Audio - Bruno Migliari playing D'Alegria basses
Things Ain't What They Used To Be (by Duke Ellington)
** Arrangement and performance by Bruno Migliari for solo bass.
In the opening, the melody is played in pizzicato style, initially by
the double bass. On the second phrase it is already possible to hear
the D'Alegria Discovery upright bass, and on the last one both are
together (acoustic on the left channel and Discovery on the right one).
On the second chorus, the melody is repeated by the acoustic bass with a
bow (right channel), joined by a harmony in riffs played in pizzicato
style on the Discovery (left channel). During the intermediary chorus,
the Discovery (left channel) improvises a walking bass whilst the double
bass with a bow (right channel) performs now the same riff already
played with the Discovery previously. When the theme is repeated,
the melody returns to the Discovery (left channel), joined now by the
same Discovery but with a bow (right channel).
Recording method:
D'Alegria Discovery upright bass, Guasti-Bottoni (Brazilian luthier)
French-style bow plugged directly in the Behringer Eurorack MX602A mixer. Apple G5
computer running Logic Pro7 with an USB Emagic EMI 62m audio interface.
No effects (not either compression or equalization) were used.
The sole sound manipulation was the stereo field disposition.
Lonnie's Lament (by John Coltrane)
*** Arrangement and performance by Bruno Migliari for solo bass
Mss. Freyer (composition, arrangement and performance by Bruno Migliari for solo bass)
*** It's basically a vignette for a bass quintet (together with a drum loop).
All 5 voices were recorded by Bruno with his Defender PJ bass.
Please find below the particularities of each "voice", and how Bruno
got to the final sounds:
1) Main bass line:
position: central pan
pizzicato, "P" pickup only, active mode, flat equalization
2) Harmony (chords):
position: left pan
pizzicato, "J" pickup only, active mode, equalization with
less bass and more treble
3) Melody on Part A, response to melody on B and complementing harmony
on Coda (all slap style):
position: right pan
slap, both pickups, active mode, flat equalization
4) Response to melody on B (slap) and melody 8VA on Coda (pizzicato):
position: left pan
slap and pizzicato, both pickups, active mode, flat equalization
5) Melody on B and on Coda (pizzicato):
position: central pan (B) and more on right (Coda)
pizzicato, both pickups, although with a punch on the "J" one,
active mode, equalization with less treble and a bit more bass
Note: no effects on either channel. In both songs the bass was recorded connected directly to the mixer, and from it to the E-magic EMI 62m soundboard of the Macintosh G5 computer running the Logic Pro 6.4 software.