# No bass live



## Mr_Nugglet (Sep 4, 2011)

I remember seeing a thread like this awhile ago but I searched it and couldn't find anything.

My band is starting to play a fair amount of shows lately about 3 a month which is good for us

One issue though is that we don't have a bass player and we're really starting to notice it. We don't like in a huge musical area so finding one is pretty hard but we're always looking.

So do you guys know any tips or tricks to help us sound a little for full live?

Thanks in advance!


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## GuitaristOfHell (Sep 4, 2011)

Mr_Nugglet said:


> I remember seeing a thread like this awhile ago but I searched it and couldn't find anything.
> 
> My band is starting to play a fair amount of shows lately about 3 a month which is good for us
> 
> ...


Do what a lot of people do. Record the bass yourself and have it in a backing track live with something like a Boss GT8 or 10. Bassists here are rare so I record my bass lines myself and when I get to serious gigging that's what I'll be doing.


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## sol niger 333 (Sep 4, 2011)

GuitaristOfHell said:


> Do what a lot of people do. Record the bass yourself and have it in a backing track live with something like a Boss GT8 or 10. Bassists here are rare so I record my bass lines myself and when I get to serious gigging that's what I'll be doing.




Can you elaborate more on how you'd go about setting this up live?


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## Mr_Nugglet (Sep 4, 2011)

GuitaristOfHell said:


> Do what a lot of people do. Record the bass yourself and have it in a backing track live with something like a Boss GT8 or 10. Bassists here are rare so I record my bass lines myself and when I get to serious gigging that's what I'll be doing.



I was always thinking about doing that but how would we go about setting this up?


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## GuitaristOfHell (Sep 4, 2011)

sol niger 333 said:


> Can you elaborate more on how you'd go about setting this up live?


Not sure, my friends do it though and A Band called Steel Panther does it. Record the bass, and see if you get put in a backing track

 4:36 you hear the bass playing, but he's not playing it. He's fixing his hair .

The stripped down version is record it and get it into something like a GT8 as a backing track.


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## Mondo (Sep 5, 2011)

Zeno said:


> Also, IMHO, the music will sound kinda thin anyway without bass, so you may want to also run your guitar clean into an effect that will bend the pitch an octave down (Morpheus Droptune, Digitech whammy, etc) and run that into a bass amp. It won't sound perfect, but it's better than having no bass at all. I hate just rehearsing without a bass. I can't imagine playing live with out one. Best of luck, man.


 
and that is from: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/live-performance-stage-sound/164316-full-stack-question.html

I used the morpheus droptune and it was perfect for that show, but definatly not a long term solution.


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## thedarkoceans (Sep 5, 2011)

i have the solution man,totally right.a band i know uses this way.
the guitarist has his pedalboard,then he leads the sound into a MORPHEUS DROP TUNER,a great pitch shifter,that de-tunes his sounds an octave lower,then the pedal goes into 2 bass heads and 2 bass cabs.
here it is your solution. (good reputation?)


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## petereanima (Sep 5, 2011)

Mr_Nugglet said:


> I was always thinking about doing that but how would we go about setting this up?



You need to play to a clicktrack/metronome, otherwise you wont be "in time" with the bass track.

You could record the bass tracks at home, and then send live from a laptop directly to the FOH. You can also do this with any common recorder of course. Laptop is just the little bit better solution, if you also need to play to a click live - you can have all songs in you DAW as projects, in every project the click track and the bass track -> send click track to (drum) monitor/in ear, send bass track directly to FOH.


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## Winspear (Sep 5, 2011)

Yep a bass backing track with a click to your monitors works but you'll want to practice that plenty.

The morpheus drop tune pedal isn't a bad idea at all!


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## ericsleepless (Sep 5, 2011)

I think using a click track and having a "backing track" is a bad idea. I think it makes someone look bad as a musician. You should look for a bassist to complete your line-up if that's what you think your band needs. When you take the people out of the music and use a machine you take out the truth in music. The heart and soul... that's just my say in the matter....


