Bass sounds too loud on specific frets

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I have always hated this too. And if we want to be pedantic, this will be a (very) unpopular opinion here but I think synthesizers and samplers do as good or a better job of that traditional “role of bass” (i.e. playing the bass accompaniment to the treble melody) than bass guitar does - they have a much wider range both tonally and pitch-wise.

There’s a lot more to bass guitar than just low end bass accompaniment. It just also happens to be very very good at that too :slight_smile:

To bring this thread back to New Order/Joy Division, I like the way Hooky put it:

"They tried asking if I could just follow the root. I said, ‘No, how about you follow me?’, probably out of ignorance, because I didn’t know what a root note even was. I’ve never liked to be hidden, and I don’t like to be patronized. I don’t buy into the idea that the bass player is the quiet one who drives the van.”

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82

Form follows function and 40-50 years isn’t exactly a narrow slice of time. It’s primarily where rock was invented and began it’s advance to where we end up now.

Music was composed with all of the same notes and chords we use now. Some was very simple and repetitive and some was very complex. But I agree mixing was done with a the knowledge that much of it’s promotion would come through radio airplay listened to on radios and tape players in our cars. Then our home stereos.

Home stereos were actually quite decent at accurately playing back material. Speakers didn’t lack the ability to produce deep bass either. In fact some were too good at it. They could be a bit too boomy. But by the 80s and 90s that had also been improved. Some of the best and most accurate playback you’ll ever hear comes from costly studio monitors that have smaller speakers. Some of the best reproduction I’ve had from my system came from dual 5 1/2" front and rear reflecting speakers. It was accurate and very tight. Our bass cabs began using smaller speakers as well.

As rap and hip hop gained popularity heavier bass lines came to the forefront and required even more deep low at a greater presence and volume. Subs began to appear not only more on live gigs but in our vehicles as well much to the dismay of Oldsters and Soccer Mom’s. Nothing like sitting at a stop light next to a guy in a car or truck with his subs pumping out several hundred watts of sub driven bass. So pleasant and melodic. :pleading_face: Turn it downnnnnnnn…please.

I’ll just “rap” this up by saying my belief about bass playing is that it’s purpose is to serve the song. If a busier bass line or slap style serves the song it should have it. But not all songs require that or desire that. I used Geddy Lee as an example of a bassist who composes and plays some very busy bass lines but they serve the song. A bass can serve a song in a whole lot of ways just as guitarist can. There are guys who can shred like mad and others like B B King who can do it with just two notes and a whole lot of space. For me it’s all about just serving the song as best I can.

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83

This is, IMO, exactly the right way to look at it, regardless of what instrument you play.

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84

I think that’s an accurate statement. In the studio a whole lot of bass lines are played on a synth or a synth is used to double a bass line. But there’s a distinct audible difference between a note plucked on a string and one triggered by a keyboard. There are also some bass lines so complex they would be very difficult to play other than on a keyboard. That’s what producers are for. They can decide.

And yeah, there can be a whole lot more to what a bass can do than just support the low end groove. I’m not in denial of that at all. There are a ton of artists who’ve made it a solo instrument and play some incredibly complex solo stuff on a bass. But for the most part I’m talking about ensemble playing and in that role I will always feel the same. It’s primary role is to serve the song by whatever means is best.

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85

Yup.

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86

I’m not sure I’ve ever been thought of that way. In fact I’ve been a front man as much as anything taking on a main role as a vocalist more often than not. Never owned a van to haul gear either. That was our drummer in one band and then we had an equipment truck in a few others as the size of the FOH PA grew.

“Follow the root”? As in just follow the chord changes? If so well that’s kind of a given. No sense in playing in E if the band is playing in C. Guess I’m not following why that would become an issue. We sure have hijacked this thread in ways I never suspected but I’m learning some interesting stuff about how others view the role of a bass.

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87

It depends a LOT on what frequencies are being reflected. Low frequencies are much much much harder to dampen. That’s why bass can shake a whole house. So it depends a lot on the frequencies. However, this seems to be happening at mid and higher frequencies.

