# Unison bass? wtf?



## Ancestor (Sep 10, 2007)

Trying to think about working with a bassist. Here is the same problem that I always run into: Bassist wants to play almost exactly what the guitar is playing. I have tried a zillion times to explain to potential band members (and the universe surrounding me) that this is NOT how it works. 

Can anyone please help me explain why unison between guitar and bass sucks, PLEASE??



What are some good examples to support my argument?


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## Scott (Sep 10, 2007)

I had this problem with my old band. I was the bass player, and my singer/guitarist/writer told me to try and not follow what the guitar was doing.

I have no problem with doing my own thing. I prefer it actually. But, it also depends on the guitar riff that's being played. If you have just a basic riff playing, it isn't always easy to do something different and make it sound good.

I quit that band, and the bassist after me (Who i'll admit, is like, 10 times better than me) had the same problem. We were good friends so we talked about that band a lot.


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## OzzyC (Sep 10, 2007)

OPETH! 

I can't really think of anything to say, I just think Opeth would be a good example of the bass adding more to the music the the root note of the guitar chords.


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## Jason (Sep 10, 2007)

OzzyC said:


> OPETH!
> 
> I can't really think of anything to say, I just think Opeth would be a good example of the bass adding more to the music the the root note of the guitar cords.



Is that like chords?


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## TomAwesome (Sep 10, 2007)

I dunno. The main two reasons I could think of (it's boring, and it wastes potential) are pretty obvious. I think people are just so used to bassists doing that that they expect it most of the time. Our bassist does that, and it makes me sad. Don't get me wrong, playing that way has its place, just not every measure of every song. I play bass, too. I'm not much, if any, better than amateur level by any means, but most people are somewhat impressed when I play just for the simple fact that when I put on a bass I play like a bassist and not a disillusioned guitarist. I partially blame commercial rock music.

Maybe examples of how it can make the music better might be the best way. Ozzy's right about Opeth. Primus is another obvious one. There are plenty of other bands, but I can't think of any right now, because I'm up later than I have been lately and am pretty tired... Oh, Indorphine's bassist is awesome! He balances following the guitar and doing his own thing pretty well. Also, I've noticed that Japanese bands seem to have a better idea of what to do with a bass a lot of the time.


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## Mastodon (Sep 10, 2007)

The bassist in Necrophagist does a good job of doing his own thing.

Any kind of R&B stuff would be good examples as well.


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## Beta (Sep 10, 2007)

TomAwesome said:


> I dunno. The main two reasons I could think of (it's boring, and it wastes potential) are pretty obvious. I think people are just so used to bassists doing that that they expect it most of the time. Our bassist does that, and it makes me sad. Don't get me wrong, playing that way has its place, just not every measure of every song. I play bass, too. I'm not much, if any, better than amateur level by any means, but most people are somewhat impressed when I play just for the simple fact that when I put on a bass I play like a bassist and not a disillusioned guitarist. I partially blame commercial rock music.
> 
> Maybe examples of how it can make the music better might be the best way. Ozzy's right about Opeth. Primus is another obvious one. There are plenty of other bands, but I can't think of any right now, because I'm up later than I have been lately and am pretty tired... Oh, Indorphine's bassist is awesome! He balances following the guitar and doing his own thing pretty well. Also, I've noticed that Japanese bands seem to have a better idea of what to do with a bass a lot of the time.



It's also that many bands in many rock-oriented subgenres don't want the bass player to do anything else. Not expect- want. Pete Wentz isn't in Fall Out Boy to be a virtuoso. If anything, they have a bass player because their fans would probably think it odd if they didn't have one.

Many producers, engineers and rock musicians don't have a high opinion of bass/bass players, and it's obvious in the bass parts and song mixes.

Yeah, jazz bassists can get away with doing their own thing. But that's what the fans of the genre want, and what the musicians want, too. If you're playing blues or rock/metal, you'd better at least be at the root on 1. Face it- the melody instruments dictate, for the most part, what choices the bass player has available to play. Look at country music. In the minds of many musicians and producers, if you aren't playing root-5 on a Fender bass, you're overplaying. So, some styles "dictate" what notes you ought to be playing out of the notes you can play without sounding dissonant.

Speed also is a factor. The faster the music, the harder it is to play something good that separates from the guitar part- especially if you're a fingerstyle player (and if bass players in general are looked down on in certain styles of music, bass players who play with a pick are really looked down on). Well, for me, anyway. My hands are on the smaller side of average. Plus, most fingerstyle bass players are taught to mute with their fretting hand, and I think that slows you down a little. Guys like Gary Willis are exceptions. Willis plays with his index, middle and ring fingers on his right hand, so he always has a finger to mute with, which frees up his left hand to play notes as fast as he can handle.

