Who hates this?

[David Jayne]

If you get a great tone by slapping your bass with a catfish, that's all that really matters.

Sigged!

 

[Sbassman Scratch]

"Where does this come from?"

Good question. The only time I ever see it is when someone wants to argue with a straw man on a bass forum.

 

[bassman314]

I use finger technique 95% of the time...

The other 5% or so, I use a brass pic. It's freaking awesome. It gives me the pop of a nice, thick pic, but it's made of brass, so it has the feel of a super thin pic. It stores nicely between my pups and the body. The metal is hard enough that the strings don't chew it up in 3 seconds (like pics made from aluminum). I think I might actually be able to shave with it, too.

Brass Pic + ProSteels + Hematoma = lots of love.

Use the technique that gets the sound you want. If someone else tells you are doing it wrong, tell them to stop listening with their eyes, and start listening with their ears. If they aren't in a band with you, ignore them.

 

[Memitim]

I'm currently learning how to play bass with my tongue. It generates such fantastic tone from my wife that it seems worth a shot.

 

[bassman314]

I'm currently learning how to play bass with my tongue. It generates such fantastic tone from my wife that it seems worth a shot.

Make sure your amp is properly grounded, or else you might be in for a suprise...

OT: I once led the band at a conference for my church. We were using one of those powered PA's. Someone had removed the ground pin from the plug, so whenever I touched the mic (usually with my lips) while playing bass, I got quite a nasty shock. I fixed it by using a automotive jumper cable from the heat sink in the back of the amp to a floor plate that I assumed would be earth ground. It was.

 

[BargeOn]

I'm currently learning how to play bass with my tongue. It generates such fantastic tone from my wife that it seems worth a shot.

Cunning. Very.

 

[Blueszilla]

Well there are some bassists out there that are up themselves. The only reason I do not actually use my fingers is that clank noise that you get.

Bassteban: Why reply then?

Clank noise? could you elaborate on this?

I've had the opportunity to use my fingers, a pick, and my thumb, where the situation called for it. All techniques have some validity at some point, I say do your best to develop proficiency at all of them. Most people who disparage other folks preferences, are jealous, untalented, mouth breathing downstrokers. Don't let them bother you, they are irrelevant.

Personally I use fingerstyle 90% of the time, but practice includes using a pick and my thumb.

Clanking though...

 

[mike.b]

Use a pick and fingers! Why limit yourself!

+100000

 

[smeet]

I don't get it. I've been playing for 25 years or so, and nobody has every cared about any of these things:
1) Whether I use a pick
2) Whether I play a Fender
3) Why my bass looks like a toilet seat
4) Do I use flats or rounds
5) Do I wear my bass high or low
6) How many strings are on my bass?

Or anything else other than "does it sound good?"...

I think this is the same mentality that makes some of us call guitarists "guitards".

 

[Rudreax]

It's the same idea behind why some people feel that bass guitar is inferior to upright bass in jazz.

 

[rhythmsection]

I'm currently learning how to play bass with my tongue. It generates such fantastic tone from my wife that it seems worth a shot.

Maybe you should bust out the pick in bed...you know, just to give it a shot...LOL

Back to the subject at hand...I was raised on bass as a fingerstyle player, but before a bass was ever in my hand I strummed my 5 or 6 chords as a teener on a guitar. Most times I find a pick on a bass cumbersome, but I find it helps in the band i'm in now. I sing and play bass in a song the drummer wrote that is completely hard-rock def-leppard esque, and I STRUM. and it SOUNDS GOOD, despite my fingerstyle discipline. To add to that, we currently cover "Rockin' in the Free World" by Neil Young, and i'm more and more thinking of doing it with a plectrum (nice use of vocab, Illbay!!!) next time. And no one mentions Sting? the overly pretentious yoga tantric egotistical yet taltented mo-fo that, after the Police years, would play with his THUMB!?!?! And i'm not talking about slap style, either!

Confuscious say....WHATEVER WORKS, MOTHERF*C*ER!!!

 

[iridiumrocks]

I almost always use a pick because it's the right sound for the music my band plays. When I need a fingerstyle sound, I use my fingers. Pick, fingers, slap, carrots...it's just different tools to get the job done right.

