HI, hoping for some help.

[makaze]

Hello all. Just thought i'd write a quick introduction and hopefully find some help.

Although I had a bass for a few years when I was young I never got to grips with it and soon went onto guitar. I played mainly indie music while young and just noodled ever since.

I was approached by a great guitarist to get a project up and running which involves me switching to bass. As i have always been a fan of this guitarist a switch to bass to do a project with him was a no-brainer.

I have always been pretty good at transcribing stuff and as the music he wants to play isn't that hard it has been quite easy to sort out the bass lines, with a bit of help. I have sold a lot of my vintage Japanese guitar collection to fund a spending spree.

Up to now I have bought a vintage Rickenbacker and had that set up, a Steinberger headless ( as a messing around bass and and looking to add a musicman sub 4.

Amp-wise I have got a GK mb210 which I am using at the moment but have a tc rh450 arriving soon and looking for a GB streamliner. Hopefully out of these 3 I'll be able to work out what works best.

So I am playing at home at the moment along with the tracks and sounding OK. But when I tried to play at high volume in a rehearsal room (alone) I was freaked out. I felt no authority in my playing at all, couldn't find a sound and quickly packed up and went home, tail between the legs.

I will be meeting up with the guitarist in a couple of weeks to play through some stuff at a rehearsal room and at the moment I am not feeling good about it. So any help will be greatly appreciated.

Advice on how to tighten up my bass lines.

How to approach playing at volume.

If there is a bass player in the north west who could let me hear a rig at volume I'd really appreciate it.

Cheers. Woz.

[Kelso]

Hey man, welcome to basschat!

In regards to tightening up your bass lines all I can say is less is more. You need to get out of the guitarist mentality and concentrate on rhythm and spacing. No noodling, just solid grooves. The times when you don't play are equally as important as when you do play. Getting tight with the drummer is essential so even having some practice time with the two of you could be a good idea. Your role as a bassist is varied and involves interacting with everyone in the band. You need to work out where you can fill in the spaces in a piece of music while complementing the rhythm and holding down a groove. Bass players have to be very analytical and look at the piece of music as a whole to see how they can best enhance it.

Playing at volume is just a matter of trial and error. Play around with your settings until you get a sound you are happy with. I like a bottom heavy sound - lots of bass and mids with only a touch of treble - depends on the style of music you are playing. I think you probably got freaked out because you aren't mega confident in your new role as bassist yet. Just keep at it mate and when the penny drops you'll find it very rewarding.

Stay low

Kelso

[makaze]

Thanks Kelso. I'm not a quiter so I'll be banging on with this. As we are doing songs from a particular artist I am just copying their bass lines, but your comment about less is more is making me wonder if I'm "hearing" notes when I'm transcribing the stuff that aren't actually there.

At the moment I am just completing drum tracks on computer so I want have chance to play with a drummer for a while. Hopefully when we get round to that I'll be more confident.

Still hoping for a north west bass player to demo a loud rig for me.

Thanks.

[dmccombe7]

Kelso has already given you the best possible advice all round.

I've only started playing again after a 15yr gap.
Sometimes when listening to certain tracks i think the notes are bass lines until i use headphones (a good quality set) and i can hear the difference in depth between the guitar or bass runs.

If by chance you are doing the same and adding in guitar runs along with the bass then it could get a bit messy as a bassist.
That's ok if you are Victor Wooten or likes of Steve Bailey and those guys but not for your average bassist who is holding down a band.

How have you set your rig up at a rehearsal. Our studio uses Ampeg 8x10 cabs and Ashdown amps which are very low end whereas the TC and GB Streamliner (which i use too) being more "hi-fi" style amps don't have that bottom ended booming bass sound and when i use my own rig i have to adjust the amp to boost the bass and reduce the top end.
In a classic rock band i increase the bass to the 2pm position and take the treble back to 9pm position and reduce the horns freq on the cabs to same 9pm position.
That gives me a nice punchy low - mid sound which suits my bands requirements. When using the studios own gear i set everything flat and occasional drop the bass freq a touch if needed.

Hope that helps a bit

Where abouts is the North West anyway.
For me that would up near Oban and Mallaig, Ft William area.

