Would Someone Please Explain This To Me???

[Pacman]

All of that classic metal was recorded for vinyl, which had limitations to how much bass frequencies it could handle (I remember some heavy bass records that would bounce the needle out of the groove). Could have something to do with that...

 

[Les Fret]

All of that classic metal was recorded for vinyl, which had limitations to how much bass frequencies it could handle (I remember some heavy bass records that would bounce the needle out of the groove). Could have something to do with that...

I still have a hard time to believe this. A lot of the old metal/trash stuff used low E string notes. Early Metallica or Megadeth for example. All these albums where originally on vinyl and recorded before the CD player came on the market.

 

[LBS-bass]

I still have a hard time to believe this. A lot of the old metal/trash stuff used low E string notes. Early Metallica or Megadeth for example. All these albums where originally on vinyl and recorded before the CD player came on the market.

Lots of music recorded in the 70's used Taurus pedals which went a lot lower than the E on a bass. The groove jumping fix happened during mastering where those frequencies were notched back to a point that didn't happen, and should not be an issue.

 

[mambo4]

I often comment on how music recorded in the 70s had so much more Audible bass lines compared to most modern music. Maybe The bassists of the era Simply played in the more reproducible register.

 

[MrLenny1]

Not quite clear on your question but certain keys
are usually based on the range of the singer.

 

[El_Charro]

I often comment on how music recorded in the 70s had so much more Audible bass lines compared to most modern music. Maybe The bassists of the era Simply played in the more reproducible register.

—————————————————————————
Thank you so much for responding…

I think you make a rather astute observation about the bass being more audible in the 70s and early 80s compared to today…

I’m not an audio engineer so I may not know *** I’m talking about here, but I thought (???) that if you have lower tuned guitars it means that their frequency output is lower and ergo the lower frequencies from their instruments end up “fighting” in some of the same sonic frequency ranges/space as your bass frequency…

Using a four lane freeway an analogy…

If there are four instruments in the band (a rhythm guitar (mid range frequency), a lead guitar (high frequency), drums (mid and low frequency with the kick drum being the low frequency, and the bass also being low frequency…

If the guitars downturn too much you start getting more “mud” bc the instruments that would normally be tuned to stay in their frequency “lane” are now trying to merge down to the bass frequency lane…In which case it would be like an actual collision on a freeway…Add in higher tempo to a song and I would think that things start blurring together even more depending on what bpm the song is at…

For Metal (and especially late 80s/early 90s til now)-Lower guitar frequencies seem like low hanging fruit to make the band sound more menacing/angry (lower frequencies tend to sound more “ominous”)…

Again I would think (???) that tempo comes into play here too, but for the most part lower sonic frequencies sound a bit more “Evil” right??? <——- I’m thinking primarily of the Tritone chord on the song Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath…It sounds just…Eerie (this is one of the reasons Alice & Chains is one of my favorite bands of all time just and why they use minor keys in horror movies…Minor keys just sound dreary, but they can still sound melodic if assembled together in the correct way…

But…Back to your original point (and pardon my crazy ramble/digression above to check for my own understanding)…

It seems like the guitars in Sabbath and Maiden aren’t as tuned down as Thrash Metal bands and not really trying to be in the same frequency range as say Metallica/Anthrax/Megadeth/Slayer where you have guitars down tuned with a bunch of palm muting and down picking at insanely high speeds so the bass is probably more likely to with run into some of the low end guitar especially if they are trying to double up around the same set of notes to make the song sound heavier/thicker…

Would be curious to know if I understand this correctly or not…

I’m just saying that things can run into each other in terms of where their frequencies land and which notes are being played on the guitar…

For Metallica and a lot of other Thrash bands they are really heavily reliant on the rhythm guitar with a whole lot of speed and down picking/palm muting on the E and A strings, so it’s my understanding (perhaps incorrectly???) that as a result the bass needs to sit below the guitars in the mix, but the bass also needs to be mindful of the kick drum so they don’t run into each other (and it probably gets even more complicated in a band like Slayer where there are insane kick drum fills on double bass drums)…

So…If you can follow ANY of that convoluted logic (I think I at least sorta understand it correctly in my head); then maybe the music style of Sabbath and Maiden didn’t really require the bass to slide down under a detuned guitar playing at insane speeds???

Can anyone verify if what I wrote checks out…

Thanks! \m/

 

[mambo4]

One of the beginner fallacies is that more bass needs MOAR BASS
The idea that huge PHAT bass tone needs more bass frequencies and a stronger fundamental is incorrect.

Even with a range of human hearing generally 20 hz to 20Khz
( with a low E being 41 and low B 31 hz )
that spectrum is not perceived evenly at all frequencies
we evolved to pick out human voice range over other information

Look how weak the human Ear EQs those fundamentals

keep in mind that the DB scale is logarithmic ( 2 db is 10x louder than 1db)
the differences are greater than the lines may indicate at first glance

this is why everything below 100 hz is mud: our ears can't pick out information form it, it does not sound musical.
everything that characterizes the sound of a bass guitar in our ears happens above 100 hz.
a PHAT yet articulate 1970s reggae bass that happens around the low mids 250 -500
an aggressive Chris Squire or Steve Harris grind happens closer 1K-2K maybe
all very far above the fundamental

Downtuning and paying super low sort of of fights human perception
It makes the bass perceived much more like a drum or percussion element than a melodic one
-which is fine if that's the goal
Even with modern amplification and recording you can't get away form this

 

[spade2you]

brilliant
talk bass of the year
thead over

LOL, thanks. I was chuckling to myself at work as I read this to myself in his voice.

 

[Trilobita]

For Metallica and a lot of other Thrash bands they are really heavily reliant on the rhythm guitar with a whole lot of speed and down picking/palm muting on the E and A strings, so it’s my understanding (perhaps incorrectly???) that as a result the bass needs to sit below the guitars in the mix, but the bass also needs to be mindful of the kick drum so they don’t run into each other (and it probably gets even more complicated in a band like Slayer where there are insane kick drum fills on double bass drums)…View attachment 4385784

Quite a few more extreme metal bands (and black metal bands in particular) simply have uninteresting bass parts because most of the time the bass does nothing more than doubling the guitar or playing a simplified version of the guitar part. This has gotten so bad that some artists and bands do not even care about having a bassist anymore (not even a session bassist) because just stomping on the footswitch of an octaver pedal would accomplish pretty much the same as having one, or maybe because the guitar tuning is so low that the guitars themselves can incorporate the low-end. Even bands that actually have talented bassists with interesting bass parts often have them mixed way too low (in volume) in comparison to the other instruments for the bass to be clearly audible in a busy soundscape. In some cases this also seems to create a sort of "Yeah, the bass must be simply doubling the guitar part" effect which makes bassists who play metal covers not even care about listening to the bass parts - they seem to just assume the bass is playing the same as the guitar and that is how the learn the song, even when the original record makes it very clear that the bass is doing something entirely different: I have seen quite a few "bass" metal covers on YouTube with entire sections in which the bassist on the video is just playing the guitar part and ignoring the bass part completely, even when the bass is actually playing some pretty tasty stuff.