Amen. Every style is another "tool in the toolbox". Ya never know when you're going to need it. The more techniques you know, the better you are....

 

[WarriorJoe7]

If you get a great tone by slapping your bass with a catfish, that's all that really matters.

just don't use a live one, or PETA will jump on you.

And now I am off to search the forum for the word catfish. I wonder if anyone lese has come up with any other interesting techniques with catfish

 

[SwamiRob]

Sod catfish, use a cat, you get a very pleasing screech that usually comes through at smaller gigs.

 

[Grayson C.]

I'm not sure I see picks as being any sort of advantage. I have enough tone control on my amp to manipulate the sound - if I need the overtones a pick gives, I'll use the backs of my fingers on downstrokes so that my nails hits. Regarding speed, I'm sorry but fingers are faster - it's physics. Each finger has 2 playing sides, the pad and the nail. Each pick has 2 playing sides. So with each, you can do upstrokes and down strokes. But you've got TWO fingers (Or three, but I don't have the coordination for that at all), and only one pick.


What am I missing? Short of very very very minor tone manipulation I don't see them as being necessary.


I've got nothing against pick players, but I often dislike a lot of bassists who use picks - they tend to be the ones who stay on root notes and have a very little mastery of their instrument. Honestly I think them are generally just guitarists who have temporarily moved to a different instrument and are carrying over their old technique. But there are plenty of good pick players and I respect them immensely. One of my favorite bassists does both, even in the same song:



Mike Rutherford!

At 36 seconds you can see the pick in his mouth. At 49, you can see him quickly grab it.

 

[thetawaves]

I was originally one of the "ooh, picks are for idiots" campers because all the bassists I knew who used them only did so because they couldn't be bothered to learn to play faster fingerstyle.

But then my moment came when listening to Tool: Third Eye and finding that J.Chancellors' cracking tone was down to some pretty beefy pick playing. So, if you play pickstyle because you like the tone, awesome if you're playing solely with pick/fingerstyle/slap because you can't be arsed to learn something else, then I'll think you're a plonker. And have a good mind to write a letter of complaint about it too.

 

[SwamiRob]

I'm not sure I see picks as being any sort of advantage. I have enough tone control on my amp to manipulate the sound - if I need the overtones a pick gives, I'll use the backs of my fingers on downstrokes so that my nails hits. Regarding speed, I'm sorry but fingers are faster - it's physics. Each finger has 2 playing sides, the pad and the nail. Each pick has 2 playing sides. So with each, you can do upstrokes and down strokes. But you've got TWO fingers (Or three, but I don't have the coordination for that at all), and only one pick.

Play this fast, this hard and I'll start trying to use my fingers for everything. I really don't see how apart from a very select few people that have practised for years can really outpace their wrist with their fingers and have the stamina to keep it up.



Not the best quality clip but you get the idea, I think very few people could get that sound, speed and attack for very long with their fingers.

I wouldn't say it's minor tone manipulation either. Picks give a much more defined sound in general, not just because of the focus they give on harmonic content, they produce alot less fret noise then finger style when your playing heavily and the attack is much more present. EQ your amp to add back a little depth and you can get a much more precise but still pleasantly big sound then you can with your fingers for playing hard rock based music.

 

[DanFold]

It's cheating using a plectrum?! Smash his EBO over his face if he says that again!

I like the sound of a bass with a plectrum rather than fingers for the tunes i play.

 

[wildhorse]

I use my fingers because it reminds me that I am playing bass and not guitar.
Somehow with a pick in my hand I want to strum the instrument.

 

[PJMiDi]

But then my moment came when listening to Tool: Third Eye and finding that J.Chancellors' cracking tone was down to some pretty beefy pick playing. So, if you play pickstyle because you like the tone, awesome if you're playing solely with pick/fingerstyle/slap because you can't be arsed to learn something else, then I'll think you're a plonker. And have a good mind to write a letter of complaint about it too.

amen started strictly fingerstyle had to learn to use a pick after seeing J.C. live, gets such a amazing tone with scrapes.