Any producer on the planet would have said, "it's cool, but let's split it and track both." Then likely not used it as it's too heavy for the driving kick. Still cool however.
@@happymontanamusic Andrew Wyatt composed, produced, and played the bass synth. That theory doesn't apply when one of the producers is the bass player. The octaver is only useful in the upper registers on bass guitar because notes begin to break up when you drop below 40 Hz. That's why they aren't used for many styles other than funk or techno. It isn't really an issue of not fitting in the mix if instruments are EQed properly. Split tracks are SOP for most instruments when effects are used because you can always add processing to dry signals, but you can't really remove it from a recorded track. If the processed track doesn't fit in the mix, you can process the dry track and tweak it.
A similar trick that i use is to use software (like Audacity) to play the original track back an octave higher but without changing the speed. It tends to make the bass jump out of the mix and make it easier to discern the pitch.
I'm actually surprised that the playing an octave higher trick was such a revelation for some. I've been doing that for decades, since I first started playing - kinda thought all bassists did that.
I saw Jon in a songwriting /recording session with Warren Huart some weeks ago. There he build up a basspart from scratch while they were writing the song. For the first part I thought I would have done something similar.....and then I completely lost him He is so good
Thank you so much for admitting that even great musicians can draw blank at the beginning of a song on stage. I have had that experience and I’ve gotten very frustrated with myself. Something I have played 1000 times and in the moment, it is gone.
The octave and no volume tricks are awesome, and I'm totally nicking them for the guitar. Absolutely love seeing other musicians explain their process 'in-situ'.
Listening to an absolute pro like that drop the nuggets of wisdom just feels surreal. It gave me such a boost! I wanna go practice now! Inspiring stuff
I spent 52 years engineering sessions and most of the time the person that played it on the record would have to learn it again themselves. "Play it for me. I forgot what I played." Band members know them all by heart but for session players it was just a passing moment in their daily life.
The thing about him playing things an octave higher to figure notes out, I’ve been doing this for years. Absolute game changer when learning things by ear
I was always taught… “ Don’t practice a song until you can play it right… Practice it until you can’t play it wrong.” This guy is a monster player, and I learned quite a few tricks from this video! Many thanks!!!
5:39 Gosh!! For a longest time I thought I’m weird. There are day when I find the right notes instantaneously and there are those when I’m not able to hear it almost at all 😅
It’s cool hearing him talk about his octave trick to learning songs. I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. It just seemed like common sense. But people do look at me like I’m crazy first until I explain that it’s easier to hear the notes especially when it’s a lower range
Love these videos! Sharon's joyfulness and enthusiasm is infectious!! Ian's combination of chops and humility bring likable authenticity to the channel!! Thanks for sharing
Wow. I'm not alone with turning the volume off while playing along! He's so right. It helps catch little things you don't notice on the first few run throughs, when you are just getting the overall chord changes and structure.
This guy is a Pro! Pop music have so many examples of incredible bass lines. Rhythmic tension is a concept I've learned from pop, for instance. Great video!
Love it when you pit someone against their usual genre. Tells me that good musicians can handle anything thrown at them. p.s. That Octabass setting is musical.
Jon Button was the first bass player I followed on instagram when I started playing bass like 10 years ago. This is such a wholesome full circle for me :)
@7:17 this is great advice... for years I struggled with learning songs, as I was using notes, and tabs.. all those became crutches and would end up never learning the song properly as I always had notes to fall back into... for a few years now I don't take note. and force myself to learn from memory.. it goes much better live, and I think makes you a better musician.
@11min, its so cool to hear someone else say that! I also heard that in martial arts maaaaany years ago “Practice doesn’t make perfect…if you’re learning incorrectly. PERFECT practice makes perfect!” I need to reimplement this, and many a Bruce Lee quote, back into my life 🤣🤣
Even when I’m not a fan of most current tendencies in music, I love Dua Lipa. Her blend of styles, and the kickass bass is great. But I guess for anyone filling John Entwistles’ shoes, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Thank you for the tips and the practice makes permanent…well I will never forget that! Admittedly I have two badly herniated discs in my lower back and early mornings are very difficult as of late. This video really put a smile on my face that I’m hoping will carry me throughout the day. If I make it up to my third floor music room I’m going to work on a song an tryout some of these ideas.
