • @hungerstriker27 Yeah, that's obvious, he is both amazing in guitar and bass... fact: his main instrument was the guitar, way back before he met john...

  • @zeromant80 yeah... the ridiculous part is he's probably top 5 bassists of all time imo, but he also was a fantastic guitarist, and pianist. WAYYYY better at guitar and piano than me, and I play both instruments very, VERY well. He's so ridiculously good.

  • @zeromant80 wasn't that george ?

  • Awesome where did u get the pic i can still here the vvocies

  • I might be dense but what is the loop?

  • I'm trying to play this song by ear and...the part during the loop is hell. Should I bother trying to match it at all or should I freestyle like he did?

  • As an aspiring bass player myself I have to listen to this once a day for inspiration because it's both awesome and attainable. :)

  • Paul's the best bass player of all time...

  • In my opinion this is the Ricky, to the best of my knowledge Macca did not record with the Hofner after the Rickenbacker came into the fold. He did apparently also use a Fender Jazz bass on some White Album tracks. No matter what instrument, always a pleasure to listen to the master at work though!

  • @pr10s I also think its the ricky, this bass line doesnt sound like a hollow body bass guitar like the hofner. ricky has a solid body.

  • @pr10s SorrrrrrY, all you,gentlemen,are wrong: this is HOFNER !! Playing for 30 odd years on it...

  • paul is the best bassist of all fucking time. listening to these tracks like this just proves it further.

  • not bad... and not talking down on this but, I think "eargasm" from a solo bass line would be more like Flea and 'Drunkenship of Lanterns'.. anyone done that?

  • @ACorganicks Flea is an awesome bass player. Paul is one of the best musician of all times. 

  • @Marcelocelligoi Flea agrees as well.

  • I think I read somewhere that Macca was still laying down the final bass tracks separately on this album too. He liked to wait until everything else was finished, then go in and do his thing.

  • I love this bass line sooo much. Its just sexy and makes we want to grab Mccartney and fuck him. Beatles 4ever! x

  • This is weird... According to Geoff Emerick, "I Want You" ending instrumental was recorded in another studio (not Abbey Road but Trident) antoher day... (the end sounds differently and this is not exactly the same tempo) I can guess they have put this part on one only track because they had "only" an 8 tracks recorder for this album... so I find very strange to manage to get off this bass track...

  • @kadey1978 I don't know if you realize this but 8 tracks was more than they usually had available in Abbey Road at the time(they often were working with only 4 tracks) so it was entirely possible that the bass would have had it's own track. Even with 4 tracks they often recorded the bass separately. They did on Sgt Pepper because Paul would often stay later after everyone else had gone home and lay down his bass tracks.

  • perfectttt

  • epic skills

  • @MonkeySeeism Just Listen To The Bass...

  • I dunno, just doesn't sound like the Hofner to me.

  • @MonkeySeeism  I also think this is Rickenbacker.

  • i am sure the macca was playing the Hofner, because of the weird intonation: the Hofners were verry hard to intonate, while they had a great sound, it wasn't until way afte the Beatles did Paul get his Hofner setup to have a more aligned neck and better intonation

  • Awesome

    

  • Check out the high end of the bass tone especially on the bass chords at the begining. Also the sustain he gets on some of notes are not characteristic of a hollow body bass with flats.That is with out a doubt the sound of a soild body bass. The Hofner on don't let me down is isolated on another youtube page if you want to check the difference I guess it doesn't matter what bass he did it on really, anyways. It's just a great bass line.

  • I would have said most likely this is his Rick but on listening to this track I'm thinking this maybe his Jazz bass. If anyone thinks this is a Hofner then I'd guess they've never owned one. VERY different sound. I'm not trying to stir anything here though. Thanks for the post!

  • @goomagoo True, but Paul was something else with his bass. Listen to Don't Let Me Down's bassline, the sound is similar to this, since it was done around the same time, and that was on his hofner.

  • @XtrmMcjohnson  Sure,man. Right!

  • @goomagoo I think you are right. definitely not the hoffner, but doesnt sound like the classic rick sound either. probably the J

  • yeah paul definately played his hofner for let it be and abbey road

  • I just had an eargasm *u* PAUL IS AMAZING! <3

  • Where did you find this?

  • Something about this works its way into my brain.

  • Hofner or Rickenbacker?

  • @andrewcasarsa I think McCartney's playing his Hofner in this one.

  • @BlisterFingered Can you please upload an isolated bass track "Ticket to Ride"? (robmurphy82's isolated track of that song sounds like shit)

  • No Rickenbacker

  • @BlisterFingered sorry but this is exactly what a Rickenbacker sounds like

  • @andrewcasarsa  Rickenbacker

  • @andrewcasarsa  GOFNER,certainly!

  • @andrewcasarsa He was also playing a fender bass at this time too

  • Comment removed

  • @andrewcasarsa That's the Rickenbacker. He didn't use the Hofner much at this time. The Hofner has a softer more thuddy tone and the low notes are out of tune on many songs.

  • Hi ,i appreciate that you put these videos on youtube,but don't give kudos to harmonix,they didn t actually removed the bass from the finished song,the got it separated from abbey road,as well as the other instruments

  • OMG i love this! Paul's bass is awesome in this song! thank you so much *-*!

  • Macca boggles my puny mind with this.

  • This bass tone was one of the 1st I ever heard.

    +1

  • This is awesome!

  • About the other instruments in the background, this song needed no extra isolation, this is straight from Apple's dry multitrack. The bleed tape bleed, since this was recorded direct injection.

  • 4:06 LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

  • Hey blister: Is this Paul McCartney? or a good bass cover?

  • @Pagefrusciante this is indeed Sir Paul Mccartney himself

  • @Pagefrusciante

    there's no better bassplayer and there never will be one.

    by the way, flea is so massively overrated

  • @Pagefrusciante its actually the original song.if you use a High Definition Headsets like Beats by Dr. Dre. you Can Hear the Very Small sound of that song. and it is isolated by the bass.

  • ROCK!!!! YOU ARE THE BEST BROTHER!!!

  • Beautiful!!!!!!!!!, please upload more

  • Oh my.. that's stunning.. thank you soooo much, really!

  • @KnightWolvesStudio no problem :)

  • @BlisterFingered well just comenting, a friend tell me that in all the abbey road album with his rickenbacker, so it's not the hofner and besides, another friend of mine, shares me his hofner, I tried it and don't hear the same (besides cuz trying come together and it don't hear the same like the bass in the song so), well that's my point of view but, well I'm not seccure at all so, don't care my comment at all XD, well anyway, thanks for the bass track :D

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