Fender P-Bass
When we first started planning EPHEMERAL we literally went back to the drawing board and thought of it as a chance to start over. We approached the album as a new band with new inspiration to simplify our songs and focus on a distinct electronic sound driven by drums and bass.
We started watching old videos of Depeche Mode and loved the simplicity of their set up. We challenged ourselves to have 3 distinct sounds on the album rather than dozens of layered elements like our previous album SLEEPWALKER. One of the three sounds we chose was a cheap Fender P Bass and used it as a lead instrument. We ran it through a small Orange guitar amp to cut out the low end since the Moog Synthesizer would be providing the main bass on the album.
The end result sounds somewhere between a baritone and a 7 string guitar. This particular P Bass was one of the cheaper models as we wanted the strings to rattle and vibrate and the bass to sound thin and guitar like. After compressing the hell out of the signal, running it through overdrive pedals and into a guitar amp, the instrument sounds like a beautiful disaster!
