# Where is the bass?



## usagi (Apr 3, 2006)

I took a long (10 year) hiatus from playing guitar and listening to real metal. Now that I've been back a couple of years there are a ton of cool bands. I noticed the other day after listening to Ashes of the Wake and Live After Death back to back, the bass does not seem very prominent in metal anymore. It seemed like most of the bands in the 80s you could hear the bass guitar if you paid attention. But that doesn't seem to be the case with bands these days. Is it just me? Or my ears old. What's the deal?


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## 7slinger (Apr 3, 2006)

do you mean how the music is mixed or written? and I guess either way you're gonna find a wide variety...


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## Metal Ken (Apr 3, 2006)

Written, i think. 
its there's in plenty of bands, you just gotta know which ones to listen to. Check out the bands Spiral Architect & Atheist. \m/


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## bostjan (Apr 3, 2006)

*cough* metallica *cough* ..and justice for all *sneeze*

...pardon me.

Hmm, you know...you seem to have a point. Metal bands seemed to have more prominent bassists in the 80's and 90's than they do now, in general.

There are some bands that I can distinguish the bass in, but nothing much coming to mind that's too new. Maybe I just don't know new bands?

Any new Spastic Ink? They had some killer bass on the first album.

Ken, Atheist had an awesome bass player, but he died.  Plus, I haven't heard any of their new stuff, or seen anything from them since...94 or about...


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## Korbain (Apr 3, 2006)

i could hear some cool bass work in the stone sour cd. Was nice and loud and wasn't drowned out by all the other instruments. Tool blend the bass well with the music too. I am prepared to be shot here. but bands like KoRn and limp bizkit have some pretty prominent bass in their music. Especially LB but thats because Sam Rivers is a fucking brilliant bassist so you'd wanna hear him! Theres plenty of nice bass stuff on korns new album aswell. I found bands like cradle of filth, deftones, and disturbed really drown out the bass so you can't hear it. Slipknot have a pretty decent bass sound going in their music too i guess. anyways, i'll shutup lol I don't listen to all out death metal and stuff so i can only give you my oppinions on stuff i listen too *runs*


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## dpm (Apr 3, 2006)

Necrophagist most definitely has a bass player


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## Metal Ken (Apr 3, 2006)

bostjan said:


> Ken, Atheist had an awesome bass player, but he died.  Plus, I haven't heard any of their new stuff, or seen anything from them since...94 or about...



They havent done anything since 93, but they re-released all their albums with bonus tracks, and they're doing a few tours, most likely a live dvd then breaking back up again (Not recording any new tracks, to maintain the Atheist legacy). Roger Patterson was awesome, but Tony Choy rules too. 

Also, check out any recording with Steve DiGiorgio, he's a bass god. Same with Novy from Vader/Behemoth (You dont hear it too much through the mixes, but watching that dude play is fucking mind numbing. Same with the dude from Origin). Cryptopsy ,too. Eric Langlois = da man.


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## usagi (Apr 4, 2006)

It seems like most of the stuff I've been listening too lately, COB, Trivium, LOG, Nevermore, Arch Enemy, I can't hear the bass in the mix. Well there will be little ocassional snipits where I can but mostly not. Yeah, I think Metallica started it with And Justice. It just seems like it used to be more prominent in the mix and I wondered if that was a stylistic choice or a result of down tuning or something else (global warming?)? I know read recently in Guitar World a producer saying it was difficult to get good bass sounds because of the down tuning that bands do.


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## Shannon (Apr 4, 2006)

THIS band most definately has a bass player...and those are only the rough mixes. You should hear the CD! TONS of low end courtesy of a massive bass tone.
[action=Shannon]realizes he's a promotion whore.[/action]


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## Ancestor (Apr 4, 2006)

I think that a lot of bands have the bass playing what the guitar plays, or close to it. If it's mixed right, it just sounds like one big instrument. 

For awhile, I was anti-bass, because I was tired of the guitar parts getting covered up and rounded off by the wrong bass notes. We recorded two CDs without bass, much to the irritation of our recording engineer.


