Phil - Intro

[Lunchbox16]

I've seen the tabs here and at jdarks, but neither one sounds totally accurate to my ear. What are other bass players playing at the outset of this little ditty?

[Rusty the Scoob]

I haven't sat down with this yet, but on the studio version it sounds like he's using either a short-scale bass with very light strings (likely the Godfather, although I've never sucessfully learned the scale of Mission Control) or something fretless. He's smearing notes all over the place.... very hard to tab out.

[Lunchbox16]

Other bass players - what do YOU play for the intro? Do you have any stock riffs you use? Any specific notes you try to hit? I was watching a youtube video the other day and I couldn't make out what Phil was doing, but he was going into the upper register around and above the 12th fret. I'm not looking for verbatim, just ideas (since my ears aren't good enough to figure out what's right, but good enough to know what's not).

[tigerstrat]

I haven't sat down with this yet, but on the studio version it sounds like he's using either a short-scale bass with very light strings (likely the Godfather, although I've never sucessfully learned the scale of Mission Control) or something fretless. He's smearing notes all over the place.... very hard to tab out.

In Barncard's Weir home studio photos, Phil is shown playing the Osage-Orange Alembic (I've always understood "Mission Control" to be the name of Jack Casady's Alembicized Guild, but ymmv)

[Rusty the Scoob]

I haven't sat down with this yet, but on the studio version it sounds like he's using either a short-scale bass with very light strings (likely the Godfather, although I've never sucessfully learned the scale of Mission Control) or something fretless. He's smearing notes all over the place.... very hard to tab out.

In Barncard's Weir home studio photos, Phil is shown playing the Osage-Orange Alembic (I've always understood "Mission Control" to be the name of Jack Casady's Alembicized Guild, but ymmv)

Hmmm... Mission Control to me always meant the Osage-Orange. Casady's Guild was something like Ygdrassil... some sort of Lord of The Rings reference or something. But I could easily be wrong on both.


Anyway, I should get back on this now that I have a short-scale to play with. The Supplication lick comes out way better on it, for example.

[tigerstrat]

Here's a really cleanly played bass intro, with Phil pretty high in a SBD mix. (if you can ignore the overly-effected tones both Bob AND Jerry are using)

http://www.archive.org/details/gd93-03-11.sbd.wharfrat.10383.sbeok.shnf

[Rusty the Scoob]

Thanks for the tip, TS, just added this show to my iPod.

[cosmicbass]

I haven't sat down with this yet, but on the studio version it sounds like he's using either a short-scale bass with very light strings (likely the Godfather, although I've never sucessfully learned the scale of Mission Control) or something fretless. He's smearing notes all over the place.... very hard to tab out.

In Barncard's Weir home studio photos, Phil is shown playing the Osage-Orange Alembic (I've always understood "Mission Control" to be the name of Jack Casady's Alembicized Guild, but ymmv)

Hmmm... Mission Control to me always meant the Osage-Orange. Casady's Guild was something like Ygdrassil... some sort of Lord of The Rings reference or something. But I could easily be wrong on both.

The Guild is nicknamed Godfather (or Big Brown by some).

The Alembic Osage Orange is the Mission Control Bass as featured in the Grateful Dead movie. It is a 32 inch scale bass.

Here's a link to a string on the Godfather:
http://alembic.com/club/messages/411/19 ... 1283131832

Here is a string on the Alembic Osage Orange - Mission Control bass:
http://alembic.com/club/messages/411/19 ... 1274546055

If you poke around on Alembic's official forum you'll find it is generally believed to be a 32 inch medium scale bass. A lot of Alembics of that era were medium scale, Phil was coming off a short scale Guild, so that at least is logical. No Alembic employee has corrected the assumption on their website.