Roger Waters bass work

uduwudu wrote: That he and Mr Mason recorded Atom Heart Mother in one take is definitely worthy of note... One of These Days double act with DG. And one day his work on The Embryo (especially those great live versions)...

Care must be taken on occasion as Gilmour did in fact do quite a bit of the bass in the studio. I was quite surprised when I learnt of this - especially regarding Pigs - the bass line is so Waters.
The 'funky' jam in Echoes, the first half on Pompeii - Waters is just grooving along and his sound is fantastic. Love his pick work when he does those fast runs up and down a string.
Mason doesn't get much credit for his drum work - some say things like dull, lazy, basic, standard........but his style was spot-on for Floyd. Couldn't picture it working with someone the calibre of Palmer or Collins. And what Mason lacks in 'chops', he makes up for with fantastic ideas and off-the-cuff creativity. You don't often see drummer's names in the composing credits in those days, but Mason was regularly credited on albums.
I don't believe Roger and Nick couldn't 'lock together' - they are the perfect rhythm-section for Floyd.
Next thing is 'who's the better bassist - Waters or Pratt ??'

Tom Ozric wrote: Next thing is 'who's the better bassist - Waters or Pratt ??'

Pratt

Tom Ozric wrote: Care must be taken on occasion as Gilmour did in fact do quite a bit of the bass in the studio. I was quite surprised when I learnt of this - especially regarding Pigs - the bass line is so Waters. The 'funky' jam in Echoes, the first half on Pompeii - Waters is just grooving along and his sound is fantastic. Love his pick work when he does those fast runs up and down a string. Mason doesn't get much credit for his drum work - some say things like dull, lazy, basic, standard........but his style was spot-on for Floyd. Couldn't picture it working with someone the calibre of Palmer or Collins. And what Mason lacks in 'chops', he makes up for with fantastic ideas and off-the-cuff creativity. You don't often see drummer's names in the composing credits in those days, but Mason was regularly credited on albums. I don't believe Roger and Nick couldn't 'lock together' - they are the perfect rhythm-section for Floyd. Next thing is 'who's the better bassist - Waters or Pratt ??'

I liked Mason even better in those early days, where he sometimes went into a more melodic kind of playing, to try to explain it some way. Things like what he did on Set The Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Remeber a Day, A Saucerful of Secrets... he would later on go into a more straightforward kind of drummer, though. And in a way Waters went along with Mason with his bass playing... I mean, Set the Controls melody was mainly played by Mason and Waters, and it's great... and I guess that's not a very common thing to hear... not even from Squire. Perhaps some of ELP's songs.

hmmmm, probably Echoes, One of These Days, Careful with That Axe, Eugene, Money, or something like that.

The Dark Elf wrote: One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces...

Dellinger wrote: RockHound wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces... My thoughts exactly. I consider the driving, echoed bass Waters' signature sound. But One of these Days has both Waters and Gilmour on bass, and actually I think it was Gilmour who developed the technique for the bass on this song... which had some good studio tampering about it.

Sean Trane wrote: Dellinger wrote: RockHound wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces... My thoughts exactly. I consider the driving, echoed bass Waters' signature sound. But One of these Days has both Waters and Gilmour on bass, and actually I think it was Gilmour who developed the technique for the bass on this song... which had some good studio tampering about it.   You sound like a Waters basher.... Waters is like Wright and Mason.... and Gilmour (even him).... Not great musicians in terms of technique, but they were giants in terms of ideas developed (at least during the 70's)   Yes Gilmour was a tad superior muso to the other three (and millions miles ahead of Barrett) and he might have been a better bass player than Waters (though there is nothing to really suggest this), but Waters wrote all the bass parts.   If Gilmour indeed plays bass on OOTD, it's the middle section , once he's stopped playing his bottleneck lapsteel-sitar thing... the booming bass entrance is 100% Waters.   if in Sheeps & Dogs, Waters asked Gilmour to play bass, it is because he wanted to play rhythm guitar (like on Pigs on the wings)... he needed the r.guitar experience, as he was soon to make the Wall demo tracks all alone, while Dave & Rick were recording their solo albums, thus using all of their valid musical ideas for themselves instead of putting them in the Floyd bucket.   But even in Sheeps & Dogs, the bass parts were written by Waters, since the music existed prior to WYWH, and was played on stage many times????

I didn't intend to bash Waters, I was just writing what I had read some time ago... checking it out in wikipedia as the latest poster suggested, it's indeed true, it was both Gilmour and Waters and using effects to achieve the sound. Who of the two came up with the idea, I don't remember, though I do believe it was Gilmour who was fond of experimenting with studio tricks. As for Waters having Gilmour play bass because he himself prefered to play rhythm guitars, I don't see why he would have to choose one over the other on studio, since he could play both and overdub, just as I imagine Gilmour had to do in order to play the bass and the lead guitars.

I do tend to be more on the side of Gilmour than Waters on the fighting side of Floyd, but in the end I do like what they both have done, both together and by themselves, and I do know that they both did their best when working together (and with Wright too, and I guess also Mason, though he does have much less writing credits). And besides, Waters was more of a songwriter than a bass player, and I believe that's the way he thinks of himself, I understand he really took the bass because the band needed a bass player. However, I do like what he and Mason did with Floyd a lot, specially on their earlier albums where they did some really interesting stuff.

Sean Trane wrote: Yes Gilmour was a tad superior muso to the other three (and millions miles ahead of Barrett) and he might have been a better bass player than Waters (though there is nothing to really suggest this), but Waters wrote all the bass parts.