Re: Rascals .jpg photo

[SalAzz@aol.com]

In a message dated 96-08-25 22:49:13 EDT, Steve Beach wrote:

>m
>
>Hey Steve, while your talking to Felix....would you ask him if his B3 was
>modified in any way to allow him to get lots of volume from the bass pedals?
>The Rascals stage rig from that era looked pretty typical for the time, but
>when I listen to "Mickey's Monkey" from the Collections album, I can't
>imagine that much bottom end coming from one 122 stuck in the middle of the
>stage.  Or was his bass coming from those 2-15" Fender Showmans that I saw
>in some other pictures of the Rascals at the time?  Huh, huh? Could you ask?
>Please?

David Chertock responds:

>Recordings are colored by the mics chosen, the mixing process, and how 
>the engineer chooses to EQ. This may be a factor in what you hear. 

Agreed, but I think Steve Beach meant the Rascals early live organ sound, not
the recordings.  I can't think of one Rascals recording that has organ bass.
 They used a studio bass player(s), or perhaps Gene Cornish played bass on
the the early albums.  Felix can be heard playing a few pedals way back in
the mix in a few tunes.

I can answer Steve's question about Felix's early live set-up: One of Felix's
tricks back in the club days was to boost the organ's bass by micing the bass
only from the Leslie to a bass amp on stage.  A cheap high Z mic was mounted
INSIDE the MIDDLE compartment of a Leslie and plugged into a Showman amp and
Dual Showman bottom. That may seem crazy now on paper, but it worked and
sounded excellent.  I don't know if Felix invented this technique, but I knew
another band with close ties to the Rascals that used this technique for
organ bass as well.  

This was before (c. 1964) anyone tried splitting the lower manual and pedals
off to a dedicated bass amp, and long before complete club sound systems with
individual instrument sound reinforcement.  It was just the thing to help
keep up with the "Voice of the Theater" (Altec A7's) driven by a 100 watt
Bogen amplifier and 4 channel mixer, and the "Buchanan Hammer" (ElectroVoice
664 microphone), which was about the best anyone had back then.  The Shure
"Vocal Smasher" (horror of horrors) hadn't surfaced yet.

Felix had to be one bad-ass on the B-3 live in those early days.  Does anyone
know of live recordings of the Rascals from the club days or on live TV
shows??  Their live sound had to be much different than the records.

Sal