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Worst bass tone in a professional recording?

#21
You guys putting down Jack Bruce's "Crossroads" are nuts! It's only the sound of a Gibson EB3 going through a Marshall guitar stack turned up all the way, with smoke pouring out and speakers disintegrating! I love it! :spit:
Now here's a tone that I hate. Objectively, it's not the "worst" (no equipment failure, etc.) but it's so clean that I find it disturbing. :rolleyes:

YouTube - Stuart Hamm - Amazing Bass Technique Solo de Baixo Peanuts theme
 
#24
#25
Goes to show ya that different people have different tastes. I haven't ever heard most of the material you guys are talking about EXCEPT "Graceland". And I liked the tone on that album. It fit the concept of tying into the music of southern Africa.

Of the stuff I've heard my LEAST FAVORITE bass tone of all time was Les Claypool on "Sailing The Seas Of Cheese". I had never heard of Les before TB so I bought the CD just to see what all the fuss was about. To this day that is the only CD I have ever returned. There was nothing about it that appealed to me and a lot that made me scream "make it STOP!!!!"

BTJM. Some of you may love that artist and that album, and that's fine with me.
 
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#27
most blink 182 bass sounds are pretty meh
same can be said of greenday and fallout boy
my chemical romance bass sounds aint great (and the song give em hell kid is a rip off of straighten out - the stranglers)

but i honistly cant think of a tone i really hate

well i hate most linkin park bass tones tbh
 
#29
Since a live version of Crossroads was sighted (seemed to me the OP was looking for studio recordings, but maybe I'm wrong), I'm going to go with Entwistles tone shortly before he passed. Love the man, but that tone was godawful. It got progressively worse through the the years. He never sounded better than Live at Leeds. Fender slab Precisions and Hiwatt amps. The Alembic sound of the seventies wasn't bad, but still a step down from Leeds. Once the Buzzard basses came into play, everything went to hell tone wise. I think all those years of being on stage with The Who wrecked his hearing; a person with two good working ears couldn't possibly like that sound. Really bummed me out; the man is a genius, why all the weird effects and whatnot? He sounded like a freight train all on his own, he didn't need all the flash. :rollno:
 
#30
Here's a tough one for me to post--
Berry Oakley on the original studio version of the Allman Brothers' "Whipping Post." He was one of the all time great bassists, and this track has been in my veins for decades. But listen to his intro, and you hear all kinds of rattle. It sounds like he's hammering away at a bass with action that's too low, or poorly set up, with fret issues, blah blah. (I assume it's one of his "Tractors"-- a Jazz with the neck pickup moved next to bridge one, and a Guild humbucker in the neck position. Flatwound strings and pick.)

But it sounds absolutely fine in the track, and again, I love this band, bassist and song.

YouTube - Whipping Post
 
#31
Gonna go with Fieldy on this. There's a way to detune, but that ain't the way. Between the harsh playing and mid-scopping, it's the antithesis of what I go for.

I'd complain about Newsted's tone, but the engineers and egotistic bandmates managed to almost completely EQ it out of the mix. When I was a guitarist, I didn't notice. The second I became a bassist, I was very let down with the lack of bass during the Newsted era.
 
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#32
Freez said:
Since a live version of Crossroads was sighted (seemed to me the OP was looking for studio recordings, but maybe I'm wrong), I'm going to go with Entwistles tone shortly before he passed. Love the man, but that tone was godawful. It got progressively worse through the the years. He never sounded better than Live at Leeds. Fender slab Precisions and Hiwatt amps. The Alembic sound of the seventies wasn't bad, but still a step down from Leeds. Once the Buzzard basses came into play, everything went to hell tone wise. I think all those years of being on stage with The Who wrecked his hearing; a person with two good working ears couldn't possibly like that sound. Really bummed me out; the man is a genius, why all the weird effects and whatnot? He sounded like a freight train all on his own, he didn't need all the flash. :rollno:
Click to expand...

+1
My favorite Entwistle tone ever was on "Who's Next." "Live at Leeds" was even a bit too crunchy for me, but by the end of his life his tone was so brittle and trebly that you can't escape the idea that he had to have it that way to hear himself.
 
#36
malthumb said:
Goes to show ya that different people have different tastes. I haven't ever heard most of the material you guys are talking about EXCEPT "Graceland". And I liked the tone on that album. It fit the concept of tying into the music of southern Africa.

Of the stuff I've heard my LEAST FAVORITE bass tone of all time was Les Claypool on "Sailing The Seas Of Cheese". I had never heard of Les before TB so I bought the CD just to see what all the fuss was about. To this day that is the only CD I have ever returned. There was nothing about it that appealed to me and a lot that made me scream "make it STOP!!!!"

BTJM. Some of you may love that artist and that album, and that's fine with me.
Click to expand...

I'm with you- I know claypool is highly regarded, but I find his music unlistenable. Same thing with alot of shred guitar players. I know what they are doing is original and difficult but it sounds terrible.
 
#37
there are a lot of tones mentioned here that I find cool, just not my kind of tone. So i have issues dissin any of them. There are actually things I like about Fieldy's tone, would I want to have a whole album like that? no, personally. Or Primus, great for what they do and I dig it but so far away from what I shoot for.

So really, the one thing that came to mind was And Justice For All. Not the tone as much as it is completely bassless!!!
 
#38
Any Misfits recording. Jerry, put some bass in your tone for cryin' out loud!
Same goes for most of Motörhead stuff.
I dig both of these bands for their contribution (the degree in which is a matter of opinion) they made to music, but that clanky, fuzzy, bottom less tone does nothing for me.
And I agree with the Jack Bruce comments. His tone fits that era but he still could've learned alot from Ron Wood, (oddly enough isn't a bass player first).
 
#39
spade2you said:
I'd complain about Newsted's tone, but the engineers and egotistic bandmates managed to almost completely EQ it out of the mix. When I was a guitarist, I didn't notice. The second I became a bassist, I was very let down with the lack of bass during the Newsted era.
Click to expand...

While I agree with this I also have to say that Metallica really didn't give much room to Cliff either. If you take out the obvious tracks where they showcased Cliff (The Call of Ktulu, Anesthesia, Pulling Teeth, and the beginning of For Whom The Bell Tolls) they buried him in the mix too. Metallica has pretty much always done that.
 

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