No Room for Bass

[BTS_Spacebass]

So i've just joined here, looking some threads and so forth and I would like to see what you lot make of this.

My band has made a conscious effort to become a much deeper/heavier entity, we currently have 2 guitarists 1 who plays a 7-string and 1 who plays an 8-string. Both enjoy playing very low. We also have a keys/synth/noise chap who has a hard-on for bass and sub-bass freq's (not an issue in itself )

Which has kinda, without me thinking about it much, moved me higher up the register and I find myself playing alot more melody or "lead" style lines. I've always been a low-down in the pocket style of player so it's a fun challenge and something different but I wonder if anyone else has experience of playing in a band where everyone seems to want a piece of the low end?`

Terry

[chris_b]

With the music I play there's no moving the bass lines. I play with some great keyboard players but unfortunately there are couple who don't understand that there can only one bass player in the band! We have regular [i]"don't play like that"[/i] conversations but they don't seem to be able to remember for longer than one set!

Again, it's a subject for a chat tonight!!

[JTUK]

[quote name='chris_b' post='911760' date='Aug 1 2010, 11:04 AM']With the music I play there's no moving the bass lines. I play with some great keyboard players but unfortunately there are couple who don't understand that there can only one bass player in the band! We have regular [i]"don't play like that"[/i] conversations but they don't seem to be able to remember for longer than one set!

Again, it's a subject for a chat tonight!![/quote]


another pet hate, here. I spend all my time trying to clean up the bottom-end part and make the song breathe and along comes the piano player..it is always piano players, more so than keyboard layers.., IYKWIM, that then lay down a chugging LH and mess it all up again.

I hate those 88's...

but, sure, leave the basslines alone and stick to harmony. There are so many places keys can take a song so why step on my shoes?
I am quite pleased with the success I have had with Bowie's 'Hereos', for example..we have banished the keys to nice piano chords and that at least gives the songs a chance to work, bottom-up, and if it doesn't it is entirely down to me now.

I am not sure how I would cope with 7 and 8st gtrs... it sounds like you may have 3 wannabe bass players in that band, besides you, so I'd take the hint and find something else more in keeping with your down-low groove penchant

[OldGit]

New band or piccolo bass?
Or, of course, do a Dood and go lower still.

[renniks]

[quote name='OldGit' post='911823' date='Aug 1 2010, 12:40 PM']Or, of course, do a Dood and go lower still.[/quote]
Definitely the answer

[Dood]

Dood is about the Bass

Hey guys! Ha ha!! it's funny, before I scrolled down after the OP - I was just going to post that there is a band called Cilice (The singer has recently left to join the awesome Textures) - who tune their guitars that low that they don't bother with a Bass Player! Live shows still have the guts and meat and I didn't miss the bass guitar! Not exactly what you want to hear I guess. When face with some seriously low tuning I have, as above, just tuned lower! My seven string, very kindly posted in a pic by my good friend Simon, is tuned to F# below B of a 5 string. The string is a massive .175 gauge and is a total beast given the 1000W of the Hartke stack it is relaxing against.

In your situation, it seems to me that as well as your guitarists tuning really low, they are EQing their guitars with too much bass as well? Now in real terms, that's not the best way forward. Especially playing live. The result will be too much bottom end and noise on stage making instruments become indistinct and harder for everyone to monitor themselves. I think some thought in to shaping the sound of each of the instruments so that they fit in the mix will help your bass fit in a lot better and be heard in the registers you need/want to be playing in. The result will actually be a tighter fatter sound making the band sound far stronger as a unit and not just a low end durge that confuses the engineer and ultimately the paying punters.

Another idea for you - if you have lots of synth and low guitars - why [i]not[/i] concentrate on singing lead lines instead? Peter Hook made a career out of it!

[Lfalex v1.1]

In one of my previous bands (a 5 piece art/indie rock outfit), I was nicknamed [i]"The Frequency Stealer"[/i] due to my tendency to go rocketing up the fretboard, overlapping with the guitars' lower registers.
We periodically used keyboards, too, and it didn't really cause any issues.
There's always room for a strung bass of some sort (ERB, Piccolo, EUB, Tenor etc.), even if a certain amount of "dodging" takes place!

[umph]

[quote name='BTS_Spacebass' post='911747' date='Aug 1 2010, 10:52 AM']So i've just joined here, looking some threads and so forth and I would like to see what you lot make of this.

