Michael Manring
Michael Manring ( born June 1960 in Washington, DC ) is an electric bassist from the San Francisco Bay Area (North - California).
- 3.1 albums
- 3.2 collaborations
- 3.3 Collections
- 3.4 DVD, Video
Life
Michael Manring was the youngest of four siblings. His family lived in Norfolk, Virginia, she moved in 1969 in a suburb of Washington DC The Manrings were a musically and artistically very active family that provided a fertile background for Michael's musical development. His brother Doug - a guitarist and drummer who later lived a long time in Japan - made him too high-school hours brisk active rhythm section, they made excursions into jazz rock and fusion, playing rock classics at beer parties or Popstandards in restaurants and at wedding receptions.
Manring was a pupil of bassist Peter Princiotto from the area around Spring Hill, Virginia. Likewise, he studied and toured the mid-1980s with Jaco Pastorius and began to develop his own style. Manring studied in the late 1970s music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, but finished his studies in 1979. Even then, he toured regularly with different bands. In his time at the college, he took the opportunity to play every day with many different musicians and musically.
In the 1980s Manring was represented on numerous boards of the American label Windham Hill Records. Manring played bass not only in his own music Montreux, but also with the bands Spastic Ink, Skol - Patrol, Wadada Leo Smith's Miles Davis tribute band Yo Miles! and Attention Deficit. He accompanied Alex Skolnick, Larry Kassin, Tom Darter, Steve Morse, David Cullen, Alex de Grassi, Will Ackerman, Henry Kaiser and many other musicians. Especially with Michael Hedges whom he had a long and deep relationship, he played since the mid- 1980s until his death in 1997, almost all albums by hedges with, often as the only guest musician. He was also the only musician, kept going on tour with the hedges. 1994 voted him the readers of the journal bass player for the bass player of the year.
Since 2005, Manring member of the band DeMania consisting of Manring on bass, guitarist Alex de Grassi and percussionist Christopher Garcia. In November, Michael Manring toured for the first time at the invitation of the Hungarian Sándor Szabó guitarist in Hungary. Besides Manring and Szabó also the German bassist Ralf Gauck on tour, Sándor Szabó was played a 12 - string baritone guitar. On the basis of three very bassfrequenten instruments called the tour " The power of the deep."
Michael Manring lives in Oakland, California.
Playing style and musical influences
Because of his association with the Windham Hill label Manring was often referred to as New Age musician. He himself, however, shows an almost impish pleasure to challenge preconceived ideas, and can squeeze into any niche. His album Thonk he referred, for example, as "the first new-age death metal fusion album". Originally a jazz bassist Manring advanced over the years his musical horizons in many different directions.
Manring has a solid musical knowledge and understands the electric bass as a solo instrument. He wants to show that the electric bass guitar is a vital and expressive instrument and uses the possibilities afforded by the electric bass through special extensions and effects such as loop - station and e-bow. During some performances, he plays several pieces simultaneously on two or four electric basses. In addition to these deposits, however, show he's a versatile gifted composer thoughtful solo bass compositions and experimental music. On his solo album, Book of Flame he combines technology and fretless bass with the sound of household appliances or cardboard boxes.
His technique is a virtuoso, he uses many open tunings, the bass slapping own techniques and in addition the to finding more in the guitar tapping techniques. In general, it sets the bass music often as an electric guitar a. He usually plays fretless bass, which offers a variety of possibilities, the tone and pitch exactly like an acoustic bass to change. Rhythmically Manring is very versatile and often used polyrhythms. It repeats after him, he was doing things on the bass, " were never done before, which are almost impossible and are illegal in most states."
Manring uses his virtuosity almost always in the service of music. Some pieces, however, he places it in the foreground, creates true sound storm and transported in a paradoxical way nevertheless a meaningful musical statement. His enthusiasm and love for music is always perceptible and continued unabated for nearly three decades.
Technical Equipment
Manring plays the bass of the company Zon Guitars, the so-called Zon Hyper Bass, an unusual flexible instrument, designed the Manring together with Joseph Zon. Specific mechanisms and a special bridge allow by small lever retuning every single string as well as all four strings the same time, a system that is similar to the Trans - Trem guitar. The impetus for this development was due to the increasingly frequent retuning the bass for open tunings, which Manring first performed between the individual pieces. When he came up with the idea to change the mood of the bass throughout the piece, he did so in a conventional way by turning the mechanics. However, this approach is strictly limited, so he came up with the idea to realize this possibility by a technical change in the bass. First, he had a Music Man Sting Ray Bass change before he designed the Hyper Bass with Zon. The Hyper Bass has regular pickups Bartolini brand, which decrease each string individually and lead out to the amplifier, and four Fishman Transducers, which are incorporated into the body of the bass and are mixed into one signal.
In addition to the Hyper Bass Manring uses a whole range of other bass guitars, a list on its website lists the following models:
- Zon Legacy Elite Special fretless, nicknamed " Bub "
- Homemade -style Jazz Bass fretless
- Zon Michael Manring Hyper Bass
- Zon Custom Fretless, nicknamed "Junior" or "Son of Bub "
- Larrivee 5-string fretless acoustic bass guitar
- MusicMan Stingray fretless with very thin strings
- Paroutaud Music Laboratories 5-string fretless Infinite Sustain prototype
- PRS fretless
- Riverhead Unicorn fretless
- Riverhead Unicorn fretted bass
- Zon prototype headless fretted bass, nicknamed " Vinny "
- Zon Legacy Elite 6 -string fretless
- Zon Legacy prototype 10 -string bass (5 x 2).
Of the various bass amps that used Manring, SWR Mo 'Bass amplifier should be emphasized, a multi-effects bass analog amplifier.
Discography
Under use of
Albums
Collaborations
- 2001 Addition By Subtraction ( Free Electric Sound)
- 2003 Controlled By Radar ( Free Electric Sound)
- 2006 What We Do ( Free Electric Sound)
- 2001 Scatter (MKD Music)
- 2001 EQUILIBRE (Solid Air Records )
- 2002 Human Factor (Human Factor)
- 2005 Torn Between Dimensions ( Free Electric Sound)
- 2006 DeMania ( Tropo Records)
- 2007 Falling Awake ( Aesthetic Records)