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Good bassist, bad tone
- Thread starter ChopperDave
- Start date
I love TOOL and Justin's playing but hate his tone most of the time. I wish he just played a passive RIC or Jazz bass.
when you go on an audition they're listening for a good sound. having a bad sound is not entirely separate from you as a musician... great chops or ideas or whatever else, without a pleasing tone is just.. well.. not good music.
i can't think of any musicians i really like whos sound i don't enjoy.
i can't think of any musicians i really like whos sound i don't enjoy.
The thing about geddy is he has had different tones...u can clearly hear that 70s fender jazz bite on limelight and freewill and its growly mid presence(which I personally like) or the more bassy, wooly ric tone like on fly by night(which is less than stellar I imho).
+1
I like his studio tone with Cream, but some of his live work sounds, to me anyway, like the speakers are about to fry. I'm not a big fan of his distorted bass sound, just my opinion.
I kind of like Carlos D's solid jazz bass tone in Interpol. In case anybody didn't already know, he left the band in 2010.
I've always liked Rourke, and Marr is one of my favorite guitarists. I don't know that Rourke could have done much more as Marr's guitar parts really ran the gamut between chords and melody lines; constantly interweaving. Also, I recall watching a video in which Rourke stated that he was forced to tune up a full step (or more?) on a number of tracks to play within the range that Morrissey and Marr required. He said his strings, "felt like a cheese grater."
Stanley Clarke. I'm thinking mostly of his tone on Romantic Warrior. All sub-bass rumble and weird tinny fret buzz. Not much in between. I can see why it was different from a Fender tone, but it would take time for people to really get scooped bass tone that worked. I saw a Rig Rundown of Stanley recently, and it looks like he uses a wee Fender guitar amp for treble. Yikes! You can always tell when it is him... I think it must be the 'quack' that he gets from having such a low action; usually whilst playing one or two stock jazz licks really fast and ending with weirdly affected neoclassical cello vibrato.
+1 Love his chops (astonishing at times) but just don't dig that soloed Jazz bass bridge pickup.
For some reason though, the studio version of Continuum has a much fuller tone to it. I LOVE his tone on that version.
John Entwistle jacked up his tone. Perfect in the real me and eminence front but live his highs were so intense I literally yanked after his last show at Hollywood bowl. Live at Leeds his tone rules. P bass and Marshall's. My favorite tone he had was on the smothers brothers show doin my generation.
+1 Especially in the 90s, he used WAAAY to much treble live. I do dig his tone on "The Real Me", "My Generation" and "I Cant Explain".
Oh and by the way, its "Bass Guitarist" not "bassist." (John would agree
).
I used to hate Stewart Zender's tone, to me he rolled the tone off a bit too much, but wow he had some of the best bass lines of the nineties.
Cliff Burton and Jack Bruce. Great players, but you can't hear them.
Also, Sting is one of my favorite bassists but he's too present in the mix on Regatta de Blanc. During Message in a Bottle he completely drowns Andy out.
Also, Sting is one of my favorite bassists but he's too present in the mix on Regatta de Blanc. During Message in a Bottle he completely drowns Andy out.
I think his tone is/was pretty good but it's true i guess that it's not very unique either. It certainly does the job on songs like Not Even Jail though.
I dont really mind thaat he left interpol because honestly after Antics, i didn't really care about their other records. They never managed to repeat the greatness of their first two. I think partly because they have a pretty specific sound and its the kind fo band that after maybe three records you're just bound to start parodying yourself and basically rewriting older songs more than truly writing new ones. The Chameleons sounded a lot like them in the 80's and i love them more than Interpol but they also only have two good records as far as i'm concerned.... The only way out for Interpol was to start trying something new, which they didn't.
