Two Bass players

[David Webb]

I went to Hawkwind gig at the weekend - nostalgia trip.
They had two bass players part of the time. Never seen that before.
Why?
David

[Pedulla?]

Because it takes two people to live up to Lemmy's shredtastic bass lines.


Sorry, I couldn't resist, I really don't know why that would be.

[PoundinThunder]

u saw spinal tap?

lol victor had a bass player when i saw him but thats way different.

[Binnie]

the only time i seen two bass players was when the main band invited the other band on stage to play on of there songs.

ended up with like 4 guitarists 2 bass players 2 singers and a drummer.

[cnltb]

Stanley clarke also had another bassist with him when I saw him a while back.

[Jools4001]

I played in a band with two bass players once. It forces each player to be very disciplined if the band is to sound tight (even down to playing syncopated dead notes together).

What it allowed us to do was have one bass playing melodic lines like Peter Hook in New Order, while the other held down the bass end. There were keys in the band and a guitarist who was only comfortable with chords. It worked OK but didn't last long - maybe somebody was trying to tell us something

[Dave Muscato]

I had an idea once for a group called the Double Bass Duo (get it?) with a doublebass player, an electric player, and maybe a drummer. Never did put it together, but I still think it would be fun.

[jefkritz]

i used to be in a band with 2 bassists. usually, like jools said, we'd be creating a double deep groove, generally playing in different registers.

sometimes we'd do unison for a killer effect (dif tones, one effected, etc).

also, it let one of us do melodic lead type stuff. i learned a lot about soloing and effectively using effects from being in that band

[Floridabwoy]

Ian Neville's Dumpstaphunk has two bassist.

[Kamuilija]

I once participated in a project with three electric bass players and nothing else. One fiver and two 4'ers one of which was fretless. We just did two gigs, both to full houses. With three different basses, it was surprisingly easy to deal the parts: one would lay down the groove, one would play chords and one the head. We did some jazz standards, one Bach interpretation and closed with Hendrix. It was really nice project, though it couldn't have lasted longer, it was such an untypical thing in this small northern capital.

And it's been done "professionally" too, Miles Davis had two bassists (as well as two players of most other instruments) on his early electric bands. Bitches Brew, for example... Cool stuff!

[mike1762]

A lot of the songs I record have multiple bass tracks. I never have them playing in unison. I might have 1 playing the root, 1 playing a more melodic part, and 1 slapping and popping. The song on my MySpace page has 2 bass tracks (1 is mixed kind of far back in the mix).

http://www.myspace.com/mike1762

[Zoidberg523]

I like playing with another bass player while in a band setting; they can play the root note and hold down the low end while I play faster and an octave higher!

[appelsauce]

i got to see bootsy collins and they had two bassists
they where playing "we've got the funk" simultaneous.
it was fuking awsome