To answer the original question, it shows a lack of creativity if the bass and guitar lines are always the same. It's just taking the easiest option available, and it creates the risk of your music sounding boring, as TomAwesome said. So, I guess it sucks because you don't wanna sound like Fall Out Boy, do you?

Here's the flip side: I was in a band where the guitarist's mantra was "Dude, gimme fills; gimme licks." I had freedom to play fills as I saw fit.

In one song, I decided to throw in a straightforward E7 arpeggio, starting from the 7th fret on the E string (B) and ending up on the E at the 9th fret, G string. Nothing special.

So I break it out during practice, and the guitarist stops immediately. "Dude, what was that fill?" he asks. I showed him how I played it.

"I'm gonna play that there, too," he said. And he did, from there on out.

And it looked like I was just playing the exact same thing as him, because nobody copies the bass player's licks. It made me wonder if I had freedom to fill as I saw fit just to provide him with fills he could copy, and I certainly didn't want to exercise any creativity after that.


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## Kotex (Sep 10, 2007)

Look at Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and also Tool. All have bass players doing their own thing, making the music a ton better.

I am definetly with you. I think the bass player should know when to play with the guitars and when not too. It adds so much to the music.


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## Metal Ken (Sep 10, 2007)

Or look at spiral architect. that bassist is all over the fucking place. And the guitarists are doing totally different things. Spiral Architect is such a mindfuck.


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## distressed_romeo (Sep 10, 2007)

I think it all depends on the style of music, and the context within the piece.

Unison guitar-bass can sound extremely cool and powerful in certain places. Most of Cream's riff's were based on unison lines that sounded awesome. Also, think of the tutti sections in classical pieces, where all the instruments play a theme in unison to lend it more power.
On the other hand, when the bass is doing little more than doubling the roots notes on power-chord riffs throughout whole songs it gets old really really quickly, although I've noticed in a lot of the pop-punk bands who're guilty of that the bass tends to be so far back in the mix anyway they might as well be playing anything (as Beta said).
Even in the context of blues music, which tends to emphasise groove over flash, there're guys like Roscoe Beck who manage to stretch out a little and add some interest to the bass parts without stepping on anyone, and in rock and metal there are quite a few bassists who manage to rip without dominating the band, such as Billy Sheehan and Steve DiGiorgio, so there's clearly some hope, and as far back as Black Sabbath and Rush, there were bands taking a more compositional approach to their basslines, weaving them around the guitar rather than just doubling it. Actually, a lot of goth and new-wave bands were awesome in the sense that they tended to have the guitar and bass working together to create parts rather than one doubling the other.
I think, as Beta also said, a lot of it's due to attitudes regarding bass players and the role of the bass in rock and metal. TomAwesome's comment about disillusioned guitarists probably has a lot to do with it; people still tend to think of bass as being a poor relation to the guitar unfortunately, and aren't actually too concerned with writing proper _bass_-lines. Obviously it would be equally bad if all bassists wanted to fill up every single spare moment on a song with fast slapping and tapping, but it's a real pity that more bands don't expand the bassist's role a bit.


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## MF_Kitten (Sep 10, 2007)

deftones has awesome bass lines


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## Mastodon (Sep 10, 2007)

Metal Ken said:


> Or look at spiral architect. that bassist is all over the fucking place. And the guitarists are doing totally different things. Spiral Architect is such a mindfuck.



The bass in Spiral Architect's stuff is fucking orgasmic.


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## Suho (Sep 14, 2007)

Metallica provides a good case study for both parts of your argument.

An example of what can happen if you don't separate basslines is Metallica's "And Justice For All." Now, don't get me wrong, I love the fucking album, but there is no distinguishing the guitars from the bass. Newsted was a pick player doubling Hetfields riffs all over the place. It created a kind of cool 'wall of sound,' because the sonic spectrum was literally in unison, but this was also partially caused by their choice of scooping the mids in the EQing. 

He changed his style and sound for the Black album. Listen to Enter Sandman (I picked this because most people know it) where he locks into the groove with the drums, separate from guitars, sometimes doubling the riff, but not always. 

Then there is Cliff Burton, the reason I got into the bass. He can double riffs like no one's business, but his most memorable stuff is the counterpoint he laid down under the guitars in so many songs.


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## thadood (Sep 14, 2007)

Actually, Jason's work on AJFA is pretty out there. It's so buried in the mix that you can hardly hear the fills and other non-doubling riffs he plays.


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## shadowgenesis (Sep 14, 2007)

For me, i don't know what bothers me more: musicians who underplay, or musicians who overplay. And i'm PROBABLY gonna say musicians who overplay.

that being said, i think the best musicians on any instruments are the ones who know when something sounds good to play. Somebody mentioned Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Both bands i love and think were REALLY well balanced as musicians. But check it out. For every part where there's an interesting and more "out there" bass line going on, there's a piece where the bass is doubling the riff (see Black Sabbath - War Pigs).
erm. Black Dog anyone? I played that on bass with a couple of my friends for a music class concert. It was like 3 octaves of the same notes all going on at once. hell. the bass lines in stairway to heaven are mostly (not all) simple and intuitive.

