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Musical Terms for the Bass Guitar | Touch & Tone | Making Connections: The Modes
Michael Tarabay

Michael Tarabay

I'm Michael Tarabay, Bassist for Grammy nominated artist, Pat Green. We're currently in the studio, recording our 3rd CD on Republic/Universal South with producer Don Gehman and engineered by Mark Dearnley. John Reid, editor of the "Bass Sessions" webzine for Mel Bay, and my former teacher, asked me if I would write something for the webzine, so here it is.

It's been a little different this time around adding a few other musicians in for this project, but it's been just as enjoyable getting to track with them. We used David Grissom on guitar, John Hobbs; keys/ B-3, Lisa Germano; violin, Mike Daly on pedal steel and dobro and our drummer Justin Pollard and mando/acoustic player Jondan McBride.

These days with Pro Tools the tracking side is easier than ever. We hardly ever overdub basics but rather track the whole song several times then go back and scope out what we like and put the tracks together starting with drums, then drums and bass ect. and build from there. This has really taken the pressure off the recording process and gives you more freedom to explore other musical ideas, knowing you'll have several parts to choose. In our setting, we create and play as a band would, in that we all have opinions on every song with Don Gehman(producer) of course having the final say. So it's very laid back and comfortable to play with everyone, knowing we're all passionate about the songs we're creating.

I'm very pleased with the way my bass sounds so far. I'm using a Sadowsky Vintage 4 string P/J as I did on the "Wave on Wave" CD and I also gig with it on the road. Mark Dearnley (engineer), ran it direct to a Neve console 1099 pre-amp then to a DBX 160 for compression on the peaks and a UREI LA3A to even it out. Using Pro Tools HD, we then ran the Bass tracks parallel through an ART Power Plant guitar pre-amp lined up to be phase coherent. All in all, I'm very anxious to hear the final mixes. A single should be released to radio this summer and a fall release for the new album.

Michael Tarabay