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How to capture the Louis Johnson bass tone

Louis Johnson is a bass player I can absolutely guarantee you’ve heard before, even if you didn’t know his name.

Ever heard Michael Jackson’s Thriller? Louis Johnson is on bass there. And Billie Jean from the same album? Louis Johnson again.

And although Johnson’s session work has been heard in many other places, he was also in the band The Brothers Johnson that scored a few big hits. One of them was Stomp!, heard below:

Stomp! is a very good example of the era’s shifting music tastes. 1980 was the year the song was released, and at that time, many disco bands were desperately trying to reinvent themselves after the fallout of the disco music genre (in America, people were really hating disco in 1980.)

What bands like The Brothers Johnson did was put more concentration on jazz and funk that, in essence, made the sound more musical. You can definitely still hear the disco vibe, but edged towards being more R&B. And it worked.

How do you get that early ’80s bass tone?

We’ll start with the gear.

R&B bass tone in the early ’80s was still late-’70s tone. Bassists of the era didn’t just all throw out their ’70s basses once the year turned to 1980. Most kept what they had and simply changed their sound.

In Stomp!, you’ll hear both finger style bass lines and slap bass later in the song. Achieving both tones heard with a P-Bass would be difficult. You will have an easier time getting the sound if you have a bass with humbuckers or P/J.

So in other words, whether you have a Fender Jazz Bass or a Music Man StingRay or any number of other basses, that helps – especially when switching back and forth from finger style to slap.

Here are some pickup choices that will help you out:

Clean play with bone dry recording

Something you won’t hear a lot of is fret clack, fret buzz, overdrive, distortion or compression (with the exception of natural compression produced by a speaker cabinet.) The bass playing style heard is super clean and very tight.

A carryover recording technique from the late ’70s is that the bass is recorded bone dry. You don’t hear a thing other than bass notes. Not even natural studio room reverb can be heard. The bass was either recorded DI or the old school “wall of foam” technique was used to purposely isolate the tone to be as absolutely dry as possible.

The easier of the two is, of course, just to use DI dry.

No-treble fingerstyle with emphasis on mids, and all-treble slap with scooped mids

You’ll notice in Stomp! that when the bass changes from fingers to slap, it’s a rather drastic tone change.

The finger style is mid-heavy, no treble whatsoever and rolled off bass frequencies. Then when the slap comes in, the treble is punched up, the mids are punched way down and the bass frequencies brought up.

Can you do this kind of drastic tone change yourself? Yes, but it does take some experimentation to pull it off live. This is an instance where having a bass that can be played both passive and active could help out greatly. Passive for the finger style, and when it’s time for the slap, on goes the preamp to punch in the sound you need instantly. Or if you can dial it in while playing live, you may be able to nail the tone change using a passive bass.

Important note: Most early ’80s R&B songs don’t do drastic bass tone changes as heard in Stomp! That song is one of the more unique kind where they just threw in two very different bass tones in the same recording.

Early ’80s bass R&B tone is very much a modern sound (even today!)

This tone is not something you’re going to get out of a vintage Fender bass. More specifically, chasing after this sound using vintage ’50s or ’60s hardware be it original or reproduction will lead to frustration quickly.

It is absolutely OK to use humbuckers, noiseless pickups, preamps and so on for getting the ’80s R&B bass sound. Many bassists of the time were very much using newer instrument technologies.

Said another way, it’s not a sin to put aside the vintage and embrace the modern here.

Happy tone chasing!

12 thoughts on “How to capture the Louis Johnson bass tone”

  1. Really good article..I really like that 70’S / 80’S TONE .that was my tone at the time. I’ve been trying to re create it now…I guess I need to go out and buy another music man since I sold mine back in the 90’s thinking that I’d never play again….boy was I wrong…thanks guys!

    Reply
  2. Louis Johnson used flatwounds on Stomp which gives that fat finger sound. He also used multiple slap techniques hammering with thumb, clap and plucks with different fingers, thumb and in different positions: behind fretboard, over pickup etc.
    On Strawberry Letter 23 he plays flats on an Alembic.

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  3. Both fingerstyle and slap sound like typical Music Man StingRay in “Stomp!” to me.

    The drastic change of the sound character between fingerstyle and slap is the very uniqueness of StingRay. StingRay has a very fat attack when you pick the strings right above the pickup when played in the fingerstyle. On the contrary it produces very bright sound with rich overtones when it is slapped.

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  4. The way to get Louis’ tone: Sting Ray with Bright Flats.
    As to the notion that there was no compression? False.
    It has long been a practice to compress bass tracks with, say, a Lydkraft, due to the uneven nature of the instrument itself. Recording to tape also caused initial “ natural” compression.
    As to speakers? More tracks than not were recorded DI. Straight to the desk.
    Not saying amps weren’t used, but adavancing technologies allowed for many options without them.
    My first studio experience was as a kid in the 80’s- I’ve spent countless hours in studios throughout my life, and Straight to desk has been 90% of the jobs Ive done.
    As to Johnson’s sound, his early stuff was recorded with a P, and also an Alembic.
    At a certain point, he took in the sting ray, and from there that’s what you got.
    Groove monster.

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  5. The tone that the amazing Louis Johnson got was most likely due to the StingRay he absolutely killed, the strings he used and any compression that was employed. But let’s not forget that Louis had something to do with his tone too! Here are some other bassists from the 80’s that copped that tone:

    Tyrone Brunson
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouw97qVZZTE

    Dexter Redding
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EikIqshlMZg

    Nate Phillips
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZJxctqr4OE

    Danny Wilson
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD6Z15GpcLE

    Nick Beggs
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=491Rbvv0bw4&list=PLUgMBZS5gpXoIKQVfa86s64YibmY8ucc1&index=6

    Paris “Pee Wee” Ford
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6JU8easLMQ

    To get that tone, not just approximate it, you need a StingRay-and some serious chops!

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  6. The Stomp video shows Louis playing a StingRay, but I’m pretty sure he actually played a Music Man Sabre on the recording for his solo.

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  7. That tone definitely comes from the Stingray bass, but even more importantly, Louis’ hands! At that time, maybe one or two bassists came close to the level of his slap technique! Let’s not forget Quincy Jones’ production of the track, you can hear the progression to what made Michael Jackson’s discs timeless today. That’s for sharing this, back to the woodshed!

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  8. TONE IS A SOUND THAT’S PLEASANT TO THE EAR, YOU, ME, WE, HEAR IT AND VOICE OUR OPINIONS , HOWEVER IT’S THE TOUCH AND FEEL AND GROOVE OF THE PLAYER THAT MAKES IT COME ALIVE! AND, “YOU’FEEL IT ”

    ROWE (BASS PLAYER-MEMPHIS GOLD)

    Reply

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