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Worst bass for metal?

#81
Bryan R. Tyler said:
While I agree that the bass is in the forefront of quite a few metal bands, your idea that a band isn't a band with a bassist is off. I can think of fantastic bands/ensembles in every genre that do not use a bassist.
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A bit off topic, but there is a great belgian rock band, the Black Box Revelation, that is only one guitar and drums. They sound so full, bluesy and rock hard.

Some great black metal bands don't have bass, and I like that subgenre. Nothing wrong with it.

Mostly I am into power metal. And I noticed that a lot of bands don't have a regular bassist. They use hired guns for studio and live work. The great thing about it is that they have sometimes great supporting bass lines (that don't want to sound metal among metal guitars and overshadow them). The trade off is that it diminishes the importance of the bassist as person. As if they are not part of the band but just a tool (not the derogatory sense of tool).
 
#84
Bryan R. Tyler said:
While I agree that the bass is in the forefront of quite a few metal bands, your idea that a band isn't a band with a bassist is off. I can think of fantastic bands/ensembles in every genre that do not use a bassist.
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Of course there's a possibility in each genre like you mentioned, but for my feeling it's just a incomplete band that way. Remember : Bass is more importnant then (lead) guitar.
 
#85
Mr_Music90 said:
Of course there's a possibility in each genre like you mentioned, but for my feeling it's just a incomplete band that way. Remember : Bass is more importnant then (lead) guitar.
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There is no instrument that is inherently more important than any other. The music dictates the importance of the instrument. If the goal of a musical piece is to emphasize a melody or feeling on lead guitar, then the bass is far less important than the lead. If the goal of a musical piece is to emphasize a pounding low rhythm for dancing, then the bass is far more important than the lead.

And pretty much no band prior to 1951 had electric bass. Very few non-European/North American musical groups had upright bass in the centuries before. None of that music is any worse for not having a bassist, and really, almost none of it is now either.

This is obviously a bass website, so it's almost everyone's favorite instrument here. But too many over-emphasize its importance because of that favoritism, and that kind of thinking will only work to make one closed-minded.
 
#86
Bryan R. Tyler said:
There is no instrument that is inherently more important than any other. The music dictates the importance of the instrument. If the goal of a musical piece is to emphasize a melody or feeling on lead guitar, then the bass is far less important than the lead. If the goal of a musical piece is to emphasize a pounding low rhythm for dancing, then the bass is far more important than the lead.

And pretty much no band prior to 1951 had electric bass. Very few non-European/North American musical groups had upright bass in the centuries before. None of that music is any worse for not having a bassist, and really, almost none of it is now either.

This is obviously a bass website, so it's almost everyone's favorite instrument here. But too many over-emphasize its importance because of that favoritism, and that kind of thinking will only work to make one closed-minded.
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No offense Bryan, but how do you look at the bass in general and in a band?
 
#87
Mr_Music90 said:
-1. I totally disagree. In metal bands, people DO listen to the bass! It's the instrument that makes metal metal! :bassist: And how the hell can you say metalbands don't have a bass player :eyebrow: A band without a bass player isn't a band!
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Respectfully, I stopped liking metal when I got on bass and realized that bass tended to be EQ'd in a way that you're basically limited to a handful of possible tones that one can actually hear, none of which are tones that I strive for. If bassists have trouble hearing the bass, it's not just a matter of opinion.
 
#88
As I do every other instrument. A tool to express musical ideas. There are no predetermined roles for any instrument- it's completely up to the music what role an instrument will take. As a lower-pitched, thickly toned instrument, the bass suits a rhythm role very well. But that is certainly no rule.
 
#89
Leon Transaxle said:
No one mention a Chapman stick yet?
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I actually disagree. There was this one screamo/super death metal band (that music never did anything for me), and the bassist was using a chapman stick, and he was flying all over. He was also using a fretless. It was a J bass, with what I think was a single coil early P bass kinda pickup under the bridge pickup, and a humbucker in between the two Jazzes. The thing growled like a beast. I don't enjoy screamo metal, but he was an awesome bassist. Really mellow, awesome dude too, we talked about Jaco when he got off.
 
#90
Bryan R. Tyler said:
As I do every other instrument. A tool to express musical ideas. There are no predetermined roles for any instrument- it's completely up to the music what role an instrument will take. As a lower-pitched, thickly toned instrument, the bass suits a rhythm role very well. But that is certainly no rule.
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+1
It's about cohesion. The bass works within the machine to make it hard, tight, and produce a monster sound. Just because the bass doesn't solo as much in metal as in jazz or funk doesn't diminish its importance in the finished product.
 
#91
Bryan R. Tyler said:
As I do every other instrument. A tool to express musical ideas. There are no predetermined roles for any instrument- it's completely up to the music what role an instrument will take. As a lower-pitched, thickly toned instrument, the bass suits a rhythm role very well. But that is certainly no rule.
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+1 Well I gotta agree with you there. Role is the keyword for sure! Rules aren't there actually. Maybe I just tried to explain my story on a weird way.. :hiding: Anyway, I hope you're not mad or anything at me, just felt a bit misunderstood at first.

Cheers
 
#92
No electric guitar = no rock and roll = no metal.

All other instruments are added as needed. Of course there are exceptions, but the general rule remains. No electric guitar, no Link Wray, no Jimi Hendrix, no Tony Iommi, no metal.

That said, early metal was very dependant on melodic basslines like those by Geezer. The practice of burying bass in the mix really didn't get going until thrash metal came along in the 80s.

So if you want to play interesting basslines in a metal band, just find the right subgenre of metal.
 
#94
Bryan R. Tyler said:
As I do every other instrument. A tool to express musical ideas. There are no predetermined roles for any instrument- it's completely up to the music what role an instrument will take. As a lower-pitched, thickly toned instrument, the bass suits a rhythm role very well. But that is certainly no rule.
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I totally agree.

And there are the traditional roles that instruments play in any ensemble. The bass is not traditionally a melodic instrument.

Look at the way it is tuned. It's a sequential tuning. As opposed to instruments which are designed to be "melodic" such as the standard (or electric) guitar, which are not tuned sequentially.

And as for what even equates to "music" from one culture to another, one genre to another... it varies greatly.

Look at the "music" made by the Buddhist Monks in Tibet (that's an example of the human voice as a bass instrument), or listen to Trent Reznor's 33 Ghosts IV, which is a mixture of samples from factory machinery modulated and run through a set of synthesizers.

I think you can argue that any instrument is "important" when it comes to the manufacture of organized sound (often called music). To me what is most important is the expression of the musician's intent in creating music in the first place.

Music as created by a soloist or an ensemble. It doesn't matter. The instruments and notes... none of it matters really. What matters is did the emotion or message that the composer desired to express get translated to the listener? That's what it's all about.

So from J-Basses to Chapman Sticks... washtub basses to synths... there is no right or wrong answer so long as the listener hears what the composer is trying to convey.

And of course I could be totally wrong. It's just an opinion.
 
#96
Worst bass for metal?

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