The best thing about Ryan, apart from being a totally MONSTER bass player, is that he is so animated while playing. He’s so fun to watch, as well as listen to! 🤩
Yea he's always been an amazing showman. Thats how you know this dude us a seasoned pro. His playing even on the dig video is so effortless and that was over 20 yrs ago. We're all decades behind this dude if not more depending how much we practice
Yea he's always been an amazing showman. Thats how you know this dude us a seasoned pro. His playing even on the dig video is so effortless and that was over 20 yrs ago. We're all decades behind this dude if not more depending how much we practice
I think there is one key component to Ryan's playing that nobody ever talks about, and that's the Martinie Stance. If you play or even listen to his stuff, you have to do it. Feet a little more than shoulder width apart, bend back at the knees, lean back, elbows out. Now you're ready to Martinie.
Ryan has said in interviews that the reason he uses the techniques that he does is because of his decision to not use pedals for effects. He would change his technique(I call it finger punching) to that finger tap/slap to get a more of a fuzz/overdriven tone, fretless for phaser/chorus etc.
I really respect that type of mindset - also really proves how varied your sound can be just from how you play it. I tell students all the time to get the sound as close as you can before you add any effects into the mix.
Kind of a weird connection, but this reminds me of Opeth’s decision on the early albums to not use keyboards. I think it led to a lot of Mikael’s creative use of guitars to create atmosphere.
"Finger punching" is good - I call it "Typewriter Finger Slapping", but yeah. Amazing technique, especially on fretless! The different sounds he can get with his fingers are amazing!
I'm the same way, or I used to be. I played for 30 years, never had anything but my bass and my amp. The bass cuts through the mix better that way, if you want to be heard, play clean. My playing spoke for itself, every show people came up after and told me how great I was, completely ignoring the rest of the band. But now I've gotten into doing my own recording, and I do use FX now,. Tone plays a big:ger role on a recording, and you can take steps to make sure distorted bass can still be heard in the mix.
To cop a phrase from the Wings of Pegasus guy, “The conspicuous lack of technical deficiencies” in Martini’s playing is glaring! It’s really cool to see Entwistle’s influence in his playing style, (Especially that percussive right hand string attack) and his seriously creative approach to the bass shows he really carved out his own lane as a bassist. Really love his playing.🫡
I'm just a bassist, not really a drummer or guitarist, but man, you can really tell that the other members of Soften the Glare are top-notch. Not only do they keep up with a monster bassist like Ryan, but all three seem to feed off each other's playing styles. This band truly is greater than the sum of its parts!
The guitarist is quite talented and recognized, I remember looking into him and if I'm not wrong, he's been playing shows since early 2000s or 90s Atleast.
I really enjoyed it! I had a general idea of what to expect, but it was way headier than I thought it'd be. Can't wait to check out more. I got to spend a good deal of time with Ryan a few years in a row. He's such the opposite of what I thought he'd be (growing up seeing Mudvayne videos). Nicest, down-to-Earth guy who gives everyone his undivided attention! I'd go a full year without any contact (since he isn't on social media) and he picked right back up with where we left off a year later and remembered my name.
YES! More Ryan Martinie! Love this man's playing. I really feel he is an underrated and underappreciated bassist, but I am highly biased since he's THE guy that made me fall in love with bass so many years ago.
I've been a big fan of Ryan since 01. I got to meet him at a little bar in VA when Soften the Glare played. He's a truly amazing person and huge inspiration to the way I play. He's where I got my tapping from. Also love Scale the Summit!
Awesome breakdown Mark! I also find it interesting that he tunes to A D A D G for this song. As someone that mostly plays in standard tuning, there are few shapes that are a bit weird but definitely a fun challenge to try and learn the tune.
Much appreciated!! I'm not 100% sure if that tuning was used here, but it was an educated guess. Definitely low A and normal A (I saw him fret C on fret 3 during the chord changes). Couldn't really see what was going on with the E string though.
