Victor's Home Cooking

Jun 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Mike Levine

           
 

BASSMAN VICTOR WOOTEN THRIVES IN HIS PERSONAL STUDIO

Wooten generally records his bass direct rather than through an amp. For sonic variety, he’ll switch to a different bass from his collection.

Photo: Kristina Marie Krug

What about from a dynamics standpoint? Do you do a lot of automation to level the bass out?
I can't say a lot, because I don't have anything to compare it to. Most of the things that I do are jazz records, not pop. But yeah, I definitely do some automation on riding things, riding solos, but I would have to guess that there's not a lot of automation compared to, maybe, normal records.

Does some of that have to do with your dynamics as a player?
It's definitely dynamics as a player. I would say that a lot of pop records are not performed by people who are used to playing live with each other, listening to each other. If there's any live playing at all, it's [done by] studio guys. Again, I'm speculating on this. But the people I'm usually playing with — a lot of times they're my brothers or my band, or I'll bring in a special person like Mike Stern, or Dennis Chambers on drums — we're really listening to each other, and we're playing together that way. So there's not a lot of adjusting levels that really, really needs to be done. But, of course, we still have to do it in the mixing phase.

In a lot of situations, it's routine to throw a compressor on a bass part to make it sit better in the mix.
Yeah, most people do that, but that's not my sound.

Let's talk about Palmystery. I noticed that there were a lot of songs in which you were playing melody parts on the bass, and then you had a conventional bass part underneath. However, it was always somebody else playing that underneath bass part, not you. Why didn't you just play both parts?
On previous records, I have. But on this record, I decided to use bass players whose sound I liked. Like my bass player, Anthony [Wellington], who travels with me. I enjoy playing a melody or solo on top of his playing, so he's playing on two of the tracks.

So in your live show you have another bass player?
Yes, when I'm touring with my band, I have Anthony. You have to think about this: when everybody else plays a melody or gets to solo, they get to play on top of a bass player — the bass player is supporting them. But for the most part, us bass players don't have that. So when it's time for us to solo, usually everyone drops out and we have to work a little harder and carry it ourselves. I like having that bass underneath me so I can take on the role as the soloist or the vocalist or the melody or something like that — that's great. Every bass player has their own feel and is going to drive the band their own way. That's fun to play over. So I enjoyed having different bass players supporting me on this record.

I was listening to the song “Left, Right, & Center,” and I noticed that at one point the drum kit was panned totally to one side. I know you were involved in the mixing, and so what was the thought on that?
Well, there are three drummers on that track — three drummers playing separately and together. We have J. D. Blair, Dennis Chambers, and Will Kennedy. They all recorded their parts here at the studio, separately. What happens is that J. D. starts the track. And then when Dennis comes in, you'll hear J. D. move over to the left. And Dennis comes in from the right and takes the center. And then, a little while later, Dennis will move off to the left, and Will moves into the center; he comes in from the right. And then when all three are playing, J. D. is on the left, Will is on the right, and Dennis is in the center. Left, right, and center. So the drums are moving all over the place.

That's wild. I was listening to it, and all of a sudden I said to myself, “Wait a minute!”
I like doing things that are unconventional, because it just grabs your attention if you're listening. Even if you're not listening, you know something different happened.

I think that's good. There are a lot of people who are too conservative in their mixing. They think they have to do it a certain way because that's how everyone does it.
And sometimes we have to be that way. Because if you go out of bounds a little bit, the radio stations, or whatever, may not play it. But I don't expect my music to get played on the radio anyway. So I just do the music that I'm going to die happy about. To go back for a minute to “Left, Right, & Center” — Mike Stern played guitar on that, a guy named Neal Evans from the band Soulive played B-3, and, of course, all of that was done here. And Mike is such an incredible player. I was listening to his solo and I thought, “I should learn this.” [So] I started learning it. As I was playing it in unison with him, I realized how cool it sounded. So I learned his whole solo and recorded it. So on the CD, when you hear this burning solo, when the song goes into double time, there's a burning guitar solo that's doubled with the bass. So you're getting me playing his solo an octave lower than him. And it's such a fun part of that song.