Top 20 Simple Minds Bass Lines: Nos. 20 - 11 / Tribute to Derek Forbes (bass & backing track covers)

Описание: This is a follow up to my 'Top 20 Simple Minds Bass Lines: Nos. 10 - 1' video (link at the end of this video).
Ten more great Derek Forbes bass lines. In all honesty: ranking them is arbitrary. But hey, it's a fun format.

00:00 Hunter and the Hunted
00:56 Love Song
01:19 Twist / Run / Repulsion
01:45 League of Nations
02:29 Changeling
03:03 The American
03:38 Sweat in Bullet
04:01 Big Sleep
04:45 20th Century Promised Land
05:24 Someone Somewhere in Summertime

I started playing bass guitar in 1984 at 15 years old and my Simple Minds records were among the first to play along to. Derek Forbes wrote some great repetitive bass lines that seemed doable. You need to have stamina though. Playing 20th Century Promised Land in particular can feel like an endurance test. The brilliance of Forbes’ bass lines is not complexity but propulsiveness. It’s motorik.
Repetitious grooves are tribal, trancey. That’s what I like in techno music, Fela Kuti or a band like LCD Soundsystem for example. Simple Minds was the first band that got me hooked on, well, repetitive hooks.

When recording the bass lines for these tracks I realised that they needed the context of the songs and arrangements to really show their brilliance. So I recorded backing tracks also. I made some use of free midi downloads of the New Gold Dream tracks but had to adjust quite a lot. The earlier songs I had to recreate myself with software instruments and electric guitar.
In post production I adjusted the sound of my bass parts to fit the tracks. Forbes not only just played some bass notes but also helped sculpting Simple Minds’ sound.

Do I have a personal favourite on this list? Someone Somewhere tops it because of sentimental bonus points: I have fond memories of playing it in a band with friends from secondary school. I asked my then bandmate Ralph to contribute guitar parts to this Top 20 recording of Someone.
But I like the propulsiveness of 20th Century’s bass line most. Maybe because it’s my fretting hand’s nemesis too.


Bass: Fender Classic 50s Precision
Strings: at least 5 year old Fender roundwounds
Interface: iRig Pro Duo
DAW: GarageBand
GB bass amp simulator: Big Stack (aka Ampeg SVT)
Effects: GB/LogicPro internal pedal board compressor and flanger (on most of the tracks). Subtle saturation and overdrive to taste with GB overdrive plug-in.