Its sad that no one remembers John Entwistle pioneered the "typewriter" finger slapping style back in the 70's granted Ryan has taken it to a whole new level, but its roots lie with good old "Big Johnny Twinkle" Thunder Fingers himself.
Love Ryan's playing. John Entwistle used to do the same technique as well. I don't think there was a specific name per say, he just called it tapping... Well, maybe that is the specific name... lol
The absolute love for the unsung hero in many songs, the producer, was a touch of class far beyond the pale and I'm certain it was appreciated. Ryan will go down as, perhaps, the most influential bass player in the modern era, and that title is well deserved. That aside, he is also one of the kindest people you could ever have the opportunity to meet.
Ryan is one of my favorite bassists! Glad you're checking out more of his playing. I feel like I heard someone call it the Butterfly technique somewhere on youtube but I don't know what he calls it if anything. I know he does it on octaves a lot in an open tuning so the octave is on the same fret and he just skips the string in the middle on both hands. Not sure what tuning he's playing in here though
Mark. Awesome breakdown on these videos. Hey every time I hear your playing on Scale the summit , it reminds me of the band Spiral Architect. Lars K. Norberg. Specially the intro of the bass on Stolas.
Hey, thank you for that! Really appreciate the kind words. I've gotta check them out, don't think I've listened. I actually went back and listened to "Stolas" a bit when I saw this comment earlier. I forgot how much fun those parts were, they were way more involved than I remembered.
Could you do a series about how we can get some of these bass tones that we love so much, like Ryan’s for example on the LD album, maybe a Chris Squire video aye? 💪😎
I don't mean to take away from Ryan on this video, but it would be cool if you could find a piece from JD Deservio from Black Label Society. I wasn't sure where you post requests. Thanks, man.
Now, even though I am not on Ryan's level (few are), I have always played in a similar way with my right hand... I am able to bounce between different techniques, all by just rotating my wrist slightly. My pseudo-slap isn't the same or as strong as his, but similar. You're right, though, it does put the right hand in a position to have a jump-off point for nearly anything.
This band is phenomenal. I knew he was pretty good in mudvayne, but I was never all that impressed with the rest of the band. Now he's got some equivalent musicians, and he's writing most of the music, and this shit is perfect.
Another Ryan to check out is RYAN JUHRS from the 2000s numetal underrated monster of a band FLAW. anything off their first 2 albums is just absolutely mesmerizing 5 string work. From beautiful tap melodies to deep dark atmosphere setting hes just phenominal. i have no idea where hes gone since leaving FLAW, which is a shame. For someone who picked up bass out of band necessity, he absolutely became the main driving force, locking in so beautifully with Chris Volz's haunting hurt lyrical content. so good. its soo damn good. please do a reaction to....hell any of them. all of them! do em all!
Yea Ryan is a great player also! I miss him in Flaw, he did a great job giving us that thumb tone, we played with FLAW in my home town and I had an amazing night with them bois, Chris was so cool, I even went to their hotel room and chilled and watched RU-vid videos with Lance lol, and other stuff I’ll not mention on here lol it was a great time I’ll just say that!
Get a fretless.. I played around on my buddie's and while it takes alot of getting used to it adds a new dimension of creativity to everything you play.. so much fun.
i like soften the glare , they have a magical quality to them . im reminded of tribal tech music with the fusion of metal and jazz , the guitarist is the link for me but this dudes bass is very high bar. i never listened to mudvane but im guessing its mostly just metal . this band has let the bassist soar to new heights.
Dude... Yes! Just randomly found your channel recently and I knew you looked familiar. I saw you with scale the summit years ago in Cleveland opening for The Ocean. You guys absolutely killed. I chatted with you about all things bass and Warwick at your merch table after the show. That was a great chat. Huge fan. Glad I found your channel. Keep up the great work!!