That is interesting how he talked about how if he writes the chart than he can't memorize it and they are two different parts of the brain. Sean Hurley sad the EXACT same thing. Good lesson.
Same thing with lots of musicians who read sheet music. You take the sheet away and some musicians forget. I've noticed it myself. So I practice both reading and memorizing it's a workout.
If it's a wedding gig or something, I don't have the time to memorize 40 plus tunes. I Nashville them out. If it's a good one off studio sesh thing, all memory
I get the part with citing a different song in a song. Back when Implayed in a cover band, we had an evening where we played our standard set and in a modern pop song (not sure which it was, was 10yrs ago) instead of the original solo I played the extended Sultans of Swing solo (just in a different key) that Mark did in the famous live recording (Alchemy tour). It was a mind blowing experience because it just made everybody look up, and get wild. Especially the band (they were all so much better than me).
When I started playing bass I used a software called Amazing Slow Downer which allowed to play with the pitch as well as speed, and it was perfect because I would play the song one octave higher highlighting the bass like he said, and I would also slow things down.
Lately I am also learning music playing along even though there are charts. Cool to hear from someone the same concept. That I am not the slave of the charts.
Great lesson here! And yes, about "Practice makes permanent", I did read somewhere that if you're learning or practiceing something, and you keep messing up, STOP; as you're teaching your brain to do it wrong! Plus I think I've actually used the octave trick rather inadvertently a couple of times. Great video!!! (And great choice for a song, I hadn't really paid attention to it, and now I gotta hear it again!)
I've heard bands confidently cover a song and there's glaring errors in the playing, as if they were learning the song off of a cassette tape they recorded off AM radio 30 years ago and made 15 copies of if and manually spliced together broken copies. I have naturally sharp ears for melody and chords (but not lyrics) and playing something blatantly wrong is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
Great stuff! What a groove..! He didn't really get the verses though.. The particular thing is the chromatic fill going from B to E. He plays from the 3rd beat the usual "B D D# high E and then low E on the 1 when it's really B C# D D# and low E. Quirky but very effective!
Man that was tight, fat and groovy!!! Major respect for Jon Button!!!! So many gems from this pro bass player! 04:25 | 06:24 | 07:00 | 09:01 | 10:36 | 13:38 ❤
👏👏fantastic! awesome bass player and super great nuggets tricks to catch for improving learning to play a new song. Thankss. Super appreciate this master lesson🖖
Dua Lipa just headlined at Glastonbury. She put on a great show. Trouble with BBC sync with sound & video caused people to think she mimed. I didn't come to that conclusion although there was pre-recorded string parts and maybe some backing vocals.
I found this really easy to learn, I had the basics sussed within one or two passes, and the best method I can give for learning something like this is; look for patterns. In this song, the verse consists of two variations on one pattern (v1 ends on a B an octave up, v2 ends very similarly to the pattern in the verses of Uptown Funk), then its just about looking for the other patterns in the song, and the little variations on them. After that, its a fairly predictable track arrangement-wise. This works for in regards to learning a song from any genre, or any era. Think of it as bricks, each phrase is a brick, so think of the whole song as those bricks laid out into a bassline. You'll find it much more easy to learn if you look at it like that than trying to learn the song in a linear fashion.
I recently shared that I turn my volume off when learning a song to hear the bits I'm missing on r/bass and it was crickets. It's not what you know it's who you know obv 😂 - definitely trying that octave trick though
I love this song just for the bass. I had so much fun dancing to the bass on this video. Blasted my speakers. I think I will be hearing from my neighbors tomorrow morning. I don't care!
Very good tip; the octave up. Tnx! And also so good to hear that I have the same sort of quirk as Jon seems to have; that he has to remember it directly and not write it down first. If I do the latter, I'm never able to remember it again! And I always thought it to be a bad thing because I'm autodidact and not schooled... So good these vids of you guys! You just made my day for ever 😀 Oh and another thing, I have that too!!! The beginnings of songs! Pfew... Last night was such a night... 😕 Also here I thought it was just me...! Blancks a plenty untill we're gone and bang, all the notes are back in my mind and fingers. Bizar...
