How important is the bass guitar in your songs ?

grimtraveller

grimtraveller

If only for a moment.....
Does the bass play an important role in your songs and arrangements or is it kind of a shadow for the guitar riffs or rhythm ? Does it act as a countermelody or perform a strict 'rhythm team' function ?
 
Depends on the song! For most, it provides the 'rhythm team' thing, but occasionally it provides a low accent function, or even 'low lead' part. Maybe because I am a guitar player who also plays the bass part ...
 
Bass generally plays a pretty big role in my songs. I do a lot of reggae and indie styled stuff and the bass is generally a big function of the groove. I often mix the bass in a bit louder because of this. In some of my more punk/rock geared stuff, however, the bass just mirrors the guitar.
 
Bass guitar is usually the second "keeper" track that gets recorded following the drums....so at that point, I have maybe only scratch vocal and guitar tracks along with the drums...and as simple as many of my bass tracks may be, the bass guitar track has the ability really steer the direction of the song at that point in the tracking process.

A song I'm just now wrapping up started out as more of pure Rock tune when I was getting it sorted out in my head....but when I recorded the bass track, all of a sudden the chorus ended up with a bit of Latin flavor, which was unplanned, but when I started playing the bass, it just came out that way against the drums and the scratch tracks...so I went with it and I think it really helped drive the rest of the song nicely.
So I give the bass as much importance as anything else.

The drummer I work with told me that my bass lines are often unexpected, but somehow they just work well for the song. I think that's maybe because I'm not a bass player, and when I play it, I'm not just listening to the bass line, but instead thinking of how the song will work with it.
 
Broadly speaking I don't make much use of bass other than as a fundamental backing to the rhythm.
Sometimes I do try to use the bass to join sections together and to lead into the next thing but it's never complicated or especially intricate.
 
Bass can have many different functions. As I am a bass player and not just a git player playing a bass ..... and I'm old school .... I tend to use bass as a foundation and pretty much always tie it rythmically to the kick drum.

But it's always cool to have the bass wander away from the obvious bass line a bit.
 
I would consider myself a polished bass player by any means but I have a good knowledge of music which means I can compose arrangements where I can slip in some less obvious intervals with my bass to accentuate the effect of other harmonies which occur in my material. Note placement in respect of beat timings is another way to push or pull the piece rhythmically. I like a track to have solidity and warmth around the lows which underpins the mids and highs, dissonant notes of various intervals have their place too if wanting to have an unsettling effect.

Using a six string bass I've been experimenting with playing under the main bass line using the low B string creating harmonies with the second bass track Eq'd to keep any errant mids out of the mix which does not come across as hugely audible but is felt and allows a sub rhythm to also be created. There will be material I'll record without a bass, but it'll be replaced by something else which can deliver good lows, to fatten out the bottom end of the recording. Like any instrument which produces notes, it's the composer who has the opportunity to really consider the effects that are created by different intervals/inversions in various registers and additional rhythms which can create additional movement around a main theme.

To be fair I have become romantically involved with the bass as an instrument, even though I have only been playing one for around eight months, I have two instruments a six and four string, I have a hankering for a semi or full acoustic to add to my tone options in due course. So having survived many years without a need to paly one, the arrival of my home studio and a lack of compatible musicians that I can rely on to work on tracks means I have to learn a new instrument every time I want its inclusion in my material.

All the best

Tim
 
The ever popular "it depends". Bass gives a tune legs so it's important to me. But some tunes I want the bass to just lock with the kik and stay solid. Some tunes I want the bass as a second lead instrument. Like I said, it depends.
 
Really depends. If it shadows the guitar I like it locked in perfect though. I've done stuff where the bass fallows the kick and snare while the guitar rings out or something though.
 