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## Metal Ken (Apr 4, 2006)

Ancestor said:


> I think that a lot of bands have the bass playing what the guitar plays, or close to it. If it's mixed right, it just sounds like one big instrument.
> 
> For awhile, I was anti-bass, because I was tired of the guitar parts getting covered up and rounded off by the wrong bass notes. We recorded two CDs without bass, much to the irritation of our recording engineer.



How did you record, out of curiousity?


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## Ancestor (Apr 4, 2006)

Metal Ken said:


> How did you record, out of curiousity?



The engineer had the guitar miked w/an SM57 and maybe like a U-47 or something. Then both the main and second guitar parts were doubled into ProTools.


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## Metal Ken (Apr 4, 2006)

did you, like, whammy any of the guitar parts, or did you just fatten up the bass in your tones, etc?


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## Ancestor (Apr 4, 2006)

Metal Ken said:


> did you, like, whammy any of the guitar parts, or did you just fatten up the bass in your tones, etc?



I figured that the kicks already had most of the low frequencies covered. Of course, like most everyone here, I have a 7. So Bb is my bottom note.

Originally, our engineer did artificially double the parts an octave lower, but we decided that it didn't sound right. All that stuff was removed. 

My EQ is a V shape, so there's more low/high than mid. We just used a straight guitar tone and then doubled it.

It seems (in my mind   ) that the final mix can be EQ'ed however it needs to be. The engineer's complaint was that some of the frequencies he needed just weren't there.

*edit* 

On the first recording, we had a bass player, in case you might have heard some of that stuff.


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## Dylan7620 (Apr 4, 2006)

shadows falls' bassist is a pretty good player... and his tone cuts nicely but still mixes well with the guitars. download "the light that blinds" its off there newest relase, should give you a pretty good idea of how they do things


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## Korbain (Apr 5, 2006)

all i can say is! dream theatre


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## Ancestor (Apr 6, 2006)

Here's a great example of bass abuse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t3v93ZH7qg&search=halford

Ha! A roadie even turns him down. Yet, later, he turns back up. What's the result? Sounds like hell.

Though Cannibal Corpse's bassist is pretty scary. And my hero, Steve Harris. Can't go wrong with some Harris.


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## bostjan (Apr 6, 2006)

Steve Harris is way overlooked these days.


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## Variant (Mar 15, 2007)

I'm gonna mention In Flames here... Peter must have some balls atypical of the average metal bassist because he is most often well in the mix, and with a HUGE sound ('Cloud Conntected', 'Transparent', 'Black & White', 'Borders & Shading', 'Reflect The Strom', 'Dead End', or pretty much ANYTHING after Clayman).


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## Enmesarra (Mar 15, 2007)

Cryptopsy's bassist Eric Langois rules, and also their music. You can hear the bass pretty easily on "None So Vile" and "Whisper Supremacy" (you can hear on the other albums too, but these are my favourite 2 ), and it's written wonderfully. Misery Index - Retaliate, Suffocation - Pierced From Within, Vile- The New Age Of Chaos, Saturnus- Veronika Decides To Die, Quo Vadis - Defiant Imagination, Necrophagist - Epitaph, Gorguts - Obscura, Death - Individual Thought Patterns, Cynic - Focus are my other favourite albums when it comes to bass.


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## Kronpox (Mar 18, 2007)

In a lot of modern metal, the guitar parts are fairly notey and it's hard to find room for the bass to do anything too weird. So, the bass is used moreso for its tonal properties and effect on the mix than it is as an actual prominent instrument. Which, in my opinion, isn't a bad thing- Knowing when to calm down and be simple is as much a part of being a good musician as being able to whip out something mind-blowing is. 

The bassist from Dimmu Borgir is sweet though. He doesn't do anything really noticeably wild, but his parts compliment the music very well.


