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Mike Chadwick Group: Members Posts: 231 Joined: May 2003 Posted: May 26 2003, 12:48 as i know Mike is playing bass mostly like he plays guitar.On "tb" you cann hear him playing plectrum, the same on "Hergest ridge" and some other albums. On some tracks he played softer and warmer (normal bass playing). As i was recently listening to tracks like "Tricks of the light", "Five miles out", "The lake","qe2" i noticed that he was slapping his bass in some notes.....Was he???? let's take "Tricks of the light" - In first 10 seconds you can hear the bass slap, just before main guitar riff.Later his bass guitar sounds just like it was played plector....OR maybe he was playing so hard with fingers???? I am playing bass for five years and i just can not tell exactly what kind of style he plays there......do you have some ideas????????  i do not thing he slaps with plector in finger.... -------------- kik-eze kik-eze Back to top

Chris-Llawen Unregistered Posted: July 29 2003, 11:39 in the 80s Mike had his own band, who you can see in the videos for 'Trick of the Light' etc. and in concert photos - therefore he had somebody to play bass for him (i think he was a bald guy)- someone into more advanced techniques, because of his v long nails, i wouldn't have thought Mike would play bass with his fingers v often, and especially not slap bass - too high risk of breakage. in Kevin Ayers' band i think MO used his fingers for playing bass and had no or little nail on his right hand fingers - i also think that because of this he played plectrum guitar more than he does now - ie on 'Lunatic's Lament' - or a combination of plectrum and fingerstyle? are we are right in assuming that he normally plays bass with a pick when he's playing on his own albums? Back to top

Mike Chadwick Group: Members Posts: 231 Joined: May 2003 Posted: July 30 2003, 09:10 yes, But remember that on his all albums where the "slap" thing is he is credited as a bass player too.......MAybe he specialy cut his nails for bass parts??? i don't know, it is a strange case... But propably the most logical explanation is that he was using a Pick playing octaves - with hard-picking it would sound like that almost. Ps. i saw somewhere a picture of mike playing Wal 5-string bass with fingers (TB2 era photo)  close to the bridge pick-up... -------------- kik-eze kik-eze Back to top

Chris-Llawen Unregistered Posted: July 30 2003, 16:48 really? well, when you watch the TBII Premiere DVD, you can see on the close ups of Mike's picking hand that the fingernails on his index and middle fingers are much shorter than they usually are - the nails on his ring and little fingers are as long as normal. I guess he must do this at the various times he needs to play some proper bass with his fingers. Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: July 30 2003, 18:07 I think it might be a 'pop' right near the beginning of Tricks Of The Light, but the rest is hard plectrum playing. It sounds like slap and pop playing on Five Miles Out as well. I have similar nails to Mike for playing guitar with (though I think his are more pointy), and I don't personally find any problems with them where playing bass is concerned. They wear down a tiny bit from playing fingerstyle (though I'd be approaching the strings in a slightly different way to with a guitar, so the nails aren't coming into contact with the strings so much), but slap playing really isn't a problem, as the nails are well out of the way. Back to top

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