Jet Harris on Kon Tiki - 36-24-36 - etc

[RuneMoe]

Jet has a special muted sound on the bass on the original recordings of Kon Tiki and 36-24-36. Is he just muting the string, or has he any effect box?
It is the same on "South of The Border" ?

Regards
Rune

[JimN]

Hi, Rune,

All contemporary pictures of The Shadows with Jet in the line-up show that he used his Precision Basses with both the pickup-cover and bridge-cover in place. That was normal at the time. The fashion for removing those metal accessories on the Precision and Jazz basses didn't come about until later in the 1960s and the covers were seen as part of the design and the "look".

With the bridge-cover in place, it wouid not be possible to palm-mute the strings at the bridge (though maybe some limited muting would be possible by placing the heel of the hand against the strings between the two covers). Instead, it seems likely that Jet achieved the Kon-Tiki sound by tone-shaping on the amp and percussive use of the plectrum. The only additional damping which might have been in use would have been the piece of neoprene glued to the inside of the bridge-cover as a permanently-on damper making contact with the strings at the bridge point. This was discontinued on later editions of the Precision, but it was there on early examples.

Hope this helps,

JN

[RuneMoe]

Thanks Jim!
It is a special sound. Thanks for the info

Regards
Rune

[chas]

Just to add to Jim's comprehensive answer, the neoprene pad under the bridge cover tends to wear away over the years to the point where it's not really having any effect. Jet's Precision Bass was new/recent at the time of the recording, so the pad would have had it's maximum damping effect. Add to this flat wound strings, use of plectrum and play this number between the two covers, then you'll have the sound (guitarwise anyway - anything else is amp and studio!)

Chas.

[Iain Purdon]

Jet himself answered this question on the original ShadowMusic site. The effect was a combination of him playing it as described above and echo and EQ being added by the recording studio. "Bags of wellie and maximum treble" is roughly how Jet put it.

[Iain Purdon]

You can get near the sound now by palm-muting and picking vigorously while using Bass + Middle - Treble + and adding some echo