Question for Casady tone strivers...

[lungimsam]

Do you also own Jbasses that you modded to Casady specs?
This is a serious question.
Just the thought occured to me that I haven't heard anyone here mention about modding their Jbasses to Casady specs (I know this is a Guild site), which sounds like that would be easier than modding a Starfire to Casady specs, and if I am correct, the early LP's with the Jazz are just as lovely sounding to everyone's ears as the "Starfire years" LP's.
Personally I cannot hear the diff between the Jazz years and the Starfire years.

 

[fronobulax]

My observation is that the quest for Casady tone starts with a Starfire because unmodified, out of the box, the Starfire comes closer than any of the alternatives. It may also start there because some of the higher visibility, more popular performances were known to feature a Starfire. He has played enough different basses that there is almost certainly not One True Path to tone. Interviews with Jack describe a lifelong quest for tone and what he wanted and was able to obtain in the 60's was different than other decades.

I have not heard of anyone modifying a Jazz bass to Casady specs.

That raises the question - Barry Oakley's "Tractor Bass" is basically a modified Jazz bass with a vintage Bisonic. How close is that mod to Jack's Jazz bass, at least in terms of where the Jazz PUs are, and how close could mere mortals using the Tractor come to sounding like Jack.

To the extent that Jack's quest reached a resting place with his signature bass, it has both the long scale 34" of the Jazz bass and is semi-hollow like the Starfire

 

[adorshki]

Do you also own Jbasses that you modded to Casady specs?
This is a serious question.
Just the thought occured to me that I haven't heard anyone here mention about modding their Jbasses to Casady specs (I know this is a Guild site), which sounds like that would be easier than modding a Starfire to Casady specs, and if I am correct, the early LP's with the Jazz are just as lovely sounding to everyone's ears as the "Starfire years" LP's.
Personally I cannot hear the diff between the Jazz years and the Starfire years.

I gotta admit for 40 years I thought ...Baxter's featured the Starfire, only to find out here that it was most likely all the Jazz bass, as Jack thinks he acquired his first SF during the sessions and might have used it, but doesn't think it actually made it onto the record.

Since then Mgod has mentioned how important the Versatone amp was to him at the time, and suspect that's a critical part of his sound during the Airplane era, and at least part of why the 2 basses sound so similar on recordings.

Don't think he could have done this with the Jazz bass, though, and this kind of stuff never came to light for years:
(Solo begins @ 2:35min)

The solo in "You and Me and Pooneil" became the live showcase for his recently modded SF and was different every time.

 

[mgod]

He changed during Baxter's. Pretty sure "rejoyce" is the J bass.

 

[adorshki]

He changed during Baxter's. Pretty sure "rejoyce" is the J bass.

Thanks!

While I trust your "expert witness" insights, I was just recounting what I recall since that particular album is so important to me... in fact you were the guy who first told me it was the J-bass, when I asked way back when if you knew if Jack recalled what he used (and of course both of you may have remembered "new" stuff since then)

There's an interview where he mentions that recollection of acquiring the SF during the Baxter's sessions and using it in studio, but couldn't actually recall if it made it onto the record, which to me corroborated your original input.

Ah, here we go: https://www.flyguitars.com/interviews/jackCasadyGuildBass.php
"One of the people in the studio I think, (told me about) that Guild bass and I bought that. I started playing around with it and brought it to the session, but I don't think I recorded with it. That third album was still a somewhat modified Fender Jazz bass."

In this one https://bassmagazine.com/artists/jack-casady-a-career-retrospective-appreciation he says he used the J-bass to record the first 3 albums, but he might also just be trying to keep his answer short, as it does confirm he acquired his first SF in '67:

"The jazz influence can be heard in Jack’s early work with the Airplane, where he often played long, fluid runs that “twined all the way up” rather than sticking to root-5 lines or basic blues patterns. “I was always chasing the jazz bass players. That’s why I think, later on, I drifted into the hollowbody bass, because I liked that tone.” The instrument that he “drifted into” was a short-scale Guild Starfire Bass II, which he began to use in late 1967. “I liked to use a more melodic approach, and that more open and acoustic-like sound with the Guild gave me the opportunity to develop in that direction.”

To me, "Spare Chaynge" and "Won't You Try" always sounded like a hollow body although I didn't realize it at the time, just knew it was a very special sound. Was my first JA album at 13.

Also still have the sheet music book that was published for it, and perhaps ironically the clearest pic of him playing features the J bass, but that never really registered until just now.

 

[mgod]

The tablature book? I've got that somewhere.

BTW - that fly interview I think has a lot of misinfo in it. Jack's memory wasn't always spot on.

 

[mellowgerman]

This may not be a huge surprise to some of you but I did once create a general approximation of the Casady jazz with a friend of mine. We took an inexpensive SX jazz bass (which happened to be sunburst with a tort pickguard and rosewood fretboard) and added the split precision pickup in the neck position. I think it was around 2009 or 2010. At the time I already had Starfires laying around so I didn't play around with it much, though I do remember thinking it sounded great through the old modified Fender PA100 amp we had (100watt tube head with 4 channels). I liked the neck position precision pickup + middle jazz pickup combo best, which isn't too far off from the positions of a dual pickup Starfire.

 

[RVBASS]

It’s not a Guild or Fender, or the Airplane, but Jack gets some pretty cool tones out of Alembic #1 on this Hot Tuna tune…

 

[adorshki]

The tablature book? I've got that somewhere.

BTW - that fly interview I think has a lot of misinfo in it. Jack's memory wasn't always spot on.

Yeah that tablature book withe the magnificent double exposure photos, but it also has the chord names in the regular notation. Never could get tablature, so looked up the chords in other books and plodded through. One of my earliest "learning" books.

And yeah, I realize now how much folks' memories are subject to error and change over the years, even mine.

 

[lungimsam]

To me, know matter which bass I have heard him play, I cannot tell which bass it is. Just sounds like cranked amps to me. But his finger touch and his note selection is what I can recognize. I think the thing that makes him sound like he does isn't the bass he plays but the way he plays.

 

[fronobulax]

To me, know matter which bass I have heard him play, I cannot tell which bass it is. Just sounds like cranked amps to me. But his finger touch and his note selection is what I can recognize. I think the thing that makes him sound like he does isn't the bass he plays but the way he plays.

The fingers vs. equipment debate rages on

Like you I tend to have difficulty distinguishing between instruments in recordings.

If my memory is correct mgod has reported playing through Jack's rig and (sarcastic surprise!) not sounding like Jack. There is also a story that Jack was travelling in Europe and wanted a beater bass so bought a new Epiphone EB0 because it was effectively disposable. But the report was that when he played it through borrowed amps he still sounded like Jack.

As a tangent, given the price was probably not a factor, why an EB0? Something different? There was one on the wall of the shop on the way to the airport? An endorser's discount on all Epiphone products? A minion selected it?

 

[lungimsam]

Maybe he had a contract that said he could only publicly play Epis at the time.
My friend played on a TV show run by CBS and they would only let them play Fender instruments, not their own.

 

[fronobulax]

Maybe he had a contract that said he could only publicly play Epis at the time.
My friend played on a TV show run by CBS and they would only let them play Fender instruments, not their own.

Maybe, but unlikely as I recall the original context. Short of tracking down my source or wasting precious time with Mr. Casady to ask him, I doubt we'll know.

Lots of stories about product placement including logos covered with tape on TV performances and bidding wars over which brand of guitar appeared in a film.