Strings used on Jack Bruce's EB-3 bass

[barend]

But it's true, Bruce sounds like himself shortscale, long scale, roundwound, flatwound, active, passive, fretted and fretless, Warwick or EB.

I think from watching the youtube clips that his EB3 sound is absolutely the best he ever had.
Never understood his out of tune fretless playing and the Warwick sound is not what I want to hear when I listen to JB. He should sell that warwick and dig up his old EB3 again. But aparently he thinks otherwise.

[dc10bass]

Bruce sounds like himself shortscale, long scale, roundwound, flatwound, active, passive, fretted and fretless, Warwick or EB.
More than his sound (which in its belching middishness can be replicated relatively easy), it's his sense of timing and phrasing.

Sure... never thought that simply by having an EB-3 with the right set of strings and a Marshall stack would make anyone a “Jack Bruce”.
…Just like Entwistle in that respect, it’s in their playing style.
Entwistle played round wound Rotosounds… not flats… that helped give him his sound.

Just want to know if Jack played Flats, and what gauge his strings were.
I’ve watched clips of him playing with Cream where he really bends the hell out of the strings… would like to find something very close to do the same.
Can't be sure, but the clips look like he is playing flats...

[uwe]

Master Bruce's fretless intonation is as an acquired taste as is his phrasing and timing. I guess playing with Ginger Baker makes you that way. I think Bruce's approach to intonation is "ethno" in a way, it sometimes reminds me of the folk music I heard when I still lived in Zaire. It defies western standards.

[barend]

that is nice way to describe out of tune 

[exiledarchangel]

Master Bruce's fretless intonation is as an acquired taste as his phrasing and timing. I guess playing with Ginger Baker makes you that way. I think Bruce's approach to intonation is "ethno" in a way, it sometimes reminds of the folk music I heard when I still lived in Zaire. It defies western standards in a way.

Lol I know what you're talking about! For some months I was taking some Oud lessons, but I couldn't cope with that at all. My teacher was trying to teach me arabic scales and I was playing "smoke on the water". My intonation was fine, for a western musician point of view. But for an arab or turk, I was way out of tune.

[uwe]

You have to immerse yourself in that kind of music to make the transition. I remember a two week stay in Oman and at the Arab BBQ an Arab ethno band would be playing every night. Pretty much the same set every night. After a week or so, I found it tuneful and catchy, was engaged by the rhythms and started humming along or memorizing certain lines so I would be able to play them on bass after our vacation. I think Bruce would do great playing with Arab musicians and that's a compliment.

Music is much like food - you're trained to like certain variations of it.

[exiledarchangel]

I think you're right, but I was young at that time to appreciate that kind of music. Maybe I'll try again after some years.

[barend]

I listen a lot to Indian music and world music or however you want to call it.
I still think the out of tuneness from his fretless playing is not a consious matter of wanting to sound ethnic or arabic or whatsoever. It is just not in tune.
But maybe it is but then it is still out of tune  

I am a big fan of his old live Cream playing. The stuff he does with the bendings and the free playing in a rock context is great. That is how he has influenced my own playing. The rest he does was never was my thing.

[nofi]

question for dc10bass

when you play non who stuff does your playing style change or is there always a bit of john in there. just curious.

[dc10bass]

question for dc10bass

when you play non who stuff does your playing style change or is there always a bit of john in there. just curious.

I've been playing bass since I was 15... 22 years total.
From the start I had modeled my playing after Entwistles as a way to gauge my progress.
To answer your question, when I play original material or other people’s music there is a heavy Entwistle feel to it, except for when I play tunes from Cream.

Entwistle & Bruce liked to bend the strings and had strong right hands…
I also don’t throw in the Entwistle triplets and hammer-ons while playing Cream.
Jack also liked to do occasional “upward strumming” during the live jams.

I am a bit OCD so it helps with dissecting and separating their playing styles…

They are my two favorite players and both influential in my playing style.

[uwe]

I can play Sunshine of your Love and Politician. I can bend notes too. But Bruce's idisoyncratic bass style never led me to actually emulate him. It was too much his own, to the point of being strange. I found JE more accessible. Or Chris Squire. Or Sir Paul. All three of them didn't have Jack Bruce's strange timing, but were rhythmically pretty straightforward even if they played something flashy. Bruce had all these nuances you don't notice at once, but have a hard time replicating. I at least do. And he never ever would really repeat what he played in one verse or chorus in the following one unless it was trademark bass riff monster.

Funny thing is: If you listen to 90 % of what is on the radio today, all the bass players sound like Bruce, JE, Squire or Macca never existed! They seem to have zero influence on the majority of what bass players play today or have to play. We've been collectively dumbed down, sigh!

I'm currently rehearsing with various bands and in one of those auditions the drummer recently commented: "You play a melodic bass, that is really rare these days, but I like it, you know my musical tastes formed in the seventies too ...". He had both flattered and turned me into a dinosaur in one sentence!  

[Dave W]

You may not be able to detect a definite Bruce, JE, Squire or Macca influence in the majority of pop and rock bass players today, but you can be assured none of them grew up in a vacuum. Whether it's one or more of the above or others (Wyman, Osborn, Jamerson, Kaye etc. etc.) you know there's at least an indirect influence somewhere.

[uwe]

Hmmmmh. I hear what you're saying. But Jimi Hendrix and Eddie van Halen influenced legions of guitarists in a still audible way. Where are the bass role models and their legacy though? Influence in only the roundest of about ways if you want to put it friendly.

[lowend1]

Hmmmmh. I hear what you're saying. But Jimi Hendrix and Eddie van Halen influenced legions of guitarists in a still audible way. Where are the bass role models and their legacy though? Influence in only the roundest of about ways if you want to put it friendly.

I think that when you're a generation (musically) or so removed from the influence, it seems to get watered down to the point that it becomes recognizable only to the player himself. It's like when EVH used to say that Clapton was his biggest influence and that he knew every solo. I certainly never thought he sounded anything like EC (tonewise), and I never heard anything even remotely Claptonesque in his playing. But maybe that's the essence of an influence.