As I understand (and am likely mistaken)… when two waves are in phase with each other (i.e. their peaks align) they boost each other. If you get two wave out of phase (the peak of one aligns with the trough of another) they cancel. Sort of like… Just how your bass strings vibrate - you pluck in one spot and a wave spreads out across the length being held, and based on the length and characteristics of the string, it rings at a certain frequency - A room is kind of the same thing. You make a sound at one point, and it spreads out and bounces off every surface.

My guess is it’s because the OP is in a small room with a lot of hard surfaces. So things are naturally ringing at a particular frequency.

Angling or moving the amp speaker will likely matter. If my hypothesis is correct. Putting a big object in roughly the center of the room would more likely cut down on harmonics than trying to add sound dampening.

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88

Should we start a new thread on this? Is there a way an admin can lift all the off-topic posts from here and dump them into a new “The Role of Bass” thread?

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89

I’m new to bass, but I’ve been developing my theory on the Role of Bass based heavily on my longtime experience as a social dancer.

In social dance, you typically have two partners the Lead and the Follow. The dance is a conversation between them and the music. The Lead gives the impulses that move the partnership around and typically initiates all core body movements (the traditionally male role if you are imagining Fred Astaire), and the follow… follows those major movements adding characterful interpretation and embellishment to them (the traditionally female role if imagining Ginger Rogers). I often describe the roles as “The lead decides where you’re going. The follow decides how you get there.”

Playing music in an ensemble is also sort of a dance. I see the role of the lead and of the bass to be very similar. You are linking the rhythm, the pulse, with the melodic or lyrical.

In dance, the lead typically moves a lot less than the follow. They might stay in a space 1 yard/meter square, while the follow moves and spins all about them. You have a lot of room to add embellishments, but if they get too busy, they can easily confuse the major impulses that you are trying to communicate. If you know how to do it right, you can still isolate your embellished movements from the major impulses you’re trying to communicate.

As an example - I often have wild syncopated and slidey feet, but they don’t move my core until I want them to, and then that movement is very definite. Now think of Geddy Lee playing “Tom Sawyer”, he is dancing all over the line but he hits a solid root right on the 1 of every line in the breakdown. Same thing.

And also, if my partner has been spinning around or moving all of the floor a lot. It’s best for me to give them a break and throw in a couple spins and slides of my own to keep things moving while they collect themselves.

If I’m dancing with a less experienced partner, I have to be more definitive and overt in how I communicate. If I’m dancing with a very experienced partner, we bounce ideas off of each other much more fluidly to the point where the distinction of “Lead and Follow” blurs.

As has been repeated - It’s all about serving the song. But having a traditional role in a partnership and understanding how it works, what the rules are, when to bend them, and when to break them are part of serving the song/dance.

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90

Getting back to the original topic: I had the same problem with my Fender Jazz bass playing on a Fender Rumble 40. There were a handful of notes that would just rattle the whole house. I’d be playing along and be like “bum bum bum bumba BBBBBUUUUUUUUUUMMM bum bum”.

Those unexpected super loud notes would really throw off my concentration. It wasn’t until one day when I decided to practice on my back porch (it was a nice day) that I noticed those freak notes no longer exploded.

When I brought it back inside, I put my amp back in its old spot and BOOM! exploding notes again. On a hunch, I put it in a different spot. Some of the notes would rattle the house but others didn’t.

After some research, I figured out that there was something about that Rumble 40 and resonant frequencies going on with my studio/office. If I hit the right notes with the amp in the right place, the whole room would essentially become an amplifier. Moving the amp around and getting it up off the floor with some audio isolators (translation: foam) fixed the problem. Eventually got my Ampeg PF-50 and it has casters on it and haven’t had any problems at all since.

Long story short: move your amp around a bit and maybe set it on a pillow or something.

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I guess an admin could do that if he chose to. I know that it can be done on the forum I moderate and I’ve done it.

I just don’t want to annoy the OP about a hijack if he hasn’t gotten an answer to his original question yet. Trying to be polite without losing all of the other interesting points of view that have been added and discussed.

