Personally I'm clean all the way except maybe a fuzz on one tune out of the show, but it's a personal choice. Some stoner bassists have fuzz on all the time, and it's a thing, in that music it sounds right.
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The obsession with distortion
- Thread starter RED J
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- distortion obsession
Even knowing and admitting to my wife that it's not rational, I ordered an Ultimate Drive today, to compare to my V Drive that I'm SURE can get the same sound. And I'm trying to talk myself out of an Orange Juice. And Sweet Baby. To add to the 4 or 5 I already have. But at least i'm starting at the 'bottom'. . .?
Harmonic distortion is what provides the magic in Aphex Aural Exciters. The trick is not to have enough in the mix to make it actually sound distorted.
OP's request. "I just want to get some insight on why everyone. (edit, so many ), seemingly regardless of instrument, are
just so into maxed out fuzz , distortion, overdrive, etc."
I think if you carefully correlate those persons who prefer distortion/overdrive etc. And those who don't, a generational pattern may emerge. That pattern could be a result of musical and popular "norms" that were prevalent during the musicians formative years. Let me be clear and say I am not defending any preference of my own, just trying to respond to OP's post. A careful tracking of these facts would be interesting.
just so into maxed out fuzz , distortion, overdrive, etc."
I think if you carefully correlate those persons who prefer distortion/overdrive etc. And those who don't, a generational pattern may emerge. That pattern could be a result of musical and popular "norms" that were prevalent during the musicians formative years. Let me be clear and say I am not defending any preference of my own, just trying to respond to OP's post. A careful tracking of these facts would be interesting.
I really have gotten a lot of insight and viewpoints that I had just never realized or thought about.
Like I said, I have never really been against it per ce, a lot of classic tunes have relied upon it.
It is still a bit of a curiosity to me, probably because it has been more of a spice than a main course of the kinds of music I have played over the years.
But just like distortion, volume , or how many notes in a bar, to how many layers of effects are put into a piece, electric music has evolved from space to saturation to everything in between. It all fits somewhere.
I ask questions to understand things, some take offense but most give constructive input. It's been interesting.
Like I said, I have never really been against it per ce, a lot of classic tunes have relied upon it.
It is still a bit of a curiosity to me, probably because it has been more of a spice than a main course of the kinds of music I have played over the years.
But just like distortion, volume , or how many notes in a bar, to how many layers of effects are put into a piece, electric music has evolved from space to saturation to everything in between. It all fits somewhere.
I ask questions to understand things, some take offense but most give constructive input. It's been interesting.
The sax thing was interesting and new to me. I do recall jazz guitar players going for a "horn-like" tone, and somewhere heard the comparison of highly overdriven bass to a pipe organ, though to me it mostly sounded like a hyper-amplified fart.
Yeah I caught the tail end of that trend in the 90s when I started playing. I was into super clean, hi fi, fusion/jazz tones. Hell, all we had was Bass Player magazine back then plus records and real life experience to learn about gear and define our styles.
Problem is if you want to be heard easily, that really only works in super clean mixes where the bass has a lot of sonic space.
I started getting a lot of work in heavy alt rock bands and I really wanted to preserve that tone on records, but once I started working with great producers, they showed me how important distortion was in that context. Pretty eye opening stuff because a lot of tones I thought were clean in a mix, were actually pretty hairy when soloed.
So a lot of this stuff is context related. I am back to doing a lot more fusion/funk and I use a lot of clean tones. But since I have used OD for so many years, now I know ways to use it even in that context. That was something I never would have considered when I started down this path as a kid.
Of the few examples of awful distorted bass in Fusion that I can think of was Stanley Clarke's use of distortion on Return To Forever's "Hymn To The Seventh galaxy"The sax thing was interesting and new to me. I do recall jazz guitar players going for a "horn-like" tone, and somewhere heard the comparison of highly overdriven bass to a pipe organ, though to me it mostly sounded like a hyper-amplified fart.
On the tune "After The Cosmic Rain"he plays a solo at 2:56 on a Gibson EB2 that sounds like a wounded whooly mammoth!
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Awful??? That was the best solo I ever heard him play!
There are plenty of guys who use distortion in Fusion. Lefevbre has been doing it for years and he's played with about every NYC fusion act out there.
+1
While there certainly is no rule against using overdrive and distortion in metal, it's generally beneficial to maintain a relatively clean tone in modern metal*, since distortion will often clip those high and high-mid frequencies that are needed to slice through dense mixes. Bass with dirt on it often has more sonic room in rock and classic metal* and you generally can sacrifice those high frequencies to a certain extent without repercussion in the mix.
*When I refer to modern metal, I'm generally referencing de-tuned metal based around a high-gain American or non-British European guitar sound (e.g., Mesa/Boogie, Peavey 5150, Diezel, etc.) with a very heavy tom and kick drum sound as opposed to classic metal, which is usually in standard 440 or a half-step down tuning based around a moderate-gain British guitar sound (e.g., Marshall, Orange, Hiwatt, etc.) and with less emphasis on heavy kick and tom.
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That sounds very similar to my tonal journey. I came from the school of having as clean as tone as possible. I wasn't opposed to distortion on bass per se, but anytime I used any type of distortion effect, it was meant to be very intentional and obvious. Later, as I explored tone and got to hear some isolated bass tracks from some of my favorite records, I realized really, how important a little bit of distortion helped bass lines sit in a mix between the harmony instruments (usually a guitar or maybe organ or keyboard in most popular music) and the drums. Introducing a little bit of dirt into your bass tone can also help you from falling into the trap of having that uninspired bass tone that unfortunately plagues a lot of local players. I like a rock bass tone that still has a lot of definition, but has just enough edginess to it. See Entwistle below:
I still base my sound upon a good, solid clean bass tone fundamental, but I have enjoyed exploring various modes of distortion over the past couple of years, and I really think it's been incredibly beneficial to my philosophy of tone. With that said, I've been hearing distorted bass sneaking onto some newer country cuts, such as Lee Brice's Parking Lot Parking and Gloriana's Trouble, and I don't know if I really dig it. For country, I still dig just a really clean, wide open bass tone.
I am close friends with a few prominent modern metal producers and they distort bass on most records. They love the dark glass pedal for example. One record with clean bass was hit somewhat hard with the 1176 and that creates some real nice overtones. But they definitely are distorting the bass in some way on most of their records.
Think how much more Stanley would have accomplished with a CLEAN tone! [/sarcasm]
This is how I feel as well. I'm not a fan of low end grind. If I'm overdriving my sound, it's pushed past grind until it smooths out again.
Yeah, there's a pretty big gray area where the bass can be pretty distorted (if you were to hear it on its own) but sounds more or less "clean" (in a loud, compressed mix with tons of distorted guitars). I'd guess that's where a lot of metal falls, and has for decades now.
