Paul Ill: I usually bring two P-basses and two jazz basses with flatwounds and roundwound strings and then I’ll usually bring something esoteric that you don’t often use like a Hofner Beatle Bass or an old Kay hollow body. And then I’ll usually bring some kind of X factor and something like a baritone guitar or synthesizer that can be used for bass sounds too and I’ll usually bring any strange new thing that I bought from my own little studio like a stamp box that you might not normally use on bass guitar.
Randy Mitchell: A telecaster or a stratocaster, some single chord Fender, those type of thing, Gibsons of sorts of 335 like this or Les Paul. Some of the other ones that have special quality bag would be a Gretsch or Fender Jazz Master, which nothing sounds either goes. Sometimes the Rickenbacker 12 string, and usually I’ll ask a client what they think the session might require, the baritone, sometimes people—you’ll hear that flavor as you’re going. They’re like, “Ah, this might work for this,” and you try something out.
Paul Ill: I will bring amplifiers. Usually, I’ll always bring a Vintage Ampeg B15 with me for just about everything. And then if it’s a larger sounding date, like a bigger sounding band or more volume, usually the producer, the artist to let you know, and I have a variety of speaker cabinets and amplifiers to choose from. The amplifiers are primarily Ampeg and the speaker cabinets are various 2 x 10, 4 x 10, 6 x 10, 8 x 10 and I also have a 1 x 15 with an old EVM in it that I really like.
Randy Mitchell: I usually bring two or three different amplifiers to give different flavors. Like a VOX type of a sound, like an old Fender Tweed type of a sound, a block bass Fender sound is usually a standard safe one for about everything and Marshall type of a sound. Again, it is depending on what the client thinks. It might be ballpark like.
Paul Ill: Their feel for music, their internal clock, their time, their ability to put themselves either ahead of the beat or behind the beat or right in the center of the beat, it’s really not about your chops, it’s more about your musicality. Your feel and your groove and your ability to come up with the right part in the moment for that particular song or instrumental queue.
Randy Mitchell: And academic education for the most part, most of them have that. So they can speak the language of music and they can get there quickly. And ability to adapt to whatever it is current or try to adapt to whatever they think might be current within certain genres that they’re proficient at, R&B, rock, country. A studio musician can cover a gamut of styles within what they do. And usually they can cover about everything with feel and catch that feeling and they all have their kind of bag of tricks that they can adapt and twist and mold into a lot of different styles.
Paul Ill: And also showing up with the right tools for the job, keeping your instruments really well maintained, having the right instruments that sound right for that particular genre are really important.
Randy Mitchell: It’s a real key thing to make sure your equipment is happening because that can bug down a session and put a real dark cloud over everything. If you have old strings or a crackly cable into your keyboard or your pedal or whatever, hums, buzzes and it doesn’t have to be expensive equipment, it just has to be dialed and in tune and functioning and not noisy and be able to get a sound.
Paul Ill: Positive mental attitude under all circumstances.
Randy Mitchell: Have a real positive attitude no matter what. No matter how crappy things are or how pissed off you might be, you can’t show it and have a real attitude of giving, of contributing and be enthusiastic about whatever it is and be able and willing to try anything that anybody suggests or throws at you.
Paul Ill: Be really focused on what’s good for the song. If it’s suggested to you that you don’t play until the bridge, don’t come up with a part before the bridge. Follow the minutes of the people that are running the session or producer of the artist. However, if you have a very strong convictions and you really think you could play something that would make the song better before the bridge, offer that as a suggestion
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