How important is the bass guitar in your songs ?

Greg_L said:
I saw one last weekend for the first time. I was like "wtf is this thing?" Didn't get to play it though. It looked like a Jazzmaster with some big ol honking strings on it.
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yeah ...... they're pretty cool.
I suppose technically they're a bass since they're tuned an octave below a standard git and a baritone is tuned ...... I'm not sure but I think the low string on a baritone is tuned to 'B'.
So they're not really a baritone because they're tuned lower than a bari.

But everything I've ever read about them says they don't do the bass thing very well and are 'thin' sounding compared to a normal bass.
They're pretty short scale for a bass ...... something like 30".
 
Lt. Bob said:
yeah ...... they're pretty cool.
I suppose technically they're a bass since they're tuned an octave below a standard git and a baritone is tuned ...... I'm not sure but I think the low string on a baritone is tuned to 'B'.
So they're not really a baritone because they're tuned lower than a bari.

But everything I've ever read about them says they don't do the bass thing very well and are 'thin' sounding compared to a normal bass.
They're pretty short scale for a bass ...... something like 30".
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Are they played "single-note" like a bass, or do you play it like a guitar? What amp would you run it through? The one I saw looked like a baritone with gigantic strings on it. I was perplexed, but it was behind glass and I didn't have anyone dig it out.
 
Greg_L said:
Are they played "single-note" like a bass, or do you play it like a guitar? What amp would you run it through? .
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you can play it either way. Leo designed it and I think he had in mind that you could play the low strings like a bass and the high ones like a git.

As for amps ...... I'd be skeered to run those low notes through any of my git amps so I'd want to run it thru a bass amp ...... something with 10's.
 
Lt. Bob said:
you can play it either way. Leo designed it and I think he had in mind that you could play the low strings like a bass and the high ones like a git.

As for amps ...... I'd be skeered to run those low notes through any of my git amps so I'd want to run it thru a bass amp ...... something with 10's.
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Interesting. So the amp wouldn't care, right? Just the speakers?
 
yeah .... just the speakers. The amp wouldn't care.

And actually guitar speakers can handle bass up to a certain volume level. I routinely record bass thru my little Marshall MG 15 with an 8" speaker ..... I just don't turn it up very much.
And I imagine some git speakers could function fully as bass speakers if need be. For example that 200 watt EV that's in my Marshall 6101 might be able to do fine. In the 70's I used 4 EV SRO 12's to play bass thru and they had no problem with it.
.... but the only way to know for sure would be, "Crap! I blew my speaker" which is a test I wouldn't want to use nowadays.
 
Lt. Bob said:
yeah .... just the speakers. The amp wouldn't care.

And actually guitar speakers can handle bass up to a certain volume level. I routinely record bass thru my little Marshall MG 15 with an 8" speaker ..... I just don't turn it up very much.
And I imagine some git speakers could function fully as bass speakers if need be. For example that 200 watt EV that's in my Marshall 6101 might be able to do fine. In the 70's I used 4 EV SRO 12's to play bass thru and they had no problem with it.
.... but the only way to know for sure would be, "Crap! I blew my speaker" which is a test I wouldn't want to use nowadays.
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That's what I've always thought. The amp doesn't care what you plug into it, but the speakers might. I saw a video of a guy playing bass through a guitar cab and you could see the speaker falling apart as the vol went up.
 
I've worked on a lot of different music. I think I've tried doing and/or blending most styles of music in some way or form. I'm not saying it was any good LOL, but certainly really fun for me. In my opinion bass can be rather simple and that's not a bad thing. For me the advanced aspects of the instrument are in the timing and arrangement. You can create whole new landscapes and emotional feelings in a tune just by changing the way the bass is played. I like to start with really tight Bass and Kick beats with a lead style base line here and there to make it sound more complex. A lot of music uses beats like Rap would. The bass and the kick work together. Just listen to some country for example and it's the same thing as rap as far as the kick and bass working together especially with that 4 on the floor style used in everything from oldies to modern dance music lol. Adding some bass melodies during the drum rolls or quickly between chord changes really adds some nice flavor and texture to the song. I think it's really important for just about every kind of music :D
 
FoulPhil said:
For me the advanced aspects of the instrument are in the timing and arrangement. You can create whole new landscapes and emotional feelings in a tune just by changing the way the bass is played.
Adding some bass melodies during the drum rolls or quickly between chord changes really adds some nice flavor and texture to the song.
I think it's really important for just about every kind of music
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^^^^ Ja, ja ^^^^
 
I am mostly a guitar player, but play bass on my original recordings. Many years ago I discovered a great respect for the bass sound. While at a rock concert the bass players amp blew up, or just stopped working in the middle of a song and when it did everything came unraveled and sounded horrible. It is safe for me to say, that the bass is the glue that holds everything together.
 
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