John Taylor's bass line to Rio

John Taylor has always been very modest about his bass playing, but he is a really amazing bassist: a tasty combination of slick funky grooves and understatement.
I'm trying to reproduce that bass line here with that Bernard Edwards' typical index-pick technique, but I'm not sure how John Taylors was playing it.
Sorry for the mistakes, by the way.

About the bass:
it's a Bach czech made 51-style p-bass with mahogany body and 50-110 LaBella flatwounds that I recently was lucky to buy from boombastic-amazing-grooovay SlikkTim: just check him out on youtube ...he's only playing at 10% of his true bass skills on his vids...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• john
• taylor
• rio
• duran
• 51
• p-bass
• bach
• czech
• brand
• flatwounds
• bernard
• edwards

[bobanditwopointfive]

Try to find the 12" dance version of Rio. Extended intro, really rockin

[zaksnaporaz]

@bobanditwopointfive yeah thanks, I'll try to find it

[zaksnaporaz]

no plectrum there, dude

[Hellesens]

Sounds nice, no matter how people say it's not like the original. It's a cover, so it should have some original approach to it, and yours has that aplenty. Your bass sounds rather like a upright bass with the twang and all even though it seems fretted!

I also like your index finger picking technique, I've been trying a similar approach now and then as I don't like picks, but would welcome the benefits of the technique. My upstroke just sounds a bit dull and lacks power to pop the string.

[zaksnaporaz]

@Hellesens Yes, I'm aware that John Taylor is playing this fingerstyle, but I was trying a sort of B.Edwards approach. What works good for the upstroke is when you use high gain in your amp (or a gain pedal such as Tech21 VT) for an overdriven bright tone, and then turn down the tone on your bass about half way in order to tame the overly bright distrortion into a kind of slight dark growl: when you do that, then the index picking comes out nicely aggressive with pick-like attack. cheers

[Hellesens]

@zaksnaporaz @zaksnaporaz

Thanks for the tips, I'll be sure to try them next time I feel the urge to fingerpick. Now I'm mostly training chords with both multi-finger plucking and Claypool style flamenco-strums, they really spice up the basslines when used in right spots.

I also use flatwounds on my basses, as I like their feel and mellow sound more than the rough and snappy roundwounds. They're a bit difficult to find these days as hardly anyone uses them.

[zaksnaporaz]

@Hellesens well, flatwounds ok to find on many online shops. And about the mellow tone, when pushed into treble by eq or overdrive, their sound is soo much better than rounds. Just listen to JOe Jackson's "I'm the man" album: Graham Maby is playing flabbergating bass with flatwounds pushing his old Ibanez amp treble eq to the max... fantatic!

[zaksnaporaz]

no pick, no. it's a free world.

[Bowyerma]

@matako07 of course you think this guy can't play. Just look at the shit that you favorited on your account. You need to wash your boyband jizz out your ear so you can hear real music for once.

[neonjunglejumper]

i think fingers would produce a better sounds...sounds very klunky yuk

[Darmesis]

Cool beans.

[tacorubio]

fucking nailed it. thank you

[skintrade]

this is great!

[337camo]

@zaksnaporaz its alright man i thought it was nice. where is matako07's videos of him playing bass any better than you? ohh thats right they dont exist.

[sammyp1971]

throw away the plectrum LOL

[MisAnnThorpe]

That bass is begging to have its frets removed! I think it would sound amazing.