Like I mention in the YouTube video, I don't listen to Bruno Mars much, but I like the songs that I have heard. Somehow this bass line popped into my head and after finding the song it went to, I decided to learn it. The next day or so I decided I wanted to try recording it and to make it a bit more fun for myself I wanted to record a synth line too. I've practiced playing synth and bass simultaniously on Estelle's American Boy but haven't yet recorded a cover of that. Playing these two instruments is something I want to practice more. ---- I used my P Bass with a pick, both of which I don't use often, and I got a great tone using Tech 21's dUg DP-3X pedal. A while back I got the poor man's Moog Taurus which is a Behringer Toro paired with a Keith McMillen (Muse Kinetics) 12 Step midi keyboard. I recorded into my Zoom R16, which is an excellent piece of gear that I've used for IEMs in the past. I've never had an issue with it before, but for some reason after I got a few good takes on the first day of recording, the audio was corrupted and unsuable so I had to spend the next day recording again. I finally got a take I was happy with but it took a few hours.
This is the first of (hopefully) at least 12 videos of 2026. I want to try to record one cover a month this year. ---- I really like the interaction between the bass and the synth in this song. I also like the dissonance between the different bass lines in this song too. The driving 8th note line that sort of mimics the synth and I would say is the "main bass line" is more robotic compared to the Police-inspired reggae line of the chorus which is a lot more grooving and human. I think that dissonance is fitting given the song lyrics which compare a human to a computer and seem to discuss an internal struggle. ---- This was a difficult song to cover. You can hear that I still am off time in quite a few places. To keep the main bass line chugging smoothy is tough. I spent a lot of time while watching TV (Stranger Things 5) just playing that bit over and over against a metronome. ---- Another significant thing about this video is that I used a Master Effects Super 40 pedal to emulate Geddy's Ashly SC-40 that he used on this album. I'm really excited to have that pedal and wanted to show it off with this video.
This was a really fun one to do. When I was in Japan, I met Darissy at a Fennel concert (Tricot's bassist's solo act). We stayed in touch and he reached out to ask if I would do a cover with him. We're both Tricot fans and this is one of my favorite Tricot songs. It's also one of the first songs I tried learning on bass. Darissy did most of the work on this. I just recorded my part and he took my recording and eq'd it along with recording and mixing two guitar parts and then editing the video. I think he did an exceptional job. I'm really proud of how this came out and I'm looking forward to doing more with him!
I really like Morphine. Mark Sandman played a 2 string bass with a slide for most of the band's songs. I tuned my D string down to C and played the top two strings with a slide to mimic Mark's bass. ---- I had been listening to this song a lot around the time of recording and I was really connected to it so I wanted to learn it and I decided to quickly record a cover too. I never play with a slide and rarely play with a pick so they didn't help my timing and the slide playing is pretty sloppy. It's certainly not my best work but I'm glad that I did it anyway.