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## All_¥our_Bass (Mar 18, 2007)

I can never hear the stuff that vortex(bassist from dimmu) plays. Like you said it's good to know when to go into the background but with a lot(but not all) all the bassist ever has to wander around in is the background.


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## CGord (Mar 19, 2007)

Variant said:


> I'm gonna mention In Flames here... Peter must have some balls atypical of the average metal bassist because he is most often well in the mix, and with a HUGE sound ('Cloud Conntected', 'Transparent', 'Black & White', 'Borders & Shading', 'Reflect The Strom', 'Dead End', or pretty much ANYTHING after Clayman).



In Flames was one of the two metal bands I was going to recommend for killer bass sound, the other being Mnemic.

Or heavy rock: King's X

Or Mudvayne for a metal band with amazing bass playing, but not necessarily killer tone.


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## All_¥our_Bass (Mar 21, 2007)

I don't really like the "one big instrument" sound for a whole song. For certain parts of a song, yes, it can make everything sound really huge and heavy, dramatic, etc. I tend to perfer a mix where you can hear everybody, and each instrument is easily distinguishable. So, in short, I like the opposite better, instead of one big instrument I like a group of smaller instruments.


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## Variant (Mar 21, 2007)

All_¥our_Bass;432111 said:


> I don't really like the "one big instrument" sound for a whole song. For certain parts of a song, yes, it can make everything sound really huge and heavy, dramatic, etc. I tend to perfer a mix where you can hear everybody, and each instrument is easily distinguishable. So, in short, I like the opposite better, instead of one big instrument I like a group of smaller instruments.



Agreed... Personally, I like "bridging" my tones over one another, with the bass frequencies in two or three different places, and the guitars in a few others. Done right, it sounds stellar. What you don't want to do is compromise the tone of one over the other. Experiment, I say.


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## theunforgiven246 (Mar 30, 2007)

ok everyone seemed to forget about opeth. you can hear their bassest and i think he does a fan-fuckin-tastic job.


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## Snake Doctor (Mar 31, 2007)

^ I second the recommendation for Opeth. Decapitated and Dream Theater are good bands for hearing bass, off the top of my head.


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## monkeybassguru (Apr 8, 2007)

If u want example of bands who combine awsome guitar playing u should also look at bands like Suicidal Tendencies, Extreme, Racer X or in the modern sense Meshuggah,, for me these band demonstrate good examples of how a bassist and guitarist should collaborate, with the two working together to create a better alround sound. In my view the bassist and guitarist should have just as much creative influence as one another and work off each other to create a better overall sound.


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## settite (Apr 30, 2007)

Slayer is a good example of a prominent bass sound. Tom Araya does a awesome job though imho but I am sure he has alot of say/pull in the matter since he is also the vocalist.

The bassist from Vader is alot of fun to watch and is most definently mind blowing. The bass you can hear well at concerts but not so much on most of their albums.


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## knuckle_head (Apr 30, 2007)

Ancestor said:


> My EQ is a V shape, so there's more low/high than mid. We just used a straight guitar tone and then doubled it.



There's your trouble.....

The best way to define bass against guitars in a metal situation is to bump the low mids of the guitar at 300 Hz and then bump the mids of the bass at 600 Hz. 

The only way to effectively do this is to record flat and then EQ but then you won't be able to lay tracks in a normal fasion because it won't sound right to you as you lay them.

.....my $.02


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## Durero (Apr 30, 2007)

+1 for Mudvayne having some interesting & prominent bass parts.


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## knuckle_head (May 18, 2007)

Yup.... rly.


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## 8string (May 31, 2007)

I would check out the tesseract project on soundclick, Acle's got the best bass sound I have ever heard in any style of music.


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## Metal Ken (May 31, 2007)

Despite this thread is ancient, i still suggest Spiral Architect and Twisted into Form as bands with badass bass sounds.


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## distressed_romeo (May 31, 2007)

Metal Ken said:


> Despite this thread is ancient, i still suggest Spiral Architect and Twisted into Form as bands with badass bass sounds.



+10000000000.


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