All of my recent work with Source Audio is available for download from this Soundcloud player. Get ‘em while they’re hot!! Plenty more musical goodness to come. I’ve got some fun projects in the works.
Will Cady's Ego
Musician, Artist, Writer
Tagged with bass …
Videoblog 12: The NAMM Blues
Roger came hustling up to me at NAMM and told me he spotted a sick jam session going on a couple booths over. We ran on over to check out the action and it was some really good stuff. So good, in fact, that I had to grab my bass and fill in the void of no bass player. The line up? Drums, bass, guitar and three organs.
By the time I set up, the funky vibes were finished, but at least I got to get a nice blues thing going…it’s been a while for me since I’ve played the blues and it was a PLEAAASSURREE.
These guys could really play and that made for a few great moments that I always look for in a good jam. Check out 1:15 for one of those moments when just for a few seconds, we all hooked up and played a tasty slow blues lick together, not because we planned it, but because it’s what we all wanted to hear. It’s moments like that…
Also, note that complete lack of expression on my face. That, ladies and gentleman, is what playing every single day at NAMM for his first time does to a 23 year old who didn’t practice as much as his teachers told him to.
For details on the pedals I was using, check out: http://www.sourceaudio.net
The Spankin’ New Source Audio Pro Series!
So, as you may know, Jeff and I spent a couple of weeks filming videos that go through all of the features on the new pedals from Source Audio. Our first batch of videos! Instructional videos, no less!!!
Let me tell you something. Not coming across as a complete douche on video has proven to be the most epic challenge of my life. That’s not true. Well it kind of is. Either way, I gave it my best. I talked science, I played music, I tried not to smirk.
Anyway, these are the first of our videos at Source Audio and that makes me excited! I threw some bass lines in there from some songs by The Help since I do have to make everything about me after all.
If you like what you see, you can order the pedal at the newly redesigned website for Source Audio at http://www.sourceaudio.net and stay tuned for more to come!
God Plays Bass by Bill Cady
In the last years of my dads life, his journey for meaning and peace guided him towards Rinzai Zen Buddhism. He was so proud when he became a priest, earning the name, Reverend Feng Huang or ‘The Phoenix That Flies On The Dragon’s Breath’. He had earned the title, but all his life, the man had thoughts…
One of these thoughts that stuck with me was his notion that “God Plays Bass”. Over and over again, he would bring this idea up. We would share late night discussions over cigars and sambuca on our screened in porch where we could feel the seasons. So many times, our talks came back to the Big Bang and to Genesis. We would draw parallels between each creation story to find our enlightenment. I remember the chills I felt when he observed that the text of Genesis asserts the existence of sound before all else.
“And God said let there be light”
When I moved on to college in Boston, this thread somehow followed me. Nearly every time I strutted down Newbury Street with my bass in tow, I would be accosted by a beast of a man the Berklee students endearingly named “The Newbury Strangler”. He would grab me by the shoulders and bellow the same phrase to me every…single…time:
ALL BASS PLAYERS ARE GOD!!
I would have shrugged him off as a mere amusement had he not plucked a deeply meaningful phrase right from my childhood and screamed it at me every time I saw him. Where did he get that? Why is he saying that to me?
After holding me in silence, the man’s hands would then drop to his sides and he would just laugh and walk away…
God Plays Bass
by Reverend Feng Huang, Bill Cady
Hard Bops flowing out a barrelhouse door
In the sun, wind and rain,
Two musicians chart and stride
Who’s that you say?
Well, You know the Devil with his guitar and fiddles
But looky here why thats Divineness on the Bass.
Y’all heard the tale how the Devil plays prestissimo
Always scattin’ an ballin’ up the beat
But, Gods Bass riffs are set in largo
Cuz cool jazz sounds so Phat
His low pulsing boogie just sits there in the groove
That Devil’s been tailgating at the Crossroads
‘Cuz old Robert Johnson was lookin’ to gig eternity
Guitarist dueling with the Devil a work song rhapsody
‘Til the Devil lost to scale in by a classical progeny
Now, God keeps groovin’ a Psalmody
Gut confidence in his center
His pizzicato dynamics-running bottoms up
Absent any vibrato digs that silence is still a note
Man, his Bass lines never can be beat
Nocturnes in dissonance jives primordial bars
Phrase and pitch all ripples no bars and measures true
A Bass note stuck in Forte an opening chord or two
Thaw-thump! Thaw-Thump! Thaw-Thump!
Comes the Tone Poem to the score
Perceive his milieu bass notes!
Three notes theme the movement just waiting on a score
Gods fundamental frequencies sets the tempo of each bar
Laying down some tracks each measure a light year long
Yes, were all here ‘cuz the Man was Jazzing up the deep
Gods bass lines are the cool school that created reality
Striding downbeats by the meter long before luminosity
Till his concerto prodigy blasted forth a Star
Nothing but a Bass line from time eternity
That music forms a triad of tertial harmonies
Just a chill in the loft scene now called the Holy Trinity
What started as a bass note gave life to you and me!
Yes, were talking creation
Life, the Universe and Everything!
Gods Cosmic Gigantic Bass Note,
Implanted in our nature a noble faculty
The voice came by virtue of the bass cliff
Scored in consonants no melody
So, scat the words if you haft to
As long as you keep in harmony
So, Stop jive talkin’ cause musics in our soul
Were all in this together the fiddler, you and me
Lets all make the connection to the Harmonics
We can swing in syncopation just remember to keep the code
Life is a song, says Yidl shmiddle
It’s coolness in our solos, cakewalks, forms and modes
Even dissonant running countermelody
Will return us to his groove
Cause
God Plays Bass
That’s right man
God Plays Bass
So whats you say?
God Plays Bass
Come on
Let me hear you say it
God Plays Bass
Ooooooh yeaaaaaaaa!
Thaw thump
Thaw thump
Thaw Thump
Thaw Thump
Thaw Thump
Videoblog 4: Breakfast with the Multiwave
You can get more info on the Multiwave Bass Distortion Pro at the Source Audio website.
Turning an Upright Bass Into a Sound Factory
I spend a lot of my time working with effects and finding new ways to manipulate my bass sound digitally but when it comes to recording, I really value taking time to produce organic sounds to create a sonic landscape (this is what we were really going for with ‘Animals‘. A tip of the hat to Diego Stocco for what he’s done to his upright bass in this video! Keep watching through to the end, because the sounds really start to come together to make a nice sonic texture.
Getting Funky at Bass Player Live 2009
I was recently hired at a company called Source Audio just north of Boston. They’ve brought me in as a bass player to help them design and implement an entire line of bass effects pedals. Pretty damn righteous. It’s amazing to have a job that pays me for doing what I love.
The first week of my job, the shipped me off to Los Angeles with my bass to Bass Player Live. Amazing. In the video below, I am showcasing one of their best effects, a motion-controlled effect called the “Hot-Hand”. The Hot-Hand is a motion-sensing ring that wirelessly manipulates a wah, phaser, flanger or even MIDI output. In this video, I am using it on the wah. Let me know what you think!
There will be plenty more videos to come since part of my job is getting as funky as humanly possible with their effects and recording the results.
Find out more about Source Audio at their website: www.sourceaudio.net
Photoblog: My hands after a LOT of practice
dig it.
