Instrument question

Posted by: Shep on 23 August 2016

Hello good people.  New to this forum but I am the kind of hifi listener who keeps a system that I like until I hear something that leaps out as a "must have" upgrade.

After the demise of my Densen Beat 100 and 300 biamp setup, I upgraded to a Supernait 2, so far very happy.

On both of these setups, there is a piece of music which has always foxed me and perhaps someone here knows the answer.  On Beth Orton's Trailer Park album, track 2 "Tangents" around where she sings the words "left behind" there are a number of very low bass notes.  They don't sound like they were made by strings because they don't seem to decay so I assume they were produced by electronic means.  Can anyone say what instrument produced them?

Cheers..............Chris

Posted on: 23 August 2016 by Bart

From the Wikipedia entry: "The album was among the first to fuse elements of 1960s and 1970s folk with modern electronica and trip hop."  So surely there is some electronics in use!

Another review refers to Tangent specifically as, "spacy, densely layered electronica."

When it comes to electronics, it's probably impossible to discern just what "created" a particular sound.  And given that it's all (mostly) software now-a-days anyway, to some extent it doesn't matter; the same software plug-ins can be used on a WIDE variety of hardware.  It could be a sound that was sampled from a "real" instrument and then modified in some way, or it could be entirely digital in origin.  This may not be the most satisfying answer, but I suspect it's relatively accurate.

There are some "real" musicians who frequent this forum and surely can speak more eloquently than me.

Posted on: 24 August 2016 by Ebor

Having had a quick listen on Spotify through my fairly basic computer setup rather than my Naim system (so I might be missing something), here's what I heard:

Bassline starts at 0:21 - this sounds like a fairly standard mid-90s synth bass sound, but perhaps layered with some sampled acoustic bass tones and probably some outboard processing as well. Bart is quite right to say that almost everything is software-based these days, but Trailer Park was released in late 1996 when the world was a rather different place. Nevertheless, it still sounds ultimately keyboard-derived to me.

At 1:57, just after 'What's not lost but left behind', I heard some slightly deeper-sounding notes but this sounds like it could be the same keyboard sound played with a slightly different technique.

Based on the type of sound and the era, I would hazard a guess at it being a Korg Trinity - released in 1995, it was a hugely popular keyboard which cropped up on tonnes of records in the latter 90s.

Mark (not a 'real' musician by any stretch of the imagination)

Posted on: 25 August 2016 by joerand

I've often complained about this same thing. Excessive compression of bass during the mastering process can certainly leave one wondering whether they are hearing a stringed instrument or something of other origin. Recent loudness mastering is more about making the room rumble than musical quality. Seems the way of the world at present, but it goes way back. McCartney over-bubbed/double-tracked a lot of his bass on the White Album and Abbey Road, just that at that time you knew he was actually playing a bass guitar.

Posted on: 25 August 2016 by Shep

Thanks for your interesting and informative replies and I have seen Korg on the back of the electronica used by bands of the era.

 I think it is easy for those who are knowledgeable about hifi to get hung up about the details of what systems sound best rather than enjoying the music.  You can never beat the sound of live music but we should still strive to get close.

Chris

Can't even play the comb.

 

Posted on: 26 August 2016 by Innocent Bystander

I haven't heard the piece, however it may be helpful to identify its fundamental pitch if you have any tool capable of doing (e.g. Using the free REW software if you have a microphone capable of getting down there): 5-string basses (relatively rare back in the 1990s) typically go down to about 31Hz, though of course detuning could drop a few Hz lower. Pipe organs can go down to 16Hz, though you wouldn't really hear that fundamental even live, rather you feel it and hear the harmonics. Synthesizers are unlimited.

As Bart said, the sound could be from a conventional instrument processed (usually a sample subjected to various compression, filtering and pitch modifying), or a synthesised waveform, both of which very likely to have been produced in an instrument like the Korg Trinity, which has a huge range of such sounds built in and can even be used to create completely new sounds beyond the built-in ones ( I know because I have a Trinity). Another instrument that can produce very low bass is the bass pedal synthesiser, commonly used by, for example prog rock bands, especially to provide sustained low and very low notes underpinning parts of the music.

Sometimes the low synthesiser based notes have relatively few higher harmonics, and can be inaudible through speakers that don't extend down to 30Hz or lower, or where there are wider harmonics to be heard they won't give the same sense of feeling and so their  is lost.

Unless everything else at the bass end is compressed it is probably less likely to be the result of excessive compression during the recording process, as opposed to a deliberate choice of sound at the time of playing.