fronobulax
Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
- Joined
- May 3, 2007
- Messages
- 24,730
- Reaction score
- 8,863
- Location
- Central Virginia, USA
- Guild Total
- 5
Interesting. I know that's kind of what they did on Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side". The story goes that Herbie Flowers didn't know if they wanted upright or electric, so he brought his doghouse and his jazz bass. They used both and that makes for the unique bass part on the recording.
The Bass Tab White Pages - essentially transcriptions from recordings - has both electric and upright bass parts from Walk.
I had not heard about the switch existing in order to help get an upright bass tone in the studio but it makes a lot of sense. I seem to recall interviews with Carol Kay where she talks about the felt mute at the bridge. One of the reasons she gave for using it was to dampen overtones and thus get more of an upright sound from an electric in the studio. I recall someone else - James Jamerson? - with studio credits during the '60's who talked about what they did, on electric, to sound more like an upright when recorded. Part of the evolution of the instrument.
On overdubbing, at least two different bass players have said that they were in the studio overdubbing "keyboard bass" parts recorded by the Doors. The claim is easy to track for Light My Fire but I seem to recall one claim that the whole first album had overdubbed bass and that the Doors did not know that was done, at the time.