i was hoping you'd go with the top dog! http://www.footdrums.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_Andy.tpl&product_id=8&category_id=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=6
this almost gives me motivation to get into the OMB ring! however, when i hit the megamillion lotto, i'll order one up and send it to you, adam!
So clever to have rigged up that pedal system with a stand up bass. What are those pedals? They look like the foot pedals of an old organ or something?
I've often looked longingly at these free-reed footbasses , the Moog Taurus, or the Roland PK-5A, for bass self accompaniment. Now I am looking longingly at that guy's set up too!!! ---------- == I S A A C ==
that is a take off right from jessie fuller and his 1 man band. His rig was amazing. He built it all himself but it was tempermental. OFten he took longer to get it right than his acutal set. Walter
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Issac, those foot bases are pretty cool. Here's an audio clip from that web site:
http://www.bandoneon-maker.com/rag%5B2%5D.mp3
Edited to just a link because I couldn't turn off the auto-play function (The most annoying html feature on the planet).
Last Edited by on Feb 20, 2012 6:22 AM
Walter, when I was fourteen years old I brought home a copy of the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. My dad then gave me his copy of Jesse Fuller's San Francisco bay blues:
He'd bought it because it said "Dixieland" on the cover (he was what they used to call a "Moldy Fig") and he figure one guy playing harp in a rack was pretty much the same as another.
Last Edited by on Feb 19, 2012 9:43 PM
Watching those clips of Jesse Fuller, I'm not impressed at all with the percussion element of what he's doing. It's lifeless and unimaginative: noting to write home about. But of course I've been spoiled by playing for many years by somebody who advanced the foot-powered percussion thing lightyears beyond what had been done:
It seems to me that the least we can do, those of us who want to explore the OMB thing, is deal with what's already been done--i.e., deal with the advances that have already been made. Certainly Sterling's prodigious inventiveness--anything but "left-right-left-right" oom-pah-pah beat-keeping--has been a continued prod to me.
I like the Ryan Baer clips, as far as they go: they're a comforting old sound, if that's what you want.
Last Edited by on Feb 20, 2012 4:58 AM
My OP was intended as humor, but you seem to take it as a challenge ("I recently ordered a double stomp foot drum"). My unspoken reference was to the addition of a stringed bass. Maybe my post wasn't as amusing as I thought.
Your OMB stuff is wicked, and Mr. Satan is a force. But to my ears, adding a maraca, tambourine, and cymbal to the same beat doesn't make the music much more interesting, it just makes it louder and busier. Doubling up on that effect does add something, but the rhythms still aren't very complex. The extra pedal just parks a simple rhythm where a simple bass line could have been. The bass adds a lot to the whole. You seem to prefer the extra percussion to the bass; fair enough.
Perhaps there's a better example of how Sterling's approach is an advancement of foot percussion, but I don't think that particular clip is it. He's certainly busy, and there are more sounds in his rhythm, but in this particular case the result lacks depth and richness that the admittedly simple bass lines would add. In part what I don't' like about it is the arrangement. The song itself is a reworked pop tune without the melody and poignant delivery that made the original a great song, which I think is probably caused by the busy rhythm. To me it serves as an example of how it isn't always possible (or necessary) to improve on a "comfortable old sound". My guess is that had Mr. Satan been playing a bass line with one foot it would have required a gentler approach better suited to the song.
I'm not crazy about Jesse Fuller's delivery in those videos, and he is only doing simple stuff with the percussion, but he's doing a different job with each foot. Ryan Baer's approach is similar, but he benefits from modern recording technology, and he's playing an eight-string bass (I think Fuller's has six, but it's hard to tell from the videos). Bauer seems to be a better harp player than Fuller, but I would bet that Jesse Fuller live was a different experience than what those clips demonstrated. I'm sure that's also true of you and Mr. Satan because I've seen other clips that were much more compelling. In Fullers & Baer's case, adding more percussion for their left foot might add or detract, depending on the material.
Ooh, ooh, ooh! Here's one that's actually almost affordable!! The Basyn ! Costing a mere $400 as compared to the $2000 or more for the free-reed footbass and the Moog Taurus, and it's an actual synth, and not a midi controller like the Roland PK-5A!!! Even better yet, you can buy a DIY kit to build your own for only $130!!!! Now THAT is awesome!!! Foot operated basslines are now economically possible!!!! ---------- == I S A A C ==
