Identity Crisis

[Hobobob]

You will take all those guys' gigs if you play great time and sound great. Sounding great, in general, means a P or a J type. Sorry to the "all music is art" crowd, but playing a bass that has inappropriate frequency response all over the place ain't art. You show up to the gig with a P or J, the sound man will love you. Show up with a dual parametric mids preamp, soapbars, and mahogany EVERYTHING, the sound man will want to murder you. That stuff can sound really cool in the right context, but a working top 40 band is not it.

That's funny, cuz all three of my top 40 bands seem to like my dual soapbar, active, mahogany bass just fine. Fine enough, in fact, to have used me to replace all of their original bassists. Wouldn't have anything to do with my ability and musical taste now, would it?

 

[Sid Fang]

If you're good enough, it doesn't matter. If you're not good enough, it doesn't matter either.

But if you want to play the "I do only one thing, but I do it damned well" game, you need to be in a big enough market to provide steady demand for your specialized service, NY, LA, Austin, etc.

 

[georgestrings]

IME, if you can actually play, do backup vocals, harmonies, are a good bandmate and a good hang, you'll be ok... if not, it'll be an upstream swim...


- georgestrings

 

[nukes_da_bass]

After giving this more thought, the only thing a bassist is responsible for tonally is initial stage sound- everything else is up to the engineer. If you are getting paid for your work, you need to get along with the engineers.
If its studio recording, the only thing one can do tonally is request more or less of something in your cans (can I have more bass, compression, and less treble?).
Its really up to the engineer- play and invest your pay wisely.