I love John Myung. Probably my favorite bassist. Him and Victor Wooten. But that's just Cuz Victor's SICK, tasteful, and a super nice fella. You look at a guy like Flea and think "he's doing all this cool stuff in the bass lines." But he's playing with a guitarist who's usually doing clean stuff on a Strat. Mix-wise that leaves a LOT more room for a bassist to work with. In hard rock or metal if there's a relatively intricate or melodic riff, it often just doesn't make sense to have anything else going on. There's a time and place for everything.

_please_ don't expect something fancy from someone all the time. Listen to what you're playing and think of what you might feasibly imagine being played before you expect anything out of another musician.

you have any recording gear so that you could maybe try to lay down some riffs and then try and play over them or just listen back and work out some basslines on your own?


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## Suho (Sep 16, 2007)

thadood said:


> Actually, Jason's work on AJFA is pretty out there. It's so buried in the mix that you can hardly hear the fills and other non-doubling riffs he plays.



Well, he may have some fills and things, but by and large he is doubling. Compare some of the transcriptions for a lot of their songs. I am not putting him down, and like I said, I actually like the wall of sound it creates as a cool sonic experience. As a bass player, though, it is a bit frustrating. You just hear some "whoomp" from the ultra low frequencies, which at times is the only giveaway that there is a bass playing with the guitars. 

My use of Metallica was not just to rag on AJFA, though. I was pointing to them as a good example of all sides of the unison playing argument. Cliff had a good sense of when to and not to, Jason developed that. The music from these two (I have not listened to any of Trujillo's work) is a good comparison study for this issue, IMO.


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## JBroll (Sep 16, 2007)

Sixteen posts and no mention of Cynic...

Focus. End of discussion.

Jeff


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## Ancestor (Sep 17, 2007)

Guys, I have to be honest. I don't hear any bass on AJFA. I don't think there's any there. At least, I sure can't hear it.

Yeah, the Cliff stuff is a lot more obvious, especially on anesthesia. ha.

Had the first little try at things today and it seemed to go well. No arguments, which was good. I even got to do a little soloing for once with some notes to play off of.


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## Suho (Sep 17, 2007)

Ancestor said:


> Guys, I have to be honest. I don't hear any bass on AJFA. I don't think there's any there. At least, I sure can't hear it.
> 
> Yeah, the Cliff stuff is a lot more obvious, especially on anesthesia. ha.
> 
> Had the first little try at things today and it seemed to go well. No arguments, which was good. I even got to do a little soloing for once with some notes to play off of.



Glad to hear you are having positive results. 

What you mentioned about AJFA is exactly the point you were looking to make, I think. Jason Newsted did record his bass tracks, but due to the EQing and the fact that many of his lines are exactly doubling the guitar parts, there is no differentiation. Now, despite the EQ, if he were playing more independent lines you would still hear at least traces and bits and pieces of his basslines (more than is now obvious, anyway).


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## Ror3h (Sep 17, 2007)

JBroll said:


> Sixteen posts and no mention of Cynic...
> 
> Focus. End of discussion.
> 
> Jeff




My thoughts exactly haha.
I've been learning a couple of cynic songs on bass recently to try and get better at it (gona get a fretless bass eventually), and that stuff is just immense, at times the bass plays something just completely different to everything else, but it just fits together so well!


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## Mattayus (Sep 23, 2007)

I have to agree with.. well.. everyone. This very argument is the reason i can't get into a band with my friend. We've been mates since we were 12, our musical tastes developed in a very similar direction until we were about 20, when we branched off completely. He's more into bass-orientated 70's dynamic style rock i.e zepplin, chillis, wishbone ash, G n R, where-as i remained more straight metal like pantera, machine head and the like. We've tried countless times to work on something, he's joined my bands, i've written for his etc etc, but we always have to end up parting ways after a while because there's no chemistry. He's so stuck in his ways that bass has to have it's spotlight that it sabotages the guitar parts.

But the most annoying thing is that i actually WANT a creative bassist, i want one who knows when to compliment and when to be flashy. Yes, there are times to play what the guitar is playing like in heavy drops and fiddley riffs, then there's a time to make the music more interesting by going off on a tangent to the guitar. But finding a bassist that can do both seems to be an impossible task. To be honest, i dont care what my next bassist does so long as it sounds good in context to the music.

And yeah, it is a shame about Newstead's bass parts on ajfa, he did record quite a lot that were seperate to the guitar, especially for 'One' but they were more or less completely mixed out because of the band's mourning for Cliff. True story.


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