I'm lucky enough to have 5 string, 4 string solid, 4 string semiacoustic and "acoustic" basses. With a range of flats & rounds - I round this mob off with a 'cello, a superb bass amp & a really nice Bass DI.
All that gear and my bass playing skills, despite the almost 40 years of love and care, are limited.
I am a bassist 1st & foremost, (any one who can only play a doz chords can't be called a guitarist).
My music heroes were mainly bassists until I found Leonard Cohen & Elvis Costello (mind you Bruce from the Attractions made it onto the list even though he didn't play the WTDetectives lines on the record).
I've found that I shadow the chord progression pretty closely in fast songs and move around a bit in slower songs or where there is space to do so. When I say move around I don't mean melodic or fancy fernickity a couple of octaves away type stuff: I usually employ the 2 & 2 system - two strings higher or lower & two semitones higher or lower - as the pivot for runs, walks &, more often than not, staggers! Octaves in other words.
In terms of arrangements the bass usually comes after the click track and rhythm guitar. It arrives almost unconsciously and is, to me, meant to lock in with the bass drum but, due to my distorted sense, rarely does so.
Greg is, as you all know, a superb bass player but finds it a little uninspiring.
 
Bass is profoundly important in my recordings.

I use it to provide the bottom end of the audio spectrum: I like a full range of frequencies to be represented in any material.

In many cases it provides an additional chord voicing.

As others have noted, sometimes it is locked into the kick to provide a solid rhythmic foundation. At other times it wanders around like a lost soul. It depends on the material.
 
grimtraveller said:
Does the bass play an important role in your songs and arrangements or is it kind of a shadow for the guitar riffs or rhythm ? Does it act as a countermelody or perform a strict 'rhythm team' function ?
Click to expand...

Rhythm team function. Incredibly important. I probably spend more time on bass, tone, playing and recording than any other instrument. Good bass and drums makes the song, for me. If it's not there, I do over. If I don't get it right (whatever right is) I move on to another song. My current obsession is getting MASSIVE amounts of bass that gels up nicely with the kick without turning mix into mud. The kind of bass that makes the needle almost jump the groove. I have a friend who records and gets insanely good bass. I've been using his stuff as a target. Still got a long way to go.
 
chuckduffy said:
So not true. Bass in your songs is exactly what it should be for your songs, a fundamental part of the rhythm section.
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Lol. I was being sarcastic. I fucking rule on bass and rip it up on just about every song. It's the one part of my musicality that actually has some pizazz. :laughings:
 
I think that the bass is underrated.
Some people look at it as the 4-string 'guitar' but that is wrong, (It is actually based on the double bass and not on the guitar.)
the bass is an instrument on it's own that can be both used as a rythmic or melodic instrument. (Maybe even harmony or a combination of those.)
 
For my current project, all the instruments sing their own songs. Bass is critical, usually has its own counterpoint line, and plays an integral part in shaping the feel of the song.
 
kjell159 said:
I think that the bass is underrated.
Some people look at it as the 4-string 'guitar' but that is wrong, (It is actually based on the double bass and not on the guitar.)
the bass is an instrument on it's own that can be both used as a rythmic or melodic instrument. (Maybe even harmony or a combination of those.)
Click to expand...
It was originally based on the double bass, compensating for the fact that double bass players struggled to be heard in many band settings.
But it soon moved away from it's intended origin because no matter what the inventor's intentions are, human beings will find a way to use said invention in ways the originator never foresaw. And as music aided by electricity became more adventurous, so the role of the bass guitar increased in it's power to alter melodic and harmonic textures in songs.
I once read a very interesting interview many years ago in which the 6 string bassist Anthony Jackson, went to great pains to emphasize that for him, the bass was not simply a bass instrument but a bass guitar and he really emphasized guitar rather than 'bass'. As can be seen by the variety of answers here, the bass guitar performs a dizzyingly versatile role, perhaps the most versatile of all instruments.
As a total red herring, the musicologist Howard Goodall reckons the moving bass line in western music is only 300 years old.
So that's what was missing in caveman music !
 
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