My band has made a conscious effort to become a much deeper/heavier entity, we currently have 2 guitarists 1 who plays a 7-string and 1 who plays an 8-string. Both enjoy playing very low. We also have a keys/synth/noise chap who has a hard-on for bass and sub-bass freq's (not an issue in itself )

Which has kinda, without me thinking about it much, moved me higher up the register and I find myself playing alot more melody or "lead" style lines. I've always been a low-down in the pocket style of player so it's a fun challenge and something different but I wonder if anyone else has experience of playing in a band where everyone seems to want a piece of the low end?`

Terry[/quote]

in this situation get a tube screameresque pedal and boost your mid range you'll cut through the mud like a chain saw through butter and add alot more definition to the mix.

it's alot easier to cut through in the mids rather than try and go lower unless you have alot of money and good transport

[Mr. Foxen]

Show you guitarists the mid control is like another volume.

Caricatures had a guitarist that detuned his bottom string to A, and played through an octaver. Took me a while to figure it but cabs that can out sub it, and driven growly mids gave enough separation to pick out what I was up to, just about.

[thisnameistaken]

Either turn up way louder than them, starting playing soprano ukulele, or find another band that isn't obsessed with the current pencil-dicked metal trend of trying to play a bassier sounding guitar than everybody else.

[Rich]

[quote name='OldGit' post='911823' date='Aug 1 2010, 12:40 PM']New band or piccolo bass?
Or, of course, do a Dood and go lower still.
[/quote]
Hey, it's the SallyDoodle nearly-twins lovely to see them again.

[Cat Burrito]

I've had keyboard parts clash on a couple of occasions but I get them to move - I was here first!

[BTS_Spacebass]

Yeah with the 8-string and the second guitarist both being new additions (only 1 song written on the 8 and none with 2nd guitar) I think with the band as a whole tone sculpting is next on the agenda, although with both the seven and the eight we are making a concious effot to not sound "djent" especially as our label is very involved with that. To be honest it wasn't really a rant or anything coz i love the band and won't be leaving soon, but i guess there probably is an element of "the current pencil-dicked metal trend of trying to play a bassier sounding guitar than everybody else" i'll pass that to our guitarist lol.

I may well have a look at a tube screamesque pedal after i relax my creditcard company after the last 4 pedals i bought, it's becoming a real addiction at the moment

On a lighter note this is the first muso forum i've been on with some refreshing appreciation of metal, the normal response i expected to a thread like this is "don't play f***ing metal then" or something similar. nice

Terry

[Lord Sausage]

Whenever i've done pit band work i've always made a point to keyboard players about staying out of my way, unless its written for the keys to be down there.
Fortunately with the two bands i'm in both have the same keyboard player. We went to music college together. The ensemble lecturer there , who was a maverick genius and piano player, informed him to never use his left hand when playing. He told him the bass player would always be down there doing the donkey work for him. He said 'Ya right hands for playing melodies and chords, Ya left hands for smoking and drinking'. My friend has never once deviated from that advice!

[Lord Sausage]

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='911969' date='Aug 1 2010, 03:54 PM']Show you guitarists the mid control is like another volume.

Caricatures had a guitarist that detuned his bottom string to A, and played through an octaver. Took me a while to figure it but cabs that can out sub it, and driven growly mids gave enough separation to pick out what I was up to, just about.[/quote]
Its funny how so many guitarists have no idea about mid frequencies!

[BottomEndian]

[quote name='umph' post='911876' date='Aug 1 2010, 01:51 PM']in this situation get a tube screameresque pedal and boost your mid range you'll cut through the mud like a chain saw through butter and add alot more definition to the mix.

it's alot easier to cut through in the mids rather than try and go lower unless you have alot of money and good transport[/quote]
+1 to this. If the guitars are scooped, there's loads of room in the mids to come through.

The other option is to go the Meshuggah route and tune [b]up[/b] to meet the guitarists (in Meshuggah, the 8-string guitars have F# as their low string, so Dick Lövgren tunes up a tone, playing in the same register but with a bass timbre).

[Musicman20]

+1 Mids!

[Mr. Foxen]

[quote name='Lord Sausage' post='912188' date='Aug 1 2010, 07:56 PM']Its funny how so many guitarists have no idea about mid frequencies![/quote]

This one knows about mids. Realised the mid knob is like another volume control.

[Lord Sausage]

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='912618' date='Aug 2 2010, 11:08 AM']This one knows about mids. Realised the mid knob is like another volume control.[/quote]
Ha ha. Bet that's heaven when a guitarists finds that out.' Yes!! MORE VOLUME!!!!!!...............It goes up to 11'