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## petereanima (Sep 5, 2011)

ericsleepless said:


> I think using a click track and having a "backing track" is a bad idea. I think it makes someone look bad as a musician.



I'm not sure I understand you correct...If anything, it would make you look like a _better_ musician imho. I'm used to play to a clicktrack (recording etc.), but still, in a band situation, thats a tough one. I have nothing but respect for bands playing tight to a click live.


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## danieluber1337 (Sep 5, 2011)

ericsleepless said:


> I think using a click track and having a "backing track" is a bad idea. I think it makes someone look bad as a musician. You should look for a bassist to complete your line-up if that's what you think your band needs. When you take the people out of the music and use a machine you take out the truth in music. The heart and soul... that's just my say in the matter....



Between the Buried and Me are bad musicians? 
Tesseract
Tosin Abasi
Cradle of Filth
tons of others



He said that he's looking for a bassist. Once he finds one, I bet he'll stop using the backing track.

Plus, it's nice to be able to have synth parts, samples, layers et cetera when you play live. There's no way I'd be able to play the song in my sig live without eight guitarists. Or a backing track. Use the technology to improve the show. That's why people go to shows. At least, that's why I go to shows.


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## Mr_Nugglet (Sep 5, 2011)

Thanks guys for all the input! I think I may look into that pedal thing because we don't have a laptop and our drummer has a metronome on his phone for clicks anyways.


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## Varcolac (Sep 5, 2011)

If your drummer's using a phone for clicks, he can also use it as an mp3 player for the bass track. Click panned hard left, bass panned hard right, stereo splitter, take the click to the drummer's monitor and the bass to the front of house. I think you'd find it cheaper and easier than messing around with pitchshifting and running a separate bass rig.


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## SirMyghin (Sep 5, 2011)

I have never been one for sampled/backing track bass for a performing band. It just doesn't feel right. You might be able to get away with it in the metal genres a little easier, due to the amount of dull unison playing, but I really wouldn't recommend it.


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## sol niger 333 (Sep 7, 2011)

SirMyghin said:


> I have never been one for sampled/backing track bass for a performing band. It just doesn't feel right. You might be able to get away with it in the metal genres a little easier, due to the amount of dull unison playing, but I really wouldn't recommend it.



Really interested to hear what problems you ran into. Please elaborate on "it just doesn't feel right" as I'm toying with this option at the moment out of necessity ( bass player of 10 years moving away and noone being good enough to replace him ) people saying its a really bad idea are freaking me out. I'd appreciate some WHY its a bad idea. ACTUAL reasons and problems we may face. Not just passing statements.. anyone?


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## Inazone (Sep 7, 2011)

My band started without a bassist, played with one for a few years and then went without when he left. We did a couple shows where I did some of the more prominent bass parts through an ABY box into a Boss OC-3 Super Octave and a bass amp, but the technology just wasn't quite "ready for prime time" in my experience. However, I bought a Morpheus DropTune a few months ago, and it is quite capable of handling hot pickups, which the Boss could not.

Might have to revisit the DropTune, as our "long-term temporary" bassist just informed us that he'll be leaving at the end of the year. I would have no issue using some sort of an effects unit, if finding a permanent bassist isn't a viable option.


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## SirMyghin (Sep 7, 2011)

sol niger 333 said:


> Really interested to hear what problems you ran into. Please elaborate on "it just doesn't feel right" as I'm toying with this option at the moment out of necessity ( bass player of 10 years moving away and noone being good enough to replace him ) people saying its a really bad idea are freaking me out. I'd appreciate some WHY its a bad idea. ACTUAL reasons and problems we may face. Not just passing statements.. anyone?



