Hi folks!
You all know that the house music that sounded in the second half of the 90's had that authentic feeling, kind of presence, that made many tracks to keep on banging up to nowadays. One of those is "Found a cure" by Ultra Naté. Masters at Work made a remix of that track which has the perfect bass sound, for me, for House, as is.

At the minute 1:16 it comes in and keeps banging all the track through. It makes you wanna move your arse and dance like nobody's watching...

Guess that should be just some simple and basic bass guitar, but when I try to find something like that, I fail. So I would love to know if there's a way to achive that sound.

Mood II Swing's remix of that track has another bass sound perrrrfectly crafted, too. In this case, it sounds wider.

But, anyway, all of you who listened to House at the time know what I am talking about, I guess...

Any info would be appreciated.

 

Great track. To me it sounds like a Music Man Stingray or maybe another bridge pickup tone with highs rolled off.

It's possible to approximate the sound with just a synth but it will not sound exactly the same (at least in my experience with subtractive synths).

Michael Gray's "The weekend" has a "similar" bass tone and it was done with Spectrasonics Trilogy.

https://www.spectrasonics.net/products/legacy/trilogy.php
Here if you listen to "70's Nightlife" demo you can hear a bass sound that's in the ballpark of Ultra Naté song (it has more highs and less lows but the core harmonic structure of the bass sound is kinda similar to my ears) and it's clearly a real bass sound.

This is just to say that it more than probably is just a real bass sound played live or sampled.

 

Last edited: Nov 17, 2022

Loved this version also. Sounds like a bass guitar purely. Sampled or live not sure, it's simple yet effective.

 

Last edited: Nov 17, 2022

I assume it's a single or split coil neck pickup (not bridge), tube amp and rather soft velocity. But one of our bassists like @Olymoon or @mercurysoto will know better?

 

Check out the ableton instrument here:

And also the "Thick Pick" preset in Halion HS SE library (is the factory library)

One thing to note: modern music is pretty bright (and no doubt you mix the same) so I recommend to just put a 15 dB high shelf after the bass (q1 in pro-q, starting at around 200-250 Hz) and just mix the tone. After that, you may (or may not) need to work on the low frequencies, but is way easier to nail the low end after you have the midrange set. You need that midrange perfectly, to get the actual timbre and feel of the bass

 

arboretum hyperprism

 

To me it sounds more like a stingray (bridge pickup) with highs rolled off than a P bass (split coil) or other neck pickups but I could be wrong. Just for curiosity: what's the reason why you think it's a neck PU?

 

By the lack of dynamic range and the fact that the lower note sounds softer, which in a real bass would tend to be the contrary, unless there is a very heavy treatment on it, I think that this is a synth sound. And, even if it's real bass, you can do it with a synth.

You can listen to many songs from Incognito where, in the studio versions, the bass are actually programed synths that sound relatively close to this. I know because I know the man who programed them.

 

Not hard and bright enough for bridge - but Olymoon probably proved both of us wrong.

 

And his phone number was what again?

 

old vst! but so is the 90s .VB-1 is a virtual bass emulation will work!
use the Round Bass Preset! if not try Surge XT

 

Last edited: Nov 18, 2022

I know it can sound counterintuitive but a bass like a stingray (classic) that has only a bridge pickup with the right settings (highs rolled off and low boost, mids to fit the tone) can sound very similar to that bass. Lack of dynamic range could simply be the use of samples instead of a real bass player. I'm not convinced this is a synth bass but I'm curious to listen to those Incognito songs with synth bass or some real world examples in which the bass sounds like in OP's song.

 

You can find him at https://www.talkbass.com/ forum, with a little search. His name is on Incognito's records, and he published a book with all the scores of the bass lines that he programed.

 

You would be surprised of how a Stingray "bridge" (There's only one pickup) pickup can sound. Also a Sandberg Basic Ken Taylor bridge pickup can sound very dark and round too.