Dude, nice! Crazy that I was just thinking yesterday that that tour was exactly 10 years ago (I remember us leaving at the end of February in 2014). Thanks for stopping by and for the nice words! Glad you made it here. 🙏🏼
I'm glad you got back to Ryan but, you should get back again to "Turn around" playthrough is just him. The song has more variety of techniques as well. Also it's 4K and he's visually filtered in a kinda funky animation. You can see everything he's doing perfectly!!! Love all your reactions!!
I saw them play live in a tiny venue near my home town. There was like 6 people there to see them. It was before this album even came out. They played for 2+hours and it was incredible. He is also the nicest person I have ever met and just sat and talked for almost 2 hours. They never meet your idols, I did and I am glad I did cause he was awesome. Even showed me some techniques he used and let me play his bass.
That is awesome! It was about 20 people at the show I saw STG. I asked them to sign some stuff after the show, Mitch invited be "backstage" which was just behind the curtain at the front of the bar lol. Ryan talked to us for like 30 minutes. Bon was super nice as well. Got a picture with all 3, including Ryan who of course did not have a shirt on. have a big display of all the stuff from that night on display in my office. Will never forget it!
@@tylerzufall2368 equally as awesome. They didn’t even have a backstage where I saw them. When Mitch did his drum solo Ryan and Bon sat at the table I was at and had a beer with us. The number of times they thanked us for coming was awesome.
Ryan calls the finger slap thing a "struck note", you can find him talking about it in a short interview with him in a clip here on RU-vid, "Bassiste Magazine # 71 - Ryan Martinie"
It's pretty crazy because mudvayne was my favorite band as a young lad, and now I listen to pretty much exclusively bass-driven Prog metal. And I never knew that I loved the base until I got older
Here is a request that is not Rock or Metal but is definitely worth looking over, arranging wise: Automatic - 宇多田ヒカル covered by 4 Bass players Hope you enjoy it as much as i do
My band got to play on the same bill with STG back in 2016. To see him play up close was AWESOME!!! Mitch and Bon are badasses on their own right. I'm a drummer and I'm always as interested in the bass as I am the drums. Mitch on the drums is just like Ryan on bass. And the fretless he makes sound just like a horn!!!
He's the reason I became a Warwick fan boy 24 years ago. While I use a dingwall half the time...my thumb is my baby. Didn't know you were the dude from scale the summit! You're doing God's work!
Excellent reaction to a great song with the bass as a main instrument. I absolutely loved this song from the first time I listened to it. I am always impressed with your tone in your reactions. What do you use in your signal chain to get your tone?
Awesome video and channel. Great plug for Jamie King, he's one county over from where my band has rehearsal at, he's a mastermind and we're looking forward to work with him soon. Great job on all your videos, best channel for bassists on YT!
Great video! Ryan's been one of my favorite bassists for many, many years and is a huge influence in my playing. Also, I'm sure other people have mentioned it here but he calls the tapping-like technique a "Struck Note"
Thank you so much for this Mark!! Would love some more of Ryan!! Especially watching a bass player watch him I he tunes to GCGCF thanks for telling us about Jamie King!
I can’t get into it but I’m glad he was doing something and exploring. There were some nice elements here and there in the slower parts of this song but I’m not gonna rush out and buy the album and crank it in the car. I’m super stoked that Mudvayne are back now though.
Oh man I was lucky enough to record with Jamie King back in the day in 2003 in NC. Such a pleasure. Amazing dude. Incredibly hard-working and talented. I've moved on to other ventures since (trying) to do music professionally, but so happy to have that album as something I can look back on creating.
