Bass players playing live...

[Yoda]

A question...

I went to see Alice Cooper in London last weekend. Never seen him before & only remember a few of his oldies such as 'Schools Out'. So, with that tune in mind & the bass line pretty much committed to memory (if not yet being able to master it)...I have to say that I was a little surprised to feel trouser-flapping bass about 2 octaves lower than what I was expecting. I was trying to watch the bass player intently initially to see if I could get a few tips as to what he was doing, but the few glimpses I got made me wonder if he was in fact playing the instrument at all. His playing didn't appear to produce [i]any[/i] of the notes I was expecting!

So...what actually does happen at these gigs. What was the bassist doing...what's the magic?
It's been some years since I last went to a concert, and things appear to have moved on a bit...

TIA

[risingson]

A number of things might have been happening: off the top of my head, sometimes live bass isn't judged in the same way by your ears as what the bass player might be appearing to play. The joys of psychoacoustics! The other thing and I think incredibly likely answer is that the band will have been playing to tracks, hence the not so correct duplication of Alice's bass player's bass playing (quite a tongue twister!).

[mrtcat]

More likely the in house pa system has masses of subs and the engineer was boosting the 40-80hz range giving the huge lows. this is pretty common in venues with big systems. anyone see tm stevens at the bass show earlier thiz year?

[charic]

Octaver into the mix?

[Kraken]

[quote name='risingson' timestamp='1320185169' post='1423622']
The joys of psychoacoustics! [/quote]

it might be this, but depending on how far away you were it could be the very slight difference in the speed of Sound and Speed of light, obviously your eyes registering the location of the note to come, while your ears recieve the note just played.

or some such nonsense.

[Chlo_treacher]

pixie dust

[RhysP]

Could have been the old "off stage keyboard player" routine.
It's not very Rock'n'Roll to have a boring old ivory tinkler on stage, so many bands stick 'em behind the backdrop so they don't spoil the look of the guitarists while they're throwing shapes - quite right too......

[Pete Academy]

Was it the sound engineer's idea of how a bass should sound? Or even because of where you were standing/sitting?

[TimR]

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1320436063' post='1426969']
...

"off stage keyboard player"

...

[/quote]

This.

[leschirons]

[quote name='Yoda' timestamp='1320184536' post='1423612']
A question...

I went to see Alice Cooper in London last weekend. Never seen him before & only remember a few of his oldies such as 'Schools Out'. So, with that tune in mind & the bass line pretty much committed to memory (if not yet being able to master it)...I have to say that I was a little surprised to feel trouser-flapping bass about 2 octaves lower than what I was expecting. I was trying to watch the bass player intently initially to see if I could get a few tips as to what he was doing, but the few glimpses I got made me wonder if he was in fact playing the instrument at all. His playing didn't appear to produce [i]any[/i] of the notes I was expecting!

So...what actually does happen at these gigs. What was the bassist doing...what's the magic?
It's been some years since I last went to a concert, and things appear to have moved on a bit...

TIA
[/quote]Just a quick follow on from this thread. My mate (a bass player) just got back from seeing Alice Cooper here in France and has just mailed me to say that 2 Precisions were used (possibly tuned differently) but as far as he could tell, all the bass was live with fingers seemingly in the right places for what was happening.

Edited November 13, 2011 by leschirons

[Yoda]

[quote name='leschirons' timestamp='1321144790' post='1435939']
Just a quick follow on from this thread. My mate (a bass player) just got back from seeing Alice Cooper here in France and has just mailed me to say that 2 Precisions were used (possibly tuned differently) but as far as he could tell, all the bass was live with fingers seemingly in the right places for what was happening.
[/quote]

Ah. Thanks.
I was right at the back, so in fairness was relying on the screen(s) to see what was going on on stage...and we all know how little 'air time' the bass players get! On second thoughts, perhaps being way back allowed me to hear the lower notes for some reason (extended wavelengths & other such waizardry)...but those notes were [i]LOW[/i] !