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Common misconceptions in bass....
- Thread starter birminghambass
- Start date
When you are talking about great stylists on the instrument, yeah, they are going to sound like them no matter what they are playing. Great players know how to find their sound out of any rig. Take Geddy Lee for example. He likes a bright, growly, snarly sound with high-end distortion, and he is going to sound like that whether he is playing the Ric or the Jazz or the Wal. Flea on the other hand, sounds quite different from album to album with his Modulus years having a very different tone than his Wal, MM, or current jazz with flats phase.
However, it still drives me crazy when people pretend gear doesn't matter and that music just flows out of their hands. How many effects pedals does Beck have on his pedal board-30?
A large part of many musicians' tone is in their hands.
Does that mean ALL of their tone? No.
Does that mean that gear NEVER matters? No.
Does that mean that gear ALWAYS matters? No.
Do some here always get hung up on absolutes? Maybe.
Does that mean ALL of their tone? No.
Does that mean that gear NEVER matters? No.
Does that mean that gear ALWAYS matters? No.
Do some here always get hung up on absolutes? Maybe.
How about all the ads for gear with inflated prices, advertised as previously "owned" or "played" or "signed" by (insert famous players name).
But if it's made with the same parts except for the logo and assembled in a home instead of a factory in America or Mexico it's basically the same...no?
It's like the old Heathkit stuff - you could pay to have one built or build it yourself but you'd still have a Heathkit.
Reminds me of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance - the classical vs romantic approaches to understanding.
Ric5 would be the classical guy, Archer the romantic.
Ric is breaking a Fender bass into its individual parts and sees the object as a sum of parts with certain specifications.
Archer sees the Fender bass as an entity that is not necessarily defined by the specifications of the parts but exists as a whole once assembled.
Both have their merits, but there can be a middle ground.
Personaly, I would call it a Jazz bass without a Fender logo.
11. The Precision bass has a deeper tone than the Jazz bass. 
Although nothing beats an older EB-3 set on the "1" varitone selection for sheer depth of roar!
Although nothing beats an older EB-3 set on the "1" varitone selection for sheer depth of roar!
LOL!! True.
My favorite is actually a quote on my rants page. When people claim that a certain portion of a relic job, as in removing a little paint from various parts of a bass' body, actually allows it to resonate and breathe so it's tone improves. C'mon... if that statement had any validity then why not just get a naturally finished bass since it's tone ought to be fantastic then? Is the point really just a fashion compromise?
+1,000,000. My friends try to tell me this. Then I play "I Want You Back" (albeit with some mistakes, but still...) and ask them to duplicate. Guess how many have done it??
(If you guessed zero, then you are correct.)
Actually underpriced crap would sound better, as both are crap, but one crap costs less than the other.
A large part of many musicians' tone is in their hands.
Does that mean ALL of their tone? No.
Does that mean that gear NEVER matters? No.
Does that mean that gear ALWAYS matters? No.
Do some here always get hung up on absolutes? Maybe.
Basses can sound different? Whaaaaaaa????????
Yup. Could Victor Wooten play brilliantly on an SX? Sure. Is there a reason why he plays Fodera instead of SX? Abso-freakin-lutely.
Jaco only needed 4 TO PLAY LIKE JACO. How bored would we be as bassists if our only goal as artists was to mimic Mr. Pastorius? How bored would our audiences be? And how crappy would punk and ska and metal and bluegrass sound with a Jaco clone on bass?
Jaco was a genius. He was not the only genius. Bill "The Buddah" Dickens is also a genius. He needs 7, minimum.
And so.....???
Analyzing it a bit more, maybe the sound is in the fingers, and the tone is in the gear.
The best example I've personally heard:
Our guitarist plays a G&L strat through a Mesa combo, but he sounds essentially the same playing a cheap guitar through a worn out old 1970s Yamaha combo amp.
You can tell it's (relatively) crappy gear, but he's still got the 'Ed' sound.
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On topic: a common misconception: "you don't need to hear the bass, just feel it"
Totally wrong, like saying you don't need to hear the drums.
A pumpin' bassline and a funky beat fills the dance floor every time.
The best example I've personally heard:
Our guitarist plays a G&L strat through a Mesa combo, but he sounds essentially the same playing a cheap guitar through a worn out old 1970s Yamaha combo amp.
You can tell it's (relatively) crappy gear, but he's still got the 'Ed' sound.
-----------------------------------------------------
On topic: a common misconception: "you don't need to hear the bass, just feel it"
Totally wrong, like saying you don't need to hear the drums.
A pumpin' bassline and a funky beat fills the dance floor every time.
Who cares what Jaco "needed"? Did he play every style and every genre of music? Did I miss Jaco's post-thrash album, or his black-metal phase?
I don't believe so.
Good question, but I think a lot of people fill in the blanks with the answer they want. Nobody seems to be handing him an SX at the moment.
In regards to the Jaco arguments, he has been dead for a while, so can't ask him what he wants and there's a good amount of stuff that simply wasn't the best when he was playing. Would he have played a nicely made 5 or 6? We'll never know, but I'm sure someone will opine.