It is too static, it is both dictating the pace, and always been the same night to night. It lacks any chance for spontanuity and band interaction. What if you want to emphasize one part in particular as you feel it is going well, guess who won't be joining you?  It limits stuff like that, makes everything a little more stiff and rigid. Then again in a metal band everything is pretty over rehearsed and set in stone as is so you probably get away with it a lot easier. I still don't like it though.


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## ZXIIIT (Sep 7, 2011)

My band was "bass-less" for our first 4 years of playing shows, we had the bass parts in our backing track and it worked, you could hear the bass, but never really "feel it". We replaced our 2nd guitarist with a real live bassist this year and the sound improvement is immense, still sticking to a backing track drummer and extra layered keyboard parts because those 2 spots tend to attract flaky musicians


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## TheBotquax (Sep 7, 2011)

SirMyghin said:


> Then again in a metal band everything is pretty over rehearsed .


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## SirMyghin (Sep 7, 2011)

TheBotquax said:


>



How many metal bands do you see jamming their songs/parts of songs? That is what I am talking about. Maybe in some Doom stuff but I haven't seen it otherwise, most definitely not in 'tech'.


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## Ancestor (Sep 8, 2011)

GuitaristOfHell said:


> Not sure, my friends do it though and A Band called Steel Panther does it. Record the bass, and see if you get put in a backing track
> 
> 4:36 you hear the bass playing, but he's not playing it. He's fixing his hair .
> 
> The stripped down version is record it and get it into something like a GT8 as a backing track.




dude, i think the whole thing might be a recording. i know the guitar isn't playing those eighth notes at about 2:19.


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## Ancestor (Sep 8, 2011)

or you could do the opposite and have someone hold a bass on stage and pretend to play it so people don't get all bent out of shape. 

i think bands sound great without bass. a good bassist can make the band, but a bad one can ruin your life.


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## Oxidation_Shed (Sep 8, 2011)

Ancestor said:


> or you could do the opposite and have someone hold a bass on stage and pretend to play it so people don't get all bent out of shape.
> 
> i think bands sound great without bass. a good bassist can make the band, but a bad one can ruin your life.



Our bassist of a year and a half was pretty much exactly this. No one ever noticed except other, competent bassists who knew what to listen for.

It depends what kind of venues you're playing. If, like us, you're playing small clubs with generally shit to mediocre sound then you can most likely get away with it.

Though he literally left us yesterday because it became more and more obvious he couldn't keep up. Bare in mind we didn't hire him to pretend to play bass, it's just that the rest of us improved no end with our playing in the last year and he's been left in the dust.


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## Inazone (Oct 4, 2011)

I just wanted to add that my band had its first practice using the ABY > Morpheus DropTune > bass amp method over the weekend, and it actually worked out better than expected. Our rhythm guitarist bitched about it at first, as he has to run his guitar through the ABY, but it didn't affect his tone that I could tell, and we definitely sounded better with "fake" bass than without. The next step will be to get some sort of bass DI (SansAmp or equivalent) to run through at gigs, as it's really not worthwhile lugging along a bass rig.


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## brootalboo (Oct 8, 2011)

Ancestor said:


> dude, i think the whole thing might be a recording. i know the guitar isn't playing those eighth notes at about 2:19.



x2 a lot of bands do live recordings but redub them in a studio. And the way they act on stage I wouldn't be surprised if they had a couple boo-boos


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## Powermetalbass (Feb 26, 2012)

Get a bass player. Bass is the foundation of any band. without it most bands sound hollow!


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## AxeHappy (Feb 26, 2012)

Yeah, bass is pretty key. From a recording stand point they are arguably the most important member of a band. 

But, since he can't find one, the pre-recorded/click may be the best option. I write a lot of non-unison bass parts so the drop-tune wouldn't work for me.


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## Quikblade (Feb 29, 2012)

Unless you need someone who can do insane slapping or something like that why not just get a competent guitarist to fill in for you? 

Not meaning to diss Bass playing but surely you could find someone willing to give it a go?


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