Satoshi Miyashita, aka Groove King

[roflmao]

Great post, Zeta.  Speaking of amazing bassists, I'm going to see Primus next week.  Very excited.  Haven't seen 'em in ages.  Glad to see them as the original lineup again. 

I've never really tried to play the bass, but I can't play the guitar for squat.  Love playing the drums though (not very good at that either, but it sure is fun)!

[nodtveidt]

Bass players are way more important than usually given credit for. AFAIK, the composer for the original Sonic The Hedgehog was a bass player in a band as well.

[Keranu]

Toe Jam & Earl, best video game bass lines evar! Soundtrack itself even stacks up well amongst P-FUNK!

[roflmao]

Agreed.

[spenoza]

Some bands do just fine with very simple bass lines that are largely for rhythm. Other bands do very well with very complicated bass lines (see Rush for an extreme example of this). The good bands could be argued to be good probably in part because they are exceptions (thus exceptional). In general, though, bass players are often less melodically and harmonically inclined. That's why I really do like it when they step up. Drummers too. Dream Theater's now former drummer was an integral part of the team, musically and organizationally, and Rush's drummer is their primary lyricist. Again, however, these are exceptional examples.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people who pick up a guitar and play lead by only playing very simple melodies and who have very poor tonality. I wish these were exceptions, but alas...

[SignOfZeta]

Well, that's the thing. Everyone thinks that a "good" bassist has to be Flea or Billy Bass Nelson, that they have to do crazy solos and stand out bouncy bad-ass-ness...but that's not really true. Sometimes a really great bassist doesn't do anything that actually sounds special on its own. See: Paul McCarty.

A really great example is the Cure song "Just Like Heaven". Anyone could be taught to play this song, its easy as hell. The song couldn't exist without it though, or rather it could but it never would. The other parts are clearly written around it. Its fully integrated though, it doesn't stand out like "Another One Bites the Dust" or "Good Times", but once you've learned to play it, or even just learned to listen for it, you understand how important it is. You also understand the bassist much have been a huge part of the creation of the song

[spenoza]

I can't argue otherwise.

[geise]

I have my GameGo Magazine at work cause I've been meaning to scan it there.  Mine went out a year ago and I've been lazy getting another one.  Luckily it's been slow at work so I'll have plenty of time to scan it on Tuesday after Memorial Day.  

I remember when I beat Lords of Thunder for the first time and saw it said Groove King I was thinking "Shit, did one guy to all the instruments?".

With all the talk of bass players recently gotta say I love the Mats/Morgan band.  Tommy Tordsson plays bass for them.  Great stuff if you're into Jazz/Fusion/Electronic/Progressive stuff. 

[roflmao]

With all the talk of bass players recently gotta say I love the Mats/Morgan band.  Tommy Tordsson plays bass for them.  Great stuff if you're into Jazz/Fusion/Electronic/Progressive stuff. 

That's some neat stuff.  I originally read that as Tommy Tallarico.

[spenoza]

You know, the information as to whether Miyashita performed all the instruments just doesn't exist. The Hudson CDs say he's the composer. The game credits simply refer the Music to Groove King. Maybe Groove King was a band put together specifically to record for Lords of Thunder and Miyashita composed all the tracks. Then again, it is entirely possible that Miyashita isn't just a bassist but rather a multi-instrumentalist who is best known for his bass tracks. In that case he could indeed have recorded the entire album multi-tracked. The drums sound real to me but I've learned over the years that I don't have a good ear for that. Drum machines were probably good enough back them in terms of using high quality samples that for the purposes of LoT he wouldn't have to be an actual drummer to lay down some good percussion tracks. In that case he'd just need to be a bassist and electric guitarist. Anyone know drums well enough to tell me if that soundtrack sounds like it was performed on a real trap or could reasonably have been put together by a talented enough instrumentalist with a good drum sample kit?

[nodtveidt]

Drum machines back then were definitely advanced enough to pull off the LoT soundtrack. I used to use an Alesis drum machine (I forget the model, like MKT-660 or something like that) even before that time, and it was easy to make it sound completely natural, with human-like delays and slight variance in volume for each hit. Indistinguishable from a real drummer most of the time.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, certainly samplers were good enough back then to fake a real drummer.

If there ever is a dead give away in fake drumming its usually in the composition itself, not in the performance.

That being said, I'm pretty sure this soundtrack was done with real instruments. Its easier to hire a session drummer than to program a machine. It could also be all one guy multi-tracked, or maybe just two or three guys.

[spenoza]

Yeah, certainly samplers were good enough back then to fake a real drummer.

If there ever is a dead give away in fake drumming its usually in the composition itself, not in the performance.

That being said, I'm pretty sure this soundtrack was done with real instruments. Its easier to hire a session drummer than to program a machine. It could also be all one guy multi-tracked, or maybe just two or three guys.

This is my suspicion as well. I was a percussionist in middle and high school, but I never got behind the trap. That said, I listen to a lot of bands that have particularly good drummers, and the composition of the drum tracks suggest that even if it wasn't performed on an actual trap it was put together on a drum machine by someone who has a clue and understands percussion.

When I was younger I foolishly thought GoT might be real percussion, but now that I'm older and wiser I'm pretty sure it's not.