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I believe that’s a good way to look at it. Bass could be associated with the Lead role of two dance partners. Our use of passing notes is a cue to others that “hey, got a chord change coming up soon”. And we are the keepers of “the groove” others are entrusted with embellishing.

It would seem to me that in some genre that function of the bass may to be more active and a guitar holds down whatever groove may exist. Maybe punk or post punk or other genre are less dependent on the bass to do that than classic rock, blue, r&b/soul, funk, etc. But that’s our past and maybe not present or future. :man_shrugging:

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93

This might help explain it as well as we can here.

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And the issue with being “too busy”… playing a lot of embellishment is not inherently a problem. It is a problem if the embellishment overwhelms the groove that you’re holding down. Geddy Lee still very clearly communicates the groove despite fancy playing. Others trying to get that fancy could easily loose the groove.

But often there is elegance in simplicity. Putting effort and attention not into what you play, but into how you play it. Same with dance. I started with Swing and wanted to dance fast with lots of embellishment. Now, I get much more satisfaction out of simpler moves with a lot of flavor.

My favorite song to dance to is “Glory Box” by Portishead. I love to just walk with that bass line and capture that feeling of weight.

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95

I thought hijacking threads was the culture here. :joy: Every other forum I’ve been on, people stay on topic, and if they want to go off topic, they make a new thread.

Here we have threads with hundreds or thousands of posts, with many of those posts off topic.

As a relatively new member of the forum, it’s a lot. And then if you make a post on a topic that is similar to one of these rambling mega threads, it gets folded into that thread. I think that’s why you’ll see new members make a new thread instead of “searching the forum”. Because it’s a PITA to wade through these huge rambling threads as a new user trying to find the relevant posts.

It’s very strange, and I wouldn’t use the word organized to describe it. :joy: But when in Rome, I guess.

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96

To me the archetypical funk band is Parliament, and the “busiest” instrument in a lot of their songs is the bass, carrying a counter melody to the vocals and maybe horns or synth or something.

Or here, where the horns do most of the chord work:

And of course you could trace that all the way through to a contemporary band with Vulfpeck and songs like 3 on E:

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97

Oh yeah. Bootsy is a study in top shelf funk but he still runs the groove like he owns it and always gets to the one count when it’s time to get to the one count. He preaches it. Like Beer Baron and I have both commented. Geddy Lee plays some very complex bass lines too but he never playing out of context or losing the groove.

I believe certain genre may just not enforce that way of creating a bass line as much as others.

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I frequent a Motorsports forum. People get off topic a lot. If a clear tangent evolves, people usually (but not always) split it off into a separate topic on their own.

They also do not shame people for making a new thread on a topic that’s come up before. As long as it’s not like… two people starting parallel threads about the same event like a Celebrity memorial or something.

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Welcome to the forum, @abozhdaraj!

The best description I got for room acoustics is that you are either in a bedroom closet with lots of soft and quiet surfaces, or in a shower with hard and echoy tiles. You’d have to adjust accordingly, mostly turn the bass and volume up or down.

Try this video by Josh, too:

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Broadly, there’s only so much musical information that we can pay attention to and process at any given time - although different genres will come with different expectations (e.g. dance pop will have less total going on than prog rock).

If music has complicated melodies or lots of lyrical complexity, you have to dial back what other things get busy.

Funk leans heavily on rhythmic complexity and then tends to slap thick chordal harmony above it. It will have lyrics, but usually they are very simple and are really using the voice as another instrument (“Ba de yah!”). So in Funk, the bass can hold down a much more active groove.

Even in Rush, Geddy plays much simpler lines when he’s singing out Prof. Peart’s dense lyrics. He gets busy in choruses or instrumental breakdowns.

It’s not that the role of the bass has changed, but that how focal that role is in the song has shifted.

The role of bass only really changes from holding down the groove when another similarly voiced instrument steps in to fill that role. Like… if there’s synth bass in New Wave, or baritone sax like Morphine, or Leland Sklar playing with James Taylor.

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