Cheers
Dave

Edited October 19, 2011 by dmccombe7

[discreet]

+1 To playing with a drummer. A good drummer will make you sound great. A bad drummer won't, regardless of how good you are. The electric bass is not a solo instrument in my humble opinion (climbs into wardrobe and puts on tin hat).



And welcome to the forum!


Edit for the hell of it.

Edited October 23, 2011 by discreet

[Telebass]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1319365541' post='1413033']
...The electric bass is not a solo instrument in my humble opinion (climbs into wardrobe and puts on tin hat).

[/quote]
My view entirely!

Welcome to the forum!

[nugget]

Hi

I'm far from expert on the bass (after quite a few years) but play live twice a week with a band. I totally agree with keep it simple - I've seen quite a few technically amazing bass players uterly ruin the overall sound of a band with overplaying! I'm sure I'll get slated here for saying that......

Technique is more important than kit - Concentrate on damping (left and right hand) to create punch and note definition. Playing bass well isn't easy and very different to techniques used compared to guitar playing.

Coming from playing guitar to bass I'd recomend a couple of lessons to get the basic techniques down.

Welcome
Dave

[TRBboy]

Welcome!

I agree with what everyone else has said. When I first started playing my teacher gave me some good advice; lock in with the bass drum, and let the snare breathe (don't play anything on the snare beat). If you follow this very basic premise, you can't fail to find a tight groove with the drummer! I still resort to this if I'm in doubt about what I should be playing. Keep it simple, and then once you've got a solid bassline, think about embelishing it a little WHERE APPROPRIATE!

I share the view of some folks above, that the bass is an accompanying instrument, and that you have to know your place in the band and be happy with it! Not to say you can't have your moments to shine........

If in any doubt, keep it simple and tight. It sounds much better than playing too much sloppily (probably not a word).

If you're doing covers, I find Guitar Pro transcriptions useful. They're usually pretty accurate, and you can solo the bass track to hear what's going on, or mute it to play along.

Hope this helps!

Edited October 24, 2011 by TRBboy

[Musky]

[quote name='nugget' timestamp='1319487772' post='1414880']
Hi

I'm far from expert on the bass (after quite a few years) but play live twice a week with a band. I totally agree with keep it simple - I've seen quite a few technically amazing bass players uterly ruin the overall sound of a band with overplaying! I'm sure I'll get slated here for saying that......

Technique is more important than kit - Concentrate on damping (left and right hand) to create punch and note definition. Playing bass well isn't easy and very different to techniques used compared to guitar playing.

Coming from playing guitar to bass I'd recomend a couple of lessons to get the basic techniques down.

Welcome
Dave
[/quote]
+1 on the damping.

I was considering what might actually change when the volume was cranked. It didn't sound like the speaker was crapping out, and damping was the only other thing that came to mind. Turning up the volume does have the effect of making otherwise minor artefacts of your playing irritatingly noticable.

Perhaps the OP would like to expand a little on what he meant when he said he found his playing lacked authority at volume?

[Blartfactor10]

Hi Makaze, Im also new to Basschat but have been playing for a long............time. If i were you (My opinions only) i would invest in some lessons,you will suprise yourself with how much you can learn within a short time. (By the way i dont give lessons!!) practice some scales to beef up the old hand strength and this will help tighten up your bass lines. You could try rehearsing loud with a Click or Drum Machine through your rig at volume (Use a cheap Mini Mixer if you only have one amp input) Im not sure if your using a pick or not but learning to damp strings with with both hands is an important part of playing. You have quality gear so this shouldnt take much tweaking from a flat set sound on the amp. keep pluggin away!!!

[BassTractor]

Hey makaze, and welcome to the forum from another BC newbie.


As to your losing authority, the following might just help. (Now, I'm not a bassist yet, but I do be a musician.)
Did you by any chance play very loud? See, when playing at high volume, many tend to reduce the impact - not by turning the volume knob down, but by starting to play softer and more carefully. Result: timing errors and loss of authority.
You may know this stuff better than I do, but I thought it best to mention it.

Good luck!


best,
bert

[xilddx]

May I suggest the OP uses a little compression? It takes a bit of the effort of keeping solid dynamics while playing and gives a smoother more produced sound. This can allow him to concentrate more of the actual lines rather than how hard or soft he's playing.

