Fretless Stradi Bass Jam with Percussive Fingerstyle

Here’s a funky fretless jam on my Stradi Symphony Cora bass, experimenting with some grooves with staccato thumb/fingerstyle, slides, vibrato, and other fretless fun. I’m using Ernie Ball hybrid slinky strings, an OC-2 octaver pedal, a Rodenberg 707b booster, Seamoon FX Skye Machine chorus, and a DG Hyper Luminal compressor. No plugins or digital post processing, just bass and pedals, recorded with the DI of an Eich T-300 amp into a Scarlett interface. I made the midi drum track in Cubase with Addictive Drums, mastering was done with Ozone. This Stradi bass has an Amazaque neck and a Bocote fingerboard that takes roundwounds very well, there’s a custom piezo pickup in the ebony bridge that adds nice bite and definition to the tone. Here I’ve set a blend of 4/5 piezo, Delano Xtender on full, and tone on full, the controls are on the back with slide pots and a 3-way switch. The bass has a solid roasted Alder body and quartersawn Oak top wood with Shou Sugi Ban fire finish, it’s torched! The fingerboard is lowered in a curve for my lobster claw technique, I’m plucking from underneath the strings to get the percussive sound, no slaps involved. The piezo pickup works great for ghost notes and popping, as traditional as this bass looks it can really rock out and is amazing for funk. Cheers to Marek and Agnieszka Dąbek from Stradi for their dedication and craftsmanship on these instruments.
I first wrote the main grooves, then created the drum track, jammed on it for a while and then recorded this final take on it. I shoot my videos in one take and always go for improvisation and free-flow, when you’re really digging in it’ll usually lead to some fun happy accidents. I’m taking some risks and there are some rough edges but that’s where the fun is!
Hope you enjoy this jam, it’s been a while because I’ve been busy recording some amazing new studio albums the past year, recorded mainly with this bass! Very stoked on the results and can’t wait to share the new music, working towards the releases now and glad to have some time to shoot videos again. Here’s the first one, check my socials for outtakes and other footage:
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Apple Music:   / remco-hendriks  
Bandcamp: https://remcohendriks.bandcamp.com/
Trill Seekers / Bananas 7” Vinyl: https://bit.ly/TrillSeekersBananas

Thanks for watching!