I could really identify with this video. My idiom for learning bass for a new song (cover) is often, “You think you know a tune until you have to learn it.”
Well hot damn! One trick I like to do when learning a song is to run into my little PA mixer and play through headphones. I put the song in one ear, my bass in the other ear. Pretty easy to hear it's different if your ears are not hearing the same thing. I have also picked up a guitar to learn the riff an octave up similar to what John was doing. The fret positions are the same. I do really like that practice makes permanent, that is so totally true!!
jesus, I thought you had brought John Entwistle back to life
That would be quite the trick!
The Ox cam, using gold records for skeet shooting, and of course - playing with Dua Lipa. 😂
I wish
He would never play that shit.
@@andreamolinari7105 hahaaaha
Dua Lipa's recent work has some killer bass lines and having Mark Ronson working on this track added complexity and extra funkiness.
💯💯💯
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what tracks are you thinking of?
@@solal94the tracks on Future Nostalgia have some nasty nasty basslines
@@solal94 Don't Start Now has some really fun bass (tho it's not a real bass guitar on the recording, it's a plug-in).
My elementary music teacher said the exact same thing to us “practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent” never forgot that advice
It’s so cool to see what the pros do to learn songs.
💯💯💯
This channel destroy every stereotypes of bass players.
We are nice, fun energetic and joyful people ❤
But we love seeing other bassists suffer and work through a challenge.
Demons
I'm surly, lazy, and serial killer cold. But I make up for it by being a second-rate bassist
Hey Man, I still don't smile when I play, proper Rastaman bass things 😅
Yes, we are cool!!! Cool I tell you!
I love that he ran to his house to get the pedal, video taped it, and SBL included it in this video. Awesome!
And then they played overcooked music over it
His bass sounds killer. He’s a great player. The octave trick is fantastic.
The P strikes again!
Any producer on the planet would have said, "it's cool, but let's split it and track both." Then likely not used it as it's too heavy for the driving kick. Still cool however.
@@happymontanamusic Andrew Wyatt composed, produced, and played the bass synth. That theory doesn't apply when one of the producers is the bass player. The octaver is only useful in the upper registers on bass guitar because notes begin to break up when you drop below 40 Hz. That's why they aren't used for many styles other than funk or techno. It isn't really an issue of not fitting in the mix if instruments are EQed properly. Split tracks are SOP for most instruments when effects are used because you can always add processing to dry signals, but you can't really remove it from a recorded track. If the processed track doesn't fit in the mix, you can process the dry track and tweak it.
That's my most favorite category of videos on this channel and also videos without bassline
Agree, also this format is better than than the bassist hears a track for the first time minus bass and they get to do their own thing
@@OdhranWAR I love both
I am a huge fan of Jon!! As a 59 year old Nashville pro, I KNOW that he absolutely crushes it in every way! What a fantastic musician.
Why did it sound like shit then? Because the production quality was terrible. It didn't sync in time.
I'm a drummer, but I love watching these videos, to get a glimpse of bassists' minds on performing is a lot of fun.
🧡🧡🧡
Similar for me as a guitarist.
Dua Lipa has some really killer songs. Her team are absolutely killing it now
👍👍👍
the higher octave tip and the "practice makes permanent" tip is really useful for any bass player. Thanks John!
Definitely going to use the octave up trick for learning songs. 24 frets on my bass finally coming in handy.
LOL so am I.....now I've finally found some use for the higher 12 frets !!
A similar trick that i use is to use software (like Audacity) to play the original track back an octave higher but without changing the speed. It tends to make the bass jump out of the mix and make it easier to discern the pitch.
I'm actually surprised that the playing an octave higher trick was such a revelation for some. I've been doing that for decades, since I first started playing - kinda thought all bassists did that.