As to bass line composition, we don't know what the music genre is but Kelso is bang on. Space allows the music to breathe. Choosing when and how to use that space is as artful as anything else.

I'm also a guitarist who became a bassist. As a guitarist I learned some techniques that most bassists don't have. I find them very expressive to use at times.

[AndyR]

Some thoughts for you. Spot on about practising with a drummer - the drummer in our band is top rank and makes me sound better than I am! I also practise with a metronome and/or drum machine and really try to focus on timing. I do get feedback about overplaying from the band and I think that you just have to take it on board when you trust the rest of the team, Finally I tend to always have the Bass at max volume on the Bass Circuitry and make adjustments on the amp. I just find it easier to get the sound I want that way - otherwise there are too many variables for my liking.

[makaze]

Thanks guys for all you comments, I appreciate the time. I'm not used to getting supportive input, so congrats to the forum for having cool dudes around.

Kelso mentioned space and weight has been added by others comments. So on bass lines I have been struggling on (at home loud volume) I have added space and followed the advice of trbboy and at least allowed the snare to breathe and lock onto the bass drum. This has gotten a few dodgy basslines sounding much better and more supportive of the whole song.

I have gotten a decent set of headphones as suggested and I certainly have been doing mixes between guitar runs and bass lines. I'm using headphones soley now when trying to transcribe.

Nugget and Musky, the right hand damping has been frustrating me. My steinberger has a drop level which is on the E string side and prevents me getting my hand into a damping position, when I have dropped the string the lever is then behind the bridge and I play much better and feel loads more confident. Massive design fault on the DB bridges. I am tring to get a left hand bridge so I can have a lever out of the way. I think my damping technique on guitar was my only talent.

Musky asks "what went wrong" when I played loud.

First off although I can dig the bass lines out to backing tracks, I can not play many with a click track or simple drum track, so I think I don't know them as well as I thought. So as from this week I am practising with only a click and not to the songs.

It was suggested by bass tractor that the high volume may have resulted in me treating the bass lightly, I think this is spot on. I have always had a heavy action and like to dig in. Silddx mentioned using compression to help control the dynamics at the higher volume which I think the rh450 is going to help with.

[makaze]

Sorry for the delay in responding but I had a nightmare week with the rh450 not working, TC have been great (I knew they would) and as from tomorrow I will be using the rh450 and rs210. The compression and tubetone seem a god send. Honest to god, this amp just lets me feel like I am good at what I'm doing and I feel like I am adding something to the 3d-ness of the sound. I'm blown away to be honest. I had a Genz for a few days thanks to a local bass player and it's not for me, compared to how the rh450 seems to just make me sound good.

So thanks to you all for showing interest. I am going to try moving this forward by,

1) Improving the transcriptions by more headphone checking. (there are no tabs / guitar pro out there).
2) Nailing my parts by ensuring they are in my head and can therefore play them with a click track.
3) Get a series of lessons sorted out.
4) Try and get my bass sorted out so I can use right hand damping.
5) get the rh450 at much higher volume levels soon.

and maybe start looking for a drummer

My move to bass was started as a temporary project, but I'm starting to really enjoy the instrument in my hand. I have always been an indie kid, so simple music has always tweeked my brain, and playing some simple bass lines is really giving me reward.

Woz.

[discreet]

[quote name='makaze' timestamp='1319931868' post='1420357']
and maybe start looking for a drummer
[/quote]
The priority, imho.

[dmccombe7]

Sounds like a plan.
BC is just a hive of information and knowledge and great to be part of it.
Everyone is helpful and nearly always happy to advise.

I've learned a huge amount since joining and I've been playing for 30 + yrs now.
Never too old to learn and it just gets better and better IMO.

All the very best and let us know how you get on with the plan.

Cheers
Dave

[charic]

Only one thing to add that hasn't already been mentioned. Good strings make the world of difference. As your starting out I suggest that each time you change your strings you try a different brand. Heavier gauges tend to have more "authority" but are generally speaking harder to play. A friend when I started out told me this so I decided to start on the hardest possible strings possible.

Also get your bass to a luthier for a good n proper set-up

[Kelso]

Definitely get a drummer or at least try and jam with one.

Drum machines aren't fun to jam with and you can't go with them for a pint and a blether after practice (arguably the most important part!) . . .