Amen. Same with all the "if it's good enough for *insert player here*, it's good enough for me" and "if *blah blah* didn't need it, neither do I" posts. Get a life.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Unpopular tone and technique
- Thread starter Loren Herrington
- Start date
Amen. Same with all the "if it's good enough for *insert player here*, it's good enough for me" and "if *blah blah* didn't need it, neither do I" posts. Get a life.
The only part I don't get is how your bridge pickups are muddy and neck pickups are brighter.
Hey more power to ya. Are you interested in gigging? Might have an issue as a side man but might be cool for an original project
There's nothing wrong with playing how you like, as long as it sounds how you want in the final product. Might be hard to find a band like that, but somebody would appreciate you.
I play fairly similar to what the op described, but finger style, and all mids. The band I'm with has told me they don't want any other bass player.
I play fairly similar to what the op described, but finger style, and all mids. The band I'm with has told me they don't want any other bass player.
I've been developing my own sound for years and years and years. It's not unconventional, but I like it. Recently, I have joined a new project that has challenged me to go WAY out of my wheelhouse. Our guitarist is a huge fan of Tracy Pew, which is pretty much the opposite of my natural style, so I have been spending more and more time experimenting with tones and techniques that I had never considered before.
Hey man, I used to play chords with a pick, brighter tone and a lot of overdrive all the time. Worked great for heavier rock stuff. Do what you want. If it sounds good, who cares what other people do?
No, you are not alone.
There are a TON of guitarists out there, just like you.
There are a TON of guitarists out there, just like you.
Sounds way too much like my style.
Only difference is I don't care if other people don't like my tone. Trying to please other people is a fools errand.
If you change to suit them you won't be happy and even worse when someone comes along who WOULD appreciate what you do, they won't recognize you cause you are too busy trying to be something you don't want to be.
But no, you are not alone in your style or predicament.
Only difference is I don't care if other people don't like my tone. Trying to please other people is a fools errand.
If you change to suit them you won't be happy and even worse when someone comes along who WOULD appreciate what you do, they won't recognize you cause you are too busy trying to be something you don't want to be.
But no, you are not alone in your style or predicament.
I posted a few days ago about playing with a bottleneck just to check if there was other people doing it. Playing "faux-chords" with a pick, up high on the neck with loads of fuzz makes me think that maybe I missed my point playing bass. And then I remember that not only I love bass, I find it inspiring, but I really can't play a guitar. It's just not my thing to play guitar even if it's a major inspiration for me. I sing and play my own songs so who should care but me really how I use my bass.
Whenever someone tells me that's not the way a bass should sound, I'm like "Are you a bass player? Have you lived with this instrument for years as I have? Who's the expert here?".
Whenever someone tells me that's not the way a bass should sound, I'm like "Are you a bass player? Have you lived with this instrument for years as I have? Who's the expert here?".
Last edited:
That puzzled me too, OPs bass pickups seem the polar opposite of what you'd expect from a bridge or neck pickup.
No, you're not alone. I don't often play with a pick and I probably don't prefer quite as aggressive a tone as you do, but I do like it pretty bright. But what I like doesn't matter. You play in the way that gives you the best sound and feel for *you*, and gives you the most enjoyment. If everyone played the same way and sounded the same it'd be a pretty boring world. Everyone's got their own style and their own gifts.
No, you're not alone. I don't often play with a pick and I probably don't prefer quite as aggressive a tone as you do, but I do like it pretty bright. But what I like doesn't matter. You play in the way that gives you the best sound and feel for *you*, and gives you the most enjoyment. If everyone played the same way and sounded the same it'd be a pretty boring world. Everyone's got their own style and their own gifts.
But Thunes did not sound thin and trebley, and if he used distortion is was modest. He as just a flat-out good player (Frank did not tolerate mediocrity).
Not exactly sure what you're looking for via this thread, Loren, but I'll pitch in and venture to say that the reason YOU pick up that bass and start wailing away is because of that very personal "truth" it brings to you. Once you lose that in attempts to acquiesce to the larger community, you'll lose what drives you to begin with.
Having said that, I know my own little bit of truth is to expand myself in new ways with regard to bass. These days I i spend a bit of time during practice on each of three techniques - finger, pick, and slap/pop. Often times I'll just gin up some little groove and burn through it via each method a few dozen times while trying to really listen to what each style's weakness or strength brings to that riff. It helps me think and hear critically, shapes my mechanics, and broadens my ability to satisfy a variety of tonal and percussive needs as different songs and musicians call for it.
And changing-up techniques is fun, especially as you see daily progress in doing things you heretofore shrugged off (for me it was picking and slapping as I was a finger-dude for ages).
Having said that, I know my own little bit of truth is to expand myself in new ways with regard to bass. These days I i spend a bit of time during practice on each of three techniques - finger, pick, and slap/pop. Often times I'll just gin up some little groove and burn through it via each method a few dozen times while trying to really listen to what each style's weakness or strength brings to that riff. It helps me think and hear critically, shapes my mechanics, and broadens my ability to satisfy a variety of tonal and percussive needs as different songs and musicians call for it.
And changing-up techniques is fun, especially as you see daily progress in doing things you heretofore shrugged off (for me it was picking and slapping as I was a finger-dude for ages).
FWIW I have always been a finger style player. However, there was one band quite some time back where it just made sense to me to play with a pick. So for a couple of years I played pick in the band, and finger style whenever I was doing other things like side projects or just having fun. So part of it is the identity aspect - I'm definitely a finger style player. And part of it is supporting the music - whatever works best. To me the minimum requirement is simply to be better than the keyboard player's left hand. (J/k)
If Les Claypool or Lemmy had changed their styles to sound like James Jamerson or Paul McCartney copies, we never woulda had Primus or Motorhead. These are extreme examples of "unconventional" bass playing, but I trust you read me. If your goal is to get lots of calls to sound like other guys and join bands and be a reliable, popular working bass player then learn to sound and play like one f them. If you want to do your own thing, then do that. Or heck, DO BOTH. Sometimes I play the gig all buttoned up and straight laced and make a couple hundred bucks. Sometimes I just play me, which can get really damn weird sometimes.
Here's the final word. I say this as a finger player who has played exactly 1 song with a pick in 25 years, give or take (it was awesome and muting was so much easier!). It was a cover song at church that had a really good pick sound and I wanted to do it as was.
Though I wasn't there at the beginning of pick-hate, given the propensity of those people who talk more than they think (parrots) to knock others for no good reason, or by using generalizations about groups of people based on experiences with only a few (not here necessarily but in life in general), pick-hate certainly must have its roots in the earlier days of pick-wielding guitarists switching to bass (or teenagers starting out and who knew no better) and playing bass "wrong" according to purists and electric bassists who came over from double bass. I would tend to agree that it very well could have been the case in the beginning- bad bass playing with a pick. Oftentimes, those guitarists turned bassists were not only using picks but playing bass in a way (rhythmically and harmonically) that wasn't as "good" as guys who were pure bassists who studied and practiced the craft for life. The pick-hate stuck. Even some great and worldly bassists have cast dispersion against picks. Even genius can hate things they don't understand, I guess.
The truth is that fingers or pick, or thumping or hammering or funk fingers, or god knows what else, can sound great and be equally virtuostic. I won't name names as evidence; many names should be obvious to any bassist worth his salt, let alone to any parrot yapping about pick-players necessarily being lesser players or having less feel.
Last word? Somehow I doubt it...and I said it facetiously but it's probably pretty damn accurate if you think about it.
Last edited:
