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It is surprising to listen to isolated bass tracks and not only hear how the tone sounds completely different isolated, but how sloppy some of the isolated tracks sound. The Steve Harris, Frank Bello, and Cliff Burton tracks come to mind, but their bass sounds absolutely killer and tight in the band mix.
Sting, totally.
Dude rocks a tone I've spend thousands of dollars to get away from. Obviously I'm the one doing it wrong.
Dude rocks a tone I've spend thousands of dollars to get away from. Obviously I'm the one doing it wrong.
Being critical of isolated bass tracks, or any other isolated tracks, is kinda missing the point isn't it?
It does give cool insight in how the real bass tone interacts with the rest of the instruments in the mix.
Man...I love his tone pure cutting through and he's not playing it in a traditional sense he's using it as a solo instrument so of course he would crank the mids and boost the bass a little. Who can say they haven't plugged their jazz bass in solo'ed the bridge pup and tried to sound like Jaco?? His tone is unique but it's far from a bad tone.
It's a 62' jazz bass going into a acoustic 360 I think it would be impossible to get a bad tone out of that!.
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Like Aaronvonrock mentioned, I was also surprised at how sloppy some of them sounded. Steve Harris being the most surprising but this was back in the days before pro-tools, quantizing and computer editing. People went in and played live! In my opinion, that is why those recordings sound so good.
Oh, I agree with that, but I think it's silly to say this sounds sloppy, or this sounds this sounds whatever when listened to out of context.
Yes and no. When people EQ out the rest of the band, they end up EQ'ing out all kinds of bass tone / overtones that were living in the ranges of the other instruments, so no matter what an isolated track is a tonal lie (unless isolated by literally muting the other tracks at the source multi-track recording).
My vote goes to Ben Shepherd of Soundgarden I think. One of my all-time favourite bands, and I love his lines and his playing; but all too often I find it gets totally lost in the mix.
Depending on a lot of things, there are enough Primus songs where Claypool's tone isn't so hot either, but sometimes I wonder if that's just the bizarre technique (not to mention bizarre line) fooling me...
Depending on a lot of things, there are enough Primus songs where Claypool's tone isn't so hot either, but sometimes I wonder if that's just the bizarre technique (not to mention bizarre line) fooling me...
Jaco, definitely Jaco. I'm thinking you're gonna see that answer a lot. And Billy Sheehan, those will be the top two, just my prediction.
I think he would have been completely lost among those down-tuned guitars if not for all that clank. Although, that clank was more of a result of his style than his tone IMO. I could be wrong. I've listened to a lot of KORN but I'm no fieldy expert.
True but the only way I can hear Cliff Burton on his last two albums with Metallica is by listening to the isolated bass and it's not my cup of Heineken. I like how he sounds on Kill 'Em All though.
Tone being good or bad is so subjective. But those of you who said Jaco and Anthony Jackson are just wrong.
Anyhooo, I love Victor Wooten's playing but his tone kinda sucks. : D
Anyhooo, I love Victor Wooten's playing but his tone kinda sucks. : D
I didn't really mean listening is pointless. I just meant that criticizing them was silly.
Hmm...yeah I guess you're right since it's not meant to be listened to without the rest of the band playing.
