BBC 4 Guitar, Drums and Bass

sev112

Watched the bass one last night and enjoyed apart from the fact that I couldn’t hear any of the bass being played. I guess standard TV speakers don’t project the frequencies ?  I turned the bass up as high as it could be but still could hardly hear.  Especially when at least one of them wasn’t even plugged in 

mart

sev112 said:

Watched the bass one last night and enjoyed apart from the fact that I couldn’t hear any of the bass being played. I guess standard TV speakers don’t project the frequencies ?  I turned the bass up as high as it could be but still could hardly hear.  Especially when at least one of them wasn’t even plugged in 

Interesting. I was just watching it, and really enjoying the bass frequencies coming through the subwoofer on my surround sound system that the tv is connected to. But I was thinking that it would sound pretty crap on a tv speaker. Sounds like you need to upgrade your system!

sev112

mart said:

sev112 said:

Watched the bass one last night and enjoyed apart from the fact that I couldn’t hear any of the bass being played. I guess standard TV speakers don’t project the frequencies ?  I turned the bass up as high as it could be but still could hardly hear.  Especially when at least one of them wasn’t even plugged in 

Interesting. I was just watching it, and really enjoying the bass frequencies coming through the subwoofer on my surround sound system that the tv is connected to. But I was thinking that it would sound pretty crap on a tv speaker. Sounds like you need to upgrade your system!

Yeah, I was watching in bed with flu, probably would have been different downstairs in main tv and speakers 

rpr

...A (Leo) Fender doc might be interesting...

EricTheWeary

Watched half  the Bass/ Tina Weymouth episode now. Just reading the comments and it does seem to zip over Fender but with headphones into my iPad bass frequencies clearer than normal, I'm presuming they've been pushed up in the mix on most of the tracks.  So surprised at what @sev112 ; said. 

Funkfingers

Episode two was another general interest broadcast. Plenty of influential names went unchecked. The majority of viewers will not notice.

sev112

EricTheWeary said:

Watched half  the Bass/ Tina Weymouth episode now. Just reading the comments and it does seem to zip over Fender but with headphones into my iPad bass frequencies clearer than normal, I'm presuming they've been pushed up in the mix on most of the tracks.  So surprised at what @sev112 ; said. 

Maybe it’s my aged ears

Jonathangus

There's obviously only so much you can fit into an hour, but no rock or metal at all?  I think the closest we got was quick blast of the Ramones.

I know we're mainly a bunch of middle-aged guys on a guitar forum, but is Dizzee Rascal really more significant in the world of bass than, say, Steve Harris?  Or Lemmy?

markv

Jonathangus said:

I know we're mainly a bunch of middle-aged guys on a guitar forum, but is Dizzee Rascal really more significant in the world of bass than, say, Steve Harris?  Or Lemmy?

I suppose that it was a programme about bass, not bass *guitar* specifically (and they also included drum machines in the drums episode) and maybe also with an eye on a younger audience? That said, I agree that they could have included more players and less on, say, Paul McCartney, influential as he was.

Loved the visualisation of the James Jamerson bass line on "River Deep, Mountain High" "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" though. Brilliant!

(edit) Here's the full vid of that visualisation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAT3aVj-A_E


(further edit - learn to read)

Funkfingers

As the caption says, that visual representation is of the song "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". 

"River Deep, Mountain High" got mentioned in connection with Carol Kaye. She was one of the bassists on the recording date. Spector probably hired two or three of 'em.

MagicPigDetective

I missed the beginning but Aphrodite showing how he produced basslines on an Amiga was cool. Artists like him pushed bass to another level and deserved to be covered. A fourth programme on electronic music production would be interesting. 

shrinkwrap

Was expecting to find it less interesting than drums, being a former 'more or less bass player' - but was good. Could be more episodes on each of the last two, but then the general public will get bored.

strumjoughlamps

MagicPigDetective said:

I missed the beginning but Aphrodite showing how he produced basslines on an Amiga was cool. Artists like him pushed bass to another level and deserved to be covered. A fourth programme on electronic music production would be interesting. 

Yes i made myself chuckle thinking that I could’ve been doing that on my Amiga instead of spending hours playing Sam Fox’s Strip Poker

markv

Funkfingers said:

As the caption says, that visual representation is of the song "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". 

Er yes good point!

Blueingreen

I enjoyed that more than I expected.  Mrs BiG watched it with me and enjoyed it, whereas she quickly lost interest in the drum one.

Tina Weymouth was a very engaging host.  Apart from the disproportionate amount of Talking Heads stuff (for obvious and understandable reasons) I thought it was very well-balanced.

scrumhalf

It was a programme about bass, not a definitive history. Pleasant enough for what it was.

ZenOvertone

The Bass programme was good, odd they had Bootsy but not Larry Graham too (who I feel has had a greater influence on other bass players), I know Bootsy makes for good tv though...the old Rockschool clip was in there too with the star bass

Blueingreen

My guess would be Bootsy's fee was substantially less than Larry's tbh.  The budget for this kind of niche programming is always going to be tight.

Lodious

With any program like this, they have to make calls about who will be featured, if they covered all bases the program would be boring and people would still complain about people being missed off the list. For me, I think Tina's presentation was  brilliant, and they were some great little gems in the interviews. 

Similar to what @Blueingreen said, my wife was on the sofa and eneded up watching it and only went back to her book when Mr Rascal appeared.

EricTheWeary

My 18 year old son had watched it before I got to it and MrsTheWeary had watched a lot of it with him. She almost never watched music programmes. So as a bit of general interest watching seems to have ticked a few boxes. 

Lodious said:

With any program like this, they have to make calls about who will be featured, if they covered all bases the program would be boring and people would still complain about people being missed off the list. For me, I think Tina's presentation was  brilliant, and they were some great little gems in the interviews. 

Similar to what @Blueingreen said, my wife was on the sofa and eneded up watching it and only went back to her book when Mr Rascal appeared.