Tone or Style?

[4stringfarley]

Well, like my mother used to tell me. It's not what you said it's how you said it.

 

[zubrycky]

Personally, I prefer to have multiple tones and styles. Variety is the spice of life.

 

[Guild B301]

I was going to say what zubrycky just said.
I have many tones, to fit the song I’m playing. I have different styles depending on the song I’m playing.

 

[Killing Floor]

Also not sure if this is too off topic, I'd rather have a little less than perfect tone than have a bad sense of style.
I mean, Bruce Foxton could be half step flat and who would really care? Plus, anyone who can act like he's playing a line but really not so subtly flipping you off is my kind of style. And I like his tone.

 

[bobyoung53]

If I had to choose only one between style (I assume you mean technique?) or tone, I'd pick tone. I'd rather listen to a very simple bass player with a great tone than a monster player with what I consider to be bad tone. That being said I think both good technique and good tone are important. When I was a kid starting out getting a good tone was a lot harder for me than learning bass lines, songs etc. I could and can play by ear very well and could pick up songs just by listening to them but couldn't get a good tone, it took me a long time to start to like my tone. So that's probably why good tone is more important to me, I had to work a lot harder at getting it than learning how to play the bass. What took me the longest was realizing that good tone comes from not only from your equipment but how you play it which I guess is technique, so I guess I kind of came around in a circle. I don't think the two can really be separated. But still tone is king for me.

 

[madmaskbass]

I have bought two basses based on aesthetics in the past. both new, both worth alot of money and for various reasons both were sold off in favour of what i would consider tone focused basses... I am now at the point where i look at my bass stand and every bass is a natural wood instrument that are not in anyway show pieces...a whole lot of brown lol. ..I think that over the years i adjusted my taste in basses to suit the tones i wanted to get out of them. 100% i am a tone fiend i do plan to try for both worlds one day but honestly i have come to love the simplicity of naturally finished basses.

 

[Tim Schnautz]

which is more important? is there a difference?

i have been grappling with this question since i first started playing music. is the word "tone" what we use when we really want to describe a player's "style"? interested in others thoughts since i never really cared too much about "tone" when i played guitar. i just tried to get things sounding "like they should" and then worked on how i played the instrument. but when i started really getting into bass this word tone is thrown around here like there's no tomorrow. i feel like i'm actually just working on how i play the bass and technique and the "tone" finds itself. or really, i just know when it sounds like crap to me and i need to change something. anyone feelin me on this??

If your sound sucks then your style is secondary. I'd rather here someone only play a basic root and sound good, rather than be a whiz bang and sound like skank.

 

[Tim Schnautz]

My style sucks. My tone sucks as well. Where is the carrots button?

Some jackass ate it

 

[ObsessiveArcher]

I love to hear a great tone, don't get me wrong. However, I prefer a great feel/style with an OK tone over a great tone with an OK feel/style any day.

 

[parttime]

intersting...style right now is over tone by a 20% margin. not what i was expecting honestly. but thanks for sharing your thoughts so far.

 

[Passinwind]

View attachment 3986721

 

[Tim Schnautz]

View attachment 3987644

good name for a band...

 

[LBS-bass]

All the tone in the world will not make up for a lack of style. I should know, because I have great tone and lousy style.

 

[lfmn16]

Do you want to be good or mediocre? If you want to be good, both are important. If you want to be mediocre, pick either.

 

[dab12ax7ef]

As described, I call the “style” choice feel. Style, to me, is more of appropriate to genre. But if you have great feel, you probably already have great tone. So work on feel, and tone will come. Tone might even be more subjective than feel.

 

[mambo4]

style is the sum of a broad collection musical elements
tone is just one of those elements (timbre)

 

[G On Bass]

Not mutually exclusive, IMHO. player needs the right tone and the right style for the song being played. The right line played with the wrong tone just doesn't work and vice-versa. Put Geddy's early Rush tone on some Ray Brown tunes, or play Jazz licks on an upright under some Death Metal and it might not be the same.

That being said, tone can be helped/obscured/changed with pedals. It's much harder to hide bad style.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

which is more important? is there a difference?

i have been grappling with this question since i first started playing music. is the word "tone" what we use when we really want to describe a player's "style"? interested in others thoughts since i never really cared too much about "tone" when i played guitar. i just tried to get things sounding "like they should" and then worked on how i played the instrument. but when i started really getting into bass this word tone is thrown around here like there's no tomorrow. i feel like i'm actually just working on how i play the bass and technique and the "tone" finds itself. or really, i just know when it sounds like crap to me and i need to change something. anyone feelin me on this??

Your "style" is how you play. Un believably more important than what your bass sounds like.

 

[Benjamin Earl]

Tone is definitely affected by technique, so I think your style is also related to your tone.
Tone = Gear + Technique/Style

 

[cxcxcx]

The way I hear it, Pino Palladino's P-Bass one is remarkably homogenous - a lot of players have that dark, murky "flatwounds with the tone knob rolled off" tone. An astute listener knows right away when it's him on a track - not because of the tone, but because of his note choices, taste, harmonic and melodic approach, phrasing, rhythmic variety, and where he places his playing in the beat. None of that has to do with tone.