Just asking a question to see what would be the best bang for my buck.
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Best Bass for Metal?
- Thread starter Rnr..........4
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Irony, that’s all. Welcome to TalkBass.
Listen to KBD — he’s got you covered. This is his topic.
I was goofing. There is a good amount of good natured fun on here. KBD knows his stuff, particularly Ibanez basses. I would get a used Soundgear, personally, for metal, but an MTD will be a great instrument if you like how it sounds.
The saved cash could go to upgraded electronics in an Ibanez.
The saved cash could go to upgraded electronics in an Ibanez.
Plenty of people have used Bart pickups for metal.
For tone?
Anything. Metal has been played on just about every kind of bass there is. There's probably somebody (likely in Japan) playing metal on a Hello Kitty bass.
For looks? Something pointy and evil looking. Or a Black Hello Kitty bass. Who's a bad kitty?
Anything. Metal has been played on just about every kind of bass there is. There's probably somebody (likely in Japan) playing metal on a Hello Kitty bass.
For looks? Something pointy and evil looking. Or a Black Hello Kitty bass. Who's a bad kitty?
The Premium Ibanez basses as suggested above are probably the best bass, money can buy under $1000. They are excellent for any genre.
The best bass for anything, including the Apocalypse, is the Mothman. Don't worry about shopping for it. It will find you if it decides you will be its next owner.
Rick B.
Rick B.
lol! ok maybe I will move to West Virginia and hope for the best.
It's all good. I just read it wrong. The MTD looks great for $950 but I don't really want to spend that much. Might as well go with a Music Man HH Sterling and another guy has a Warwick German Made Corvette double HH for $950.
Isn't it generally difficult to cut through a mix with scooped mids? That's what I always hear here.
You normally would boost the mids to better cut through the mix, not scoop them.
In my personal opinion scooped mids makes for horrible sounding tone as well, beside being a certain recipe to drown in the mix, sounding like an undefined mess of low frequency mud and high frequency hiss.
Sounds in the mid frequency spectrum are much easier distinguishable and will appear more articulated and defined to the human ear than sounds in the low and high frequency spectrum.
Also to me a lower mids/mids heavy bass tone is the definition of a punchy tone.
I guess you living in an alternate universe where the nature of the human ear is the exact opposite of how it works in this one could explain your post.
That, or you are a mutant.
But something tells me neither of those possibilities are very likely to be the actual explanation.
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What about standard frets vs this multi fret/fan style that've I've been seeing..can you hit the notes you normally would like on a standard fretboard?
I just want a bass sound that you can hear along with the rhythm guitar and drums. I'm not interested in that nu-metal, sludge sound that many metal bass players seem to love.
I'm talking bass like Gene's tone in this song with a little more power behind it.. guess I answered my own question.. P/J active pickups. Maybe a Schecter Stealth (basswood, active P/J pickups) or Thunderbird might do the trick.
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The key to cutting through a metal mix in my experience is to get the high-mid frequency for your attack dialed in just right, in its own range below the grit of the guitars. I usually find mine between 1.5 and 1.8 kHz. You may want to scoop a little (emphasis on "little") in the middle of the mids to let the body of the guitar tone breathe, and have the guitars dial back their low end so your bass can fill out the low mids for support - I find this usually starts around 160 Hz. Obviously specific adjustments are all very dependent on musical style, playing style, desired mix, gear, etc... but somewhere in there, you guys will need to carefully divvy up the frequency range. If you get it right, a little sculpting goes a long way. Coming from guitar, you might be surprised at how much impact seemingly minor adjustments can have on your sound in the mix.
Both my main players are Soundgears. I love the necks, the string spacing works for me, the tone is malleable, and the price is right. I always fight with the Bartolinis a bit before they give me the goods. You might be better off getting pickups with a bit more teeth right off the bat so you don't have to upgrade later.
Both my main players are Soundgears. I love the necks, the string spacing works for me, the tone is malleable, and the price is right. I always fight with the Bartolinis a bit before they give me the goods. You might be better off getting pickups with a bit more teeth right off the bat so you don't have to upgrade later.
Cliff William's tone is less about mid-scooping and more about emphasizing the fundamental with only a little bit of harmonic structure.....this you can get out of almost any bass with flatwounds and not too much color in EQ (not exactly flat but relying more on overall volume for girth than the EQ)
Ibanez all the way. I actually like my Bart-Designed Ibby pickups. They were much improved with a preamp swap, however.
Also, I play almost all heavy metal, and have no issues in the mix. I boost mids, though, not cut them.
Also, I play almost all heavy metal, and have no issues in the mix. I boost mids, though, not cut them.
Personally I wouldn't want a bass with fanned frets, though hitting the right notes is just a matter of being sufficiently familiar with the fretboard.
I doubt those bass players mainly playing basses with fanned frets got any problems whatsoever with getting around on the fretboard.
So if you get one it will just be a matter of playing it enough before the unusual placement of the frets will become second nature to you.
Well, not too familiar with the others, but Cliff Burton didn't really have a particularly scooped tone, and Geezer Butler certainly didn't.
Looking at the basses they played/plays, Cliff played an Aria Pro II with a single humbucker in the middle position, which would typically give a quite mid heavy tone, a Rickenbacker 4001, which typically have a lot of upper mids and high frequency bite, though he replaced the original pickups with a Gibson "mudbucker" in the neck position and a stacked Seymour Duncan Jazz pickup in the bridge, which combined I guess could result in a somewhat mid scooped tone, the Gibson pickup picking up a lot of low end, hence it's nick name, "mudbucker", and the Jazz pickup in the bridge position picking up a lot of higher frequencies, plus when you combine two pickups it will usually phase out some mid frequency content, though listening to him playing it I don't think that is really all that pronounced.
At some point Cliff Burton also played an Alembic Spoiler II with 2 humbuckers respectively one in the far bridge position and one in the far neck position, same story about using 2 pickups in conjunction, though it doesn't necessarily results in a mid scooped sound, just less mids than when only using 1 pickup at a time.
Geezer Butler always played a P Bass, which are known to generally be rather mid heavy.
Pickup configuration however only plays one part in how your tone is going to sound, choice of amp and cabinet, amp settings, and eventual an additional preamp and equalizers used plays a huge role as well.
If I was you, I'd probably find a B.C Rich Beast bass and swap out the stock dual P pickups with 2 Nordstrand The Power Blade P pickups.
Here's what the B.C Rich Beast Bass looks like:
And here's what the Nordstrand The Power Blade pickup sounds like when it's just a single one in a P Bass:
I imagine 2 of those in conjunction would get you a massively gutsy and full sounding, extremely powerful, punchy and thunderous, bass tone.
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You definitely want to avoid scooping mids then, that’s where the cruddy nu-metal bass sound comes from. Fieldy has maybe the most heavily scooped sound I’ve ever heard.
A Thunderbird would do it for you for sure, if you’re lucky you can find a 2018 with a Babicz bridge for around 900ish. A quality Ibanez like a lot of folks here are suggesting could work very nicely as well.
