Tip #1 Lay out for dramatic affect.
At 01:10 he says, Bass is the Harmonic and Tonal Foundation of a song.
Tip #2 Don’t just play the root.
At 01:30 he gives this caveat: If their is a 3rd in the melody and you play a 3rd on the bass, it weakens the melody. This can also happen with 5ths. He goes on to recommend always avoiding the notes the singer is singing. Because you want to avoid parallel octaves.
Tip #3 Where you play determines tone.
Know when to use pick or fingers and where to play between the bridge and neck to get a given tone. He also speaks briefly about using different basses and amplifiers.
Tip #4 Mute the strings you aren’t playing.
You can’t make a record if you can’t mute properly.
Tip #4 Learn the tools in your toolbox for bass tone.
Yes, there are two Tip #4’s
Learn your DI sound, amp sound, compression, and EQ points. He also gets into recording bass and advocates for distortion.
Tip #5 Your pocket is the most important thing about your playing.
Here he is talking about bass players that can consistently adjust their playing by microseconds to be able to play slightly ahead, on, or behind the beat.
Taken as a whole this is such a weird video with him combining some simple and some complicated topics. On one hand he talks about the need for muting (which seems like a given) and on the other, he talks about owning multiple different high end amps for being able to choose the best tone for the song. It starts out sounding like something for people that are more beginner level and ends up sounding like something for advanced players that would already know this stuff.
Kind of like he decided he needed a quick video and said, “I’ll just talk about bass stuff and give it a quick edit.” I was excited for this video until I watched it.
What do y’all think? I’m really interested in hearing what you all have to say about the part that starts at 01:30.
something I do not have the option of trying but I would be very interested to hear the views of more experienced people.