There is one thing that I believe has hindered many bassists from developing good dynamics. This is that our little Fender bassmans were not loud enough to effectively compete with the guitar amps. In the 60's, the bass amps had the same or less wattage than the guitar amps and we learned to play very hard. This was sort of a carry over from the string bass days, where good technique included getting as much volume as possible by playing hard. Now, we have suitable bass amps but there are many who have not been able to switch to a softer attack, they still play all out (as this was how they learned), and this is "their sound". Even with today's high powered amps, it can be difficult to get low notes to sound clear because the guitars and drums are so loud and cover such a large frequency range that it makes it difficult to do anything other than overload ones sense of hearing which reduces everything to mud. So while I agree whole heartedly with what Brad stated above about controlling your own dynamics, I also believe that there are many on this board who may not really be able to do that and be heard. There are still many with under powered amps who are already pushing their gear to the limit to just be heard at all and there are those who are competing with Marshall stacks and the like where they may have the power/volume to compete, but do not wish to start the volume wars that can plague so many rock bands. When I was playing jazz, motown, R&B, and the like, I had much more control of my dynamics. My main gig now is in a classic rock band, and it is much more difficult to maintain a workable headroom in this group.
. I learned to walk the dynamics tightrope early on.
is this a record? 