@@FormulaFourteen2455 I use Transcribe
@@FormulaFourteen2455 thx I was wondering if he pitched up the track an octave higher or what
I saw Jon in a songwriting /recording session with Warren Huart some weeks ago. There he build up a basspart from scratch while they were writing the song. For the first part I thought I would have done something similar.....and then I completely lost him He is so good
Yessss! Practice makes permanent was taught to me by my 6th grade band teacher. It never left my brain. Its gold
The three of you have such amazing energy…and the editing of these videos are fantastic
Appreciate the warm words!!
Thank you so much for admitting that even great musicians can draw blank at the beginning of a song on stage. I have had that experience and I’ve gotten very frustrated with myself. Something I have played 1000 times and in the moment, it is gone.
The octave and no volume tricks are awesome, and I'm totally nicking them for the guitar. Absolutely love seeing other musicians explain their process 'in-situ'.
Nice, indeed. I use an acoustic guitar and it works just like playing on a higher octave.
Listening to an absolute pro like that drop the nuggets of wisdom just feels surreal. It gave me such a boost! I wanna go practice now! Inspiring stuff
🧡🧡🧡
Love that these style videos are goin viral rn
I spent 52 years engineering sessions and most of the time the person that played it on the record would have to learn it again themselves. "Play it for me. I forgot what I played." Band members know them all by heart but for session players it was just a passing moment in their daily life.
This is not just my random visit, it's also a life changing with "Practice makes permanent" quote
The thing about him playing things an octave higher to figure notes out, I’ve been doing this for years. Absolute game changer when learning things by ear
The octave trick blows my mind along with the Sensei's advice...WOW! AWESOME VIDEO!
So much good advice on how to figure a song out. This was one is very valuable even if you don't like the song.
I was always taught… “ Don’t practice a song until you can play it right… Practice it until you can’t play it wrong.” This guy is a monster player, and I learned quite a few tricks from this video! Many thanks!!!
Also, apologies if someone else already said what I said above, I haven’t read all 300+ comments lol!
5:39 Gosh!! For a longest time I thought I’m weird. There are day when I find the right notes instantaneously and there are those when I’m not able to hear it almost at all 😅
It’s cool hearing him talk about his octave trick to learning songs. I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. It just seemed like common sense. But people do look at me like I’m crazy first until I explain that it’s easier to hear the notes especially when it’s a lower range
Inside Jon’s brain. Thanks for the trip, y’all!
🧡🧡🧡
Love these videos! Sharon's joyfulness and enthusiasm is infectious!! Ian's combination of chops and humility bring likable authenticity to the channel!! Thanks for sharing
Glad you're enjoying these, lots more to come!!
Wow. I'm not alone with turning the volume off while playing along! He's so right. It helps catch little things you don't notice on the first few run throughs, when you are just getting the overall chord changes and structure.
"""PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT"""...........BRILLIANT !!!!!!!!!
My mentor used to say that. RIP
This guy is a Pro! Pop music have so many examples of incredible bass lines. Rhythmic tension is a concept I've learned from pop, for instance. Great video!
That Octabass sounds so good, I want to buy one now 🤣
I've been using these for years. They do the job! 👍 😎
the audio quality in this video, including mics, is fantastic
It's one of my favorite bass kind of videos on TH-cam!
This format never gets old
Once again requesting for a Zutomayo piece written by Ryosuke Nikamoto.
The amount of talent and genius in display is just impressive to watch. Very inspiring!
Love it when you pit someone against their usual genre. Tells me that good musicians can handle anything thrown at them.
p.s. That Octabass setting is musical.
I’m fond of “practice makes progress,” a slight deviation from the quote presented in here.
You guys remind me a lot of the drumeo channel. And that is a huge compliment. This was awesome
Awesome tips and tricks. This guy is what I imagine a badass bass playing Mr. Roger’s would be.
dude i love ur guyss channel ive been watching for yrs
This format of vid is killing it ! Thanks guys- super valuable -- wish my ears could get that good
they'll get there with time and practice!!
Jon Button was the first bass player I followed on instagram when I started playing bass like 10 years ago. This is such a wholesome full circle for me :)
🧡🧡🧡
@@devinebass He made me buy and Ampeg 4x10 lol
loved the tip about playing it up an octave in the learning phase 👏
This was really cool! Shout out to this channel for being my only real exposure to pop music, much to my shame.
