I feel the same way about videos that allege to show guitar virtuosity, and it turns out that it's just some dude playing his acoustic guitar like a bongo with a few chords thrown in.
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Why Slap When Demonstrating Gear?
- Thread starter Xandrell
- Start date
I’m an anomaly… I don’t enjoy playing or listening to slap bass. I always skip those parts of review videos, or just stop the video altogether. I’ve only recently come around to enjoying bass with a pick, but I’m definitely a fan now.
It's not that "real" bassists don't slap(it's a good skill to have), but as far as "popular" music goes, how much slap does one hear? Not all that much. Mostly finger and pickstyle and I say it's about 50/50 there.
it's been a few years now, but I had some dude at a national music store chain pull a music man off the wall for me to look at.
He pulls it down, walks over to the amp of his choice, plugs it in, and proceeds to slap the living poopie out of it, for a couple minutes, while extolling the virtues of the bass, like I have never seen a bass before...
I walked out the front door before he was finished... I never got to touch the bass....
He pulls it down, walks over to the amp of his choice, plugs it in, and proceeds to slap the living poopie out of it, for a couple minutes, while extolling the virtues of the bass, like I have never seen a bass before...
I walked out the front door before he was finished... I never got to touch the bass....
To me, if you're gonna claim to be able to "review" a bass, it suggests you are an all-around decent(at least) player, with solid technique, competent in the major playing styles--fingerstyle, pick, slap (even though I personally don't need to hear the slap part), and sure, do the thumb/palm mute thing too for what it's worth(though I agree, that doesn't reveal that much about a bass). But if for example, you "don't play with pick" and won't include that, why should I waste my time on your clearly very limited review?
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I’ve seen very few “demos” that use the instrument, effects, strings, or whatever they’re demoing in any type of context. I have very little interest in how something sounds in a bedroom, slapping or not.
I sometimes get the impression that some bassists would like to signal their musical competence by being dismissive about slap bass and bass solos.....
If that's your take then you should quit bass altogether, because the vast majority of top-40 hits today have either entirely synthesized basslines or a bass guitar doubled by a synth.
So many dudes in this thread screaming at kids to get off their lawn. Damn these kids and their slappity tappity nonsense! Back in my day Paul McCartney played his bass right and proper!
And then 2 threads later the exact same dudes say "Gosh why doesn't anyone play bass anymore? Is it dying? Do we even have a future?"
If you're a young bass player today and you are looking at the top players out there, both the older generation and the younger dudes starting to take over, you'll hear plenty of guys who are using various thumb techniques, effects, and blending things into their signal chain to create those synth bass tones that have become so popular in pop music.
And if you really, truly hate hearing someone demo gear with those techniques then perhaps you simply aren't their target audience.
I like to hear the drive sounds and some showcasing of the distortion is ok, but yeah, a lot of videos just have brutal distortion going most of the time. I guess maybe they have a target audience in mind. I guess that goes for the slappers too. Maybe their target is not the meat and potatoes working bar/event musician.
I don’t think folks are screaming at the clouds. They just would like to see what gear can do in all aspects of bass playing. That’s not a terrible ask. Hell, I like to slap the bass a little bit from time to time.
I think the demos are the reason Darkglass stuff gets pigeonholed. I love Darkglass stuff, but I don’t play hard slap and brutal metal. Praise to folks like Amos Heller who shows that the gear is capable of working in many different styles.
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Uh, the comments were about bass guitar in popular music.
You totally misread my post before jumping all over me - it was a simple observation/reply to a "real bassists" comment.
And yeah, the last 3 sessions I did I played synth bass on half of the material. But that's not what I was talking about at all.
Maybe go back and read what I actually said, and what I was replying to....
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I'll be the first to admit that I've never had "golden ears", but when I was playing for a living, no matter how great it might sound in the store, I could never tell if a bass or signal chain item was going to work until I took it on stage with the band on the gig. So I have no illusions about my being able to discern much of anything useful from online demos. If I'm going to watch one, it's got to be entertaining, somebody with great chops, or both.
Music stores are a challenge for me as I am pretty confident I already know 10x more about the gear in the store than they do.
It’s always amusing when I ask a clerk a very specific, deep in the weeds question about a piece of gear and watch their eyes glaze over.
What I hate more than slap when demonstrating the tone of something is overdrive. Lets just cover up what the thing we are demonstrating actually sounds like!
Yeah, those are pretty worthless. There are a number of well-known players who I respect, but whose product demos I find almost useless because they introduce effects I don't have (and don't want) into the mix. I want to hear the bass/amp/pedal being demoed, not the bass thru comp X thru <my fav Strymon pedal> thru comp Y thru <my Iron Ether Whatever> thru comp Z into a Neve console plugin that in no way approximates the sound you're going to get at your next bar gig.
A close second on the scale of uselessness are 30 minute demo vids that are stream of consciousness ramblings for the first 25 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of poorly planned noodling and close with "You get the idea."
True that a demo video should be well rounded with all techniques, but seems no matter how versatile a review is someone complains about something that should have been done better….
