Bass as rhythm guitar !

[Bassjon]

Hi all!

I have been experimenting in my 'studio' writing songs that are all bass led - no guitars at all. As you can imagine, this brings up all kinds of trouble, I'm at the mixing stage and nothing 'sits' right. I thought since a lot of bands tune their guitars so low these days I may as well just use bass!

So anyway, any studio boffs out there have any recommendations as to what frequencies I should cut/boost to give the tracks some depth. It sounds good on my monitors but a lot of home speakers don't have good bass response, so I just wondered if anyone knew of any other bands that use just bass/drums vocals format, and if there is a general rule of thumb when it comes to mixing the bass so it's upfront but not booming?

The only band I know of that works like this is DFA 1979 but I'm not mad on the distortion!

Ta,
love n stuff
Bassjon

[Maude]

Freemans had three bassists (Peter Hook, Andy Rourke and Mani) and Primary by The Cure was two basses with no keys or guitars.

[Maude]

Bloody autocorrect. That'll be Freebass, not Freemans

[MacDaddy]

Neds Atomic Dustbin had 2 basses.

Lemmy plays 'rhythm bass', no distortion but lots of Mids.

[Bassjon]

[quote name='Maude' timestamp='1449525159' post='2924426']
Bloody autocorrect. That'll be Freebass, not Freemans
[/quote]

Ooh I'll have a listen to that - sounds right up my street. Cheers!

[pete.young]

Colin Hodgkinson with Back Door. Bass, drums and sax.

[chriswareham]

Someone has mentioned Primary by The Cure, but it's worth checking out the album Faith which that track was from. Most of the songs are either Fender Precision and Fender VI, or the Precision and some minimal keyboards. The title track in particular features the Fender VI as lead.

[cheddatom]

You probably need to pick one part to be the proper bass, and cut most of the low end from the other parts. Can you post it up for us to listen to? It'd be easier to give advice that way

[charic]

Lots and lots of distortion, then a bit more distortion, maybe a touch of overdrive and then some distortion

By the end of that you won't be able to hear any bass

[Skybone]

Evil Blizzard... 4 basses

[MoonBassAlpha]

Morphine, bass (fewer than regulation number of strings iirc) drums and sax, quite sparse though.
Royal Blood, using all kinds of octavers etc. is how it can be done in a rock context.

[chrismuzz]

I would use an overdriven treble/mid heavy sound (this will smooth out the peaks without making it sound tame), blended with a clean low/mid sound to fill the mix out. Maybe add some light chorus and/or flanger to give it more texture.. but there are many approaches that could work!

[Happy Jack]

Rhythm bass is bloody hard work when you try to do it live.

[Norris]

Royal Blood?

[Cosmo Valdemar]

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1449527448' post='2924450']
Lemmy plays 'rhythm bass', no distortion but lots of Mids.
[/quote]

No distortion?!

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

Cop shoot cop

[colgraff]

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' timestamp='1449668034' post='2925758']
No distortion?!
[/quote]
No distortion in the sense that he doesn't use pedals. The fuzzy sound comes from the amps being cranked up.

[Bassjon]

[quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1449618850' post='2925358']
I would use an overdriven treble/mid heavy sound (this will smooth out the peaks without making it sound tame), blended with a clean low/mid sound to fill the mix out. Maybe add some light chorus and/or flanger to give it more texture.. but there are many approaches that could work!
[/quote]

Brilliant, thanks!
I remember Cop Shoot Cop, wow! thats going back

[MacDaddy]

[quote name='colgraff' timestamp='1449680782' post='2925942']
No distortion in the sense that he doesn't use pedals. The fuzzy sound comes from the amps being cranked up.
[/quote]
IIRC in an interview with BGM he said no distortion just cranked mids.

[chriswareham]

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1449782356' post='2926872']
IIRC in an interview with BGM he said no distortion just cranked mids.
[/quote]

Lemmy's settings are pretty much full gain, full mid, no bass or treble. The result is overdriven, so I guess it's down to the difference between overdrive and distortion.

[rOB]

I'm trying to put together a bass, drums vox band at the moment. Working hard on variety of sounds with a limited palette.

In studio, I'd suggest boosting mids as mentioned above.

Edited December 11, 2015 by rOB

[Skybone]

TBH, the distortion that Lemmy achieves isn't "full gain", but full volume. It's a lesson I've learned over the years of playing with guitar amps & the near endless search for the "perfect" distortion sound.

Using full gain, and most OD/Dist/Fuzz pedals loads the pre-amp, and creates a "spiky" or "jagged", rough sounding distortion that's not very pleasant IMO.

Using a valve driven power amp, at full volume, creates a much smoother sounding distortion, usually described as "creamy". Mixed with a medium/medium-high gain, it gets that aggressive sound that's just gorgeous IMO. When I was playing guitar in one band, we played a few All Dayer's, and I had the other guitarists asking how I got that sound.

Anyway, new discovery for me, but I heard "Clatter" over the weekend and was very impressed. A 2 piece band, just bass & drums, check out "Tree of Secrets" on You Tube. [url]http://www.clatter.com[/url].

[EssentialTension]

Bass VI, neck and bridge pickups on, strangle switch engaged, thin pick.

Play rhythm.

[Bassjon]

[quote name='Skybone' timestamp='1450087870' post='2929358']


Anyway, new discovery for me, but I heard "Clatter" over the weekend and was very impressed. A 2 piece band, just bass & drums, check out "Tree of Secrets" on You Tube. [url="http://www.clatter.com"]http://www.clatter.com[/url].
[/quote]

Yeah they're really good! nice find