@7:17 this is great advice... for years I struggled with learning songs, as I was using notes, and tabs.. all those became crutches and would end up never learning the song properly as I always had notes to fall back into... for a few years now I don't take note. and force myself to learn from memory.. it goes much better live, and I think makes you a better musician.
Man that EBS tracks super well, which isn't always the case with analog octave pedals.
@11min, its so cool to hear someone else say that! I also heard that in martial arts maaaaany years ago “Practice doesn’t make perfect…if you’re learning incorrectly. PERFECT practice makes perfect!” I need to reimplement this, and many a Bruce Lee quote, back into my life 🤣🤣
Even when I’m not a fan of most current tendencies in music, I love Dua Lipa. Her blend of styles, and the kickass bass is great.
But I guess for anyone filling John Entwistles’ shoes, it shouldn’t be a problem.
I just love these folks, they have such a great chemistry. Must watch more.
Appreciate the warm words!
Thank you for the tips and the practice makes permanent…well I will never forget that! Admittedly I have two badly herniated discs in my lower back and early mornings are very difficult as of late. This video really put a smile on my face that I’m hoping will carry me throughout the day. If I make it up to my third floor music room I’m going to work on a song an tryout some of these ideas.
He's good. He's humble. Really loved this video.
🧡🧡🧡
Love this stuff - real (obviously talented and successful) people figuring it out just like anyone would do jamming with friends or their band.
Thanks for making this..from Malaysia. Terima kasih 😊
Reminds me of something my own karate teacher told me a long time ago..."practice does not make perfect...PERFECT practice makes perfect"
That is interesting how he talked about how if he writes the chart than he can't memorize it and they are two different parts of the brain. Sean Hurley sad the EXACT same thing. Good lesson.
Same with me, if I have it written my brain goes into lazy mode.
Same thing with lots of musicians who read sheet music. You take the sheet away and some musicians forget.
I've noticed it myself. So I practice both reading and memorizing it's a workout.
If it's a wedding gig or something, I don't have the time to memorize 40 plus tunes. I Nashville them out. If it's a good one off studio sesh thing, all memory
That was fun!!! For so many bassists, it’s constant song learning!!! It’s fun to have a chance to come up with our own takes.
this stuff is invaluable
Wow, these tips are mind blowing. Another banger of a video. Great stuff as usual
Appreciate it!
Lovely Bass Jon is playing
Those tips of wisdom are excellent!!! Thank you!
You mean nuggets. I loved it, too, he is brilliant!
A true master of his craft indeed. He should've introduced a few octave jumpy fills here and there like Juliaplaysgroove, but anyway, he nailed it.
I used an old Yamaha of his on my bands EP! One of the best instruments I have ever played
Amazing insight into how another artist approaches a song. More please!
More to come!!
Killin it! Loved watching him cram this song into his head.
oooothas a smooth funky groove n that bass is doing it justice. like the mind sets on this guy what a bassists brain!!🧠🎶
Cool, and what a nice guy he is, loved the tips he gave specially the one about playing an octave higher, sweet!
What a cool guy who plays like butter! Great video everyone!
I get the part with citing a different song in a song. Back when Implayed in a cover band, we had an evening where we played our standard set and in a modern pop song (not sure which it was, was 10yrs ago) instead of the original solo I played the extended Sultans of Swing solo (just in a different key) that Mark did in the famous live recording (Alchemy tour). It was a mind blowing experience because it just made everybody look up, and get wild. Especially the band (they were all so much better than me).
The playing the part the octave up is actually a really good tip.
What an amazing guest.
When I started playing bass I used a software called Amazing Slow Downer which allowed to play with the pitch as well as speed, and it was perfect because I would play the song one octave higher highlighting the bass like he said, and I would also slow things down.
Was learning songs a little while ago and realised the octave trick by accident whilst I was learning a track with low bass - it works 👍
Great video and great advice. Thank you.
Lately I am also learning music playing along even though there are charts. Cool to hear from someone the same concept. That I am not the slave of the charts.
