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06-29-2006, 01:55 PM
| | | | This May Sound Silly But...A Band With 2 Bassists?
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Me and my friend who both play bass were talking about it....is it possible to sound good? Has it ever been done? Is it just a stupid idea?  |
06-29-2006, 01:57 PM
| | | | Willy Nelson used two bassists for quite a while. Kind of strange, but whatever!
Lot's of 'gunslinger' bassists like Stanley Clarke and Victor Wooten tour with a second bassist to hold down the groove while the 'masters' are soloing.
Can't come up with any other examples. IMO... it's hard enough to get one bass to sound clean and punchy in a mix. Two.... good luck! |
06-29-2006, 02:02 PM
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06-29-2006, 02:04 PM
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06-29-2006, 02:06 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Hamilton, Ontario | | | i thought of that too. i really like to go off and solo while playing, and someone has to hold the groove. (as stated above.) i asked my friend, he laughed in my face. it didnt happen as you might of guessed, i would still love to do it though
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06-29-2006, 02:44 PM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: New York | | | the presidents of the usa....
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06-29-2006, 02:47 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Brooklyn NY /SUNY Purchase | | | Ive wanted to do it forever. What Im actually thinking about doing is playing lead with a keyboard player who has an amazing left hand. Paired with my favorite drummer around here I think we could work out some nice tunes. |
06-29-2006, 05:01 PM
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Builder: Valenti Basses | | Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Staten Island NYC | | | Ned's Atomic Dustbin used to have 2 bassists. One lapyed in the lower register with a ( I think) a StingRay) and the other plated in a higher register with a Ric. |
06-29-2006, 05:04 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Canton, Oh (United States) | | Might be hard but if it sounded good it'd be worth it. Bass Extremes
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06-29-2006, 05:06 PM
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06-29-2006, 05:09 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: DES MOINES, IA! | | | There was a band here in Des Moines called "Retrograde" a few years ago. They did the 2 bass thing. One bass player was the "bass" player and the other was basically the "guitar" player. He did all the effects and wild solos and stuff. I never really got into them that much though. If you want to do it, go for it! Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it. |
06-29-2006, 05:10 PM
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Author, Slap It! Funk Studies for the Electric Bass | | | | | Two bass players in a band...
Quote: |
Originally Posted by _Lost_Prophet_ Me and my friend who both play bass were talking about it....is it possible to sound good? Has it ever been done? Is it just a stupid idea? | When I was a Berklee student I played in a band led by another bass player (I think it was for his senior recital). He played fretless and I played fretted, and many of my slap parts fell almost into the same role as a clavinet. In fact, I think some of the bass lines I made up for that project ended up in Slap It!
Other than the two bass players I think it was a pretty typical Berklee ensemble in terms of instrumentation.
It was a lot of fun.
Tony |
06-29-2006, 05:10 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: San Francisco, California | | | My friend and I wanted to do it but we didn't. eventually he formed a band and they had two bassists. I don't like the idea anymore. |
06-30-2006, 07:17 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: May 2003 Location: Kraków, Polska | | I've got some practical experience having done recordings with two basses, three basses (two BGs plus one DB) and also with bowed DB and distorted BG overdubbed. I posted about some of them here: WOLFMANGLER - three-bass weirdness - album and mp3s
What you generally want to do is make sure things sound reasonably clear. When both basses are playing in the lower register it can sound huge but you have to arrange those sections very carefully or just play tightly in unison. One safe and easy thing to do is have one bass play through a low-end-sapping guitar distortion pedal and generally stay out of the low register. That makes it a "guitar bass" and the other bass a "bass bass".
There are lots of other examples from classic country recordings (DB plus Danelectro 6-string bass playing in unison) to black metal. My personal favorites are Renaud Garcia-Fons album Alborea and Cop Shoot Cop's Ask Questions Later. Yeah, those are pretty different!
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06-30-2006, 09:11 AM
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06-30-2006, 10:19 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: New Haven, CT, USA | | | Two Bassists...
The important thing I learned in trying this is: make sure that the basses sound distinct enough from each other that each of the players can hear themselves. Whether you do that by having one player do higher-register playing with effects, while the other does lower-register stuff, or by eq'ing each player's sound differently, or even if the players play different basses... Be sure that you can hear both yourself, and the other bassist, and keep track of those sounds separately. That way it doesn't sound like a huge, muddy train wreck. |
06-30-2006, 10:23 AM
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Originally Posted by gkbass13 the presidents of the usa.... |
Uhm, I think the guitarist just had three strings, and the bassist just had two strings. I don't recall two bassists.
Check out Dos.
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06-30-2006, 08:15 PM
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06-30-2006, 09:57 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Bowling Green, KY | | I was jammin' with my bass teacher just the other day, playing bass/bass. First he would set the groove with more or less static chording (the repeating of the same chords, over and over, until changes) and I would solo over that. He stayed midrange, between the 9th and 14th or so frets, so anything about over below that range sounds great. My soloing was more or less all borrowed from different Jamerson licks, only up-tempoed, and I added in a lot of accents. Only die hard Jamerson listeners would have been able to tell 
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06-30-2006, 10:13 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Iowa | | | To be politically correct: yes, you can do it.
Personally, I don't think it's realistic. | | Thread Tools | Search this Thread | | | | 
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