If you saw the Grammy's, you saw Randy playing bass for her like he often does on her TV appearances.

On the first song, Let's Stay Together, he plays "synth bass," meaning he's playing a keyboard to do the bass part. But for hte 2nd song, Fly Like A Bird, he pulled out a regular electric bass guitar.

most times he plays the keyboard, like during the Through The Rain appearances.

My question, is why does he usually play the keyboard bass?? Couldn't a regular bass be used??

Bass players out there, can you shed some light?

A bass with the range of a 97-note piano (8 octaves) would require 12 strings on a 36 fret neck. There are such basses, but Randy wasn't playing one (as you know). He may have needed more range than a typical 4,5 or 6 string bass would allow. Or he may have been going for a tone he couldn't achieve on the bass.

I liked his performance, but I wasn't really paying attention during the keyboard song. I only noticed it was him when he started playing bass.

Stax said:

Don't you mean 88 notes??

Yeah I figured it's the sound patch.... I play keyboard and have lots of bass sounds on my synth which you would't get on a real bass.

But on a plane today I was listening to We Belong Together and Through The Rain.... and I don't see why they couldn't use a regular bass.

WBT has a techno type sound, but why not just play it using the real bass? I was wondering if any bass players here could shed some more light. like when do you decide to swtich to a keyboard.... I see a lot of bass playesr hav ea keyboard often in front of them too like on Shotime at the apollo.


I don't tink the bass line in WBT needs too many octaves.

Concert grand piano's have 97 keys, a full 8 octaves. The bass line in WTB probably could have been played on the bass, rather than piano, I suppose. I don't know the song that well. Although I play bass, I cant play any piano, so I can't really speak to why a bass player would choose one over the other.