I was bummed Ryan switched to foderas, he just doesn’t have the same tone anymore despite the fodera guys basically trying to make their best thumb copy
how about a reaction to hip hop music? It isn't nearly as technical as this music but simple bass lines are cool too and in my opinion, underrated! I never hear bass players talking about this music Here's some awesome ones that I know, but this era of music is full of them and nobody talks about it. Almost all of these are super simple looping bass lines in standard 4/4, but they enhance the song so much. This is the music that made me love bass, actually. But Metal got me to play it (Justin Chancellor, in particular) Tribe Called Quest - Excursions Tribe Called Quest - Buggin out Nas - Halftime Rakim - Don't sweat the technique Rakim - Know the ledge Artifacts - C'mon Wit Da Get down Souls of Mischief - 93' Til Infinity
Thank you SO much for this comment. I am extremely unfamiliar with that genre, and would really love to get into that world more. A few months ago, someone wrote a super nice message suggesting I do some Tupac songs and for the life of me, I can’t remember which video it was on and it’s way lost in my sea of comments, but I’m screen grabbing this one so I don’t forget. I will get to some of these in the near future, promise! Appreciate you again 🙏🏼
@@LowEndUniversity hey np man. i realize it's out of your wheel house so if you want to give a song like "one time 4 your mind" by Nas a listen, on your free time. just so you know what to expect here and maybe come up with shit to talk about. thats an awesome song but i don't know if it's worth reacting to. Flea did a song for Young MC called Bust a move, that could be a good angle to introduce this stuff. For a lot of this it's the production. how they use the bass. the little pauses in the beat to emphasize the vocals. and the rappers themselves, how they rap what they are saying (the vocals are like an instrument), and what they are talking about. it's all pretty cool, and this era has a little bit of jazz sprinkled in all of it, tribe called quest in particular also no pressure from me at all, not seeking a shoutout or anything like that, not my intent, just was throwing it out there that nobody who is more informed ever really talks about this music and the bass in it.
I need to find a clip of him using the Fodera - I just remember seeing several pictures recently. I agree, I completely associate him with that Warwick Thumb tone.
I've been studying Martinie for decades, especially his weird tunings. With Mudvayne, you'll notice he actually rides the second string down, which is his B string. He played in F# B F# b e, and for later albums he tuned "up" to G C G c f. he did that because he would treat it like a drop tuned 4 string with an extra low F#/G and have that easy octave, and using the low F# as a thumb rest and sparingly throw that in for some really dark riffs, but when he toured live he carried a warwick 4 string and just lost the low F# because he said you cant hear it live anyway and the temperature changes outside screw with the F# staying in tune. I've had a bass in that F# tuning and with a 34 inch scale warwick clone even the 140 gauge black beauty strings he used doesnt wanna stay tuned. I actually have a 4 string custom now for F# in a 38 inch scale with a 185. After Mudvayne he switched up to A on a 5 string. (No idea what gauge) Which is what he's got now on Soften the Glare. For some reason now he plays a Fodera. no idea what that story is about.
I think there was barely any use for the F# string during his early days (I think he wasn’t even able to get right tension string back then), maybe for some long sustained notes (ie B, C or so) to get more “boomy feel”, that’s how I use it sometimes, too. He prefered later the 4 string bases because that extra octave he got from F#/G couldn’t be well articulated anyway. I don’t find any intonation/tuning problem with F# on my 34” Thumb NT 2010 though - we spent some time with my tech doing adjustments to make it work. I used Rotosound DropZone+ .175, now go with Warwick Dark Lord .175 and sometimes with .170/175 Payson/Dingwall F# for other 37” bass. What’s annoying about it though F# loses clarity really fast on 34” and it is impossible to get some relevant harmonic-rich tone out of it. I can tell that 37” bass can make it work better and sound clear longer. But… Thumb is a Thumb. So I can’t wait to get that SC 37”-34” version that’s in works and I hope to make some cool F# progress that hasn’t been done yet! :D That thing with Fodera is just strange. Ryan never really commented about it and guys from Warwick don’t know what/how it happened. They just noticed it on social media. Ryan 99% doesn’t get any “artist money” from Fodera. Perhaps only a share from custom model sales. But… I wonder who would buy it lol. Ryan should have some own Warwick signature back then when it was a hot topic, don’t know why this didn’t happen, I forgot to ask when I had a chance😅