Great lesson here! And yes, about "Practice makes permanent", I did read somewhere that if you're learning or practiceing something, and you keep messing up, STOP; as you're teaching your brain to do it wrong! Plus I think I've actually used the octave trick rather inadvertently a couple of times. Great video!!! (And great choice for a song, I hadn't really paid attention to it, and now I gotta hear it again!)
I've heard bands confidently cover a song and there's glaring errors in the playing, as if they were learning the song off of a cassette tape they recorded off AM radio 30 years ago and made 15 copies of if and manually spliced together broken copies. I have naturally sharp ears for melody and chords (but not lyrics) and playing something blatantly wrong is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
What a great show!!!
Great stuff! What a groove..! He didn't really get the verses though.. The particular thing is the chromatic fill going from B to E. He plays from the 3rd beat the usual "B D D# high E and then low E on the 1 when it's really B C# D D# and low E. Quirky but very effective!
This is so fun!
Congrats Jon! What a challenge
🧡🧡🧡
Man that was tight, fat and groovy!!! Major respect for Jon Button!!!!
So many gems from this pro bass player!
04:25 | 06:24 | 07:00 | 09:01 | 10:36 | 13:38
❤
👏👏fantastic! awesome bass player and super great nuggets tricks to catch for improving learning to play a new song. Thankss. Super appreciate this master lesson🖖
I ever do the octave trick to learn songs when it's a very deep bass. That's an awesome trick and very useful
Dua Lipa just headlined at Glastonbury. She put on a great show. Trouble with BBC sync with sound & video caused people to think she mimed. I didn't come to that conclusion although there was pre-recorded string parts and maybe some backing vocals.
Practice makes permanent.... best words of wisdom I've heard in a while;-) Nice job!! Very insightful;-)
I found this really easy to learn, I had the basics sussed within one or two passes, and the best method I can give for learning something like this is; look for patterns. In this song, the verse consists of two variations on one pattern (v1 ends on a B an octave up, v2 ends very similarly to the pattern in the verses of Uptown Funk), then its just about looking for the other patterns in the song, and the little variations on them.
After that, its a fairly predictable track arrangement-wise.
This works for in regards to learning a song from any genre, or any era. Think of it as bricks, each phrase is a brick, so think of the whole song as those bricks laid out into a bassline. You'll find it much more easy to learn if you look at it like that than trying to learn the song in a linear fashion.
Finally another good series in this channel ngl
nice snippet of wisdom: practice makes it permanent!!
The algorithm put this into my feed. Brilliant
Thx for this video I download the tab immediately and played it. It’s so so groovy thx
You're welcome!
What a nice guy he is. Quality
I recently shared that I turn my volume off when learning a song to hear the bits I'm missing on r/bass and it was crickets. It's not what you know it's who you know obv 😂 - definitely trying that octave trick though
I love this song just for the bass. I had so much fun dancing to the bass on this video. Blasted my speakers. I think I will be hearing from my neighbors tomorrow morning. I don't care!
Good idea for my new OC-2 acquisition !!
Very good tip; the octave up. Tnx! And also so good to hear that I have the same sort of quirk as Jon seems to have; that he has to remember it directly and not write it down first. If I do the latter, I'm never able to remember it again! And I always thought it to be a bad thing because I'm autodidact and not schooled... So good these vids of you guys! You just made my day for ever 😀 Oh and another thing, I have that too!!! The beginnings of songs! Pfew... Last night was such a night... 😕 Also here I thought it was just me...! Blancks a plenty untill we're gone and bang, all the notes are back in my mind and fingers. Bizar...
I could really identify with this video. My idiom for learning bass for a new song (cover) is often, “You think you know a tune until you have to learn it.”
👍👍👍
Well hot damn! One trick I like to do when learning a song is to run into my little PA mixer and play through headphones. I put the song in one ear, my bass in the other ear. Pretty easy to hear it's different if your ears are not hearing the same thing. I have also picked up a guitar to learn the riff an octave up similar to what John was doing. The fret positions are the same. I do really like that practice makes permanent, that is so totally true!!
Great Job 👍🎸✌️ but that song does have some similarities to Levitated 🤔🤔🤔👍🎸✌️
Just wow. Bassists are people too!
Bassists unite! Whoever is the bassist for Dua, he is a legend!