2minutes in and not a single note.. i gotta go man.

Can you put a dirt pedal in front of this one?

All good solid and known points 👍 option b. Start a band that is bass and > ________ like Om, evil beaver, royal blood, cop shoot cop, clatter… in this day and age with everything all scrambled up and uncertain it’s good to try new things a breaks the molds you can… my band IceBear is along those lines it’s bass (12 StringBass, bassvi, cello with a 5th lower string) and drums kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIOZg6aVhd2EppIsi=kUg4pwbpq8nlGAC8

If you think of Piano: guitar is the right side (treble), and bass is the left side (bass). In terms of music business: supply & demand. If there is no demand for live musicians, then there’s no budget.

I watched Sleep Token live. The bassist and the guitarist couldn't be seen on stage through the lights and lasers (being dressed all in black didn't help). There were times when they weren't even playing their instruments but you could hear guitar and bass playing on a backing track. Then I realised... they aren't a band. Don't get me wrong, as a spectacle it was great. But it's all about Vessel, the others just support him and they unashamedly use various effects etc to create that atmosphere and performance.

I feel your comfort happiness ✊🏻❤️ How low can you have action after that fret treatment? (in mm or 32nds of an inch) Thanks and happy new year!

Is it because guitars now have 10+ strings and are tuned down to the lowest frequency a human can hear, making a bass virtually pointless? And that's not even bringing in the baritone guitars yet LOL. But in all seriousness, some guitars are getting so down tuned that they are basically already just a bass with thinner strings. Or maybe that will be the new sound? High pitch basses and super down tuned guitars. If that ain't a genre yet, I can see it coming.

I do!

All bass players needed to do was hold down the bottom. Instead, they wanted wank solos.

Bands without bass players are boring. I get two-piece bands not having a bassist, or in the case of Royal Blood, having a bassist instead of a guitarist. But especially when there's a "bass backing track", that's just gross. And Lazy AF. Backing tracks should only be emergency fallbacks for a gig that can't be rescheduled, for orchestral atmosphere or for occasional samples. But using a backing track or laptop or whatever as "the band" is cheesy, goofy and insulting to those of us who've spent 2/3 of our lives not only working on our own instrument(s), but also learning how to interact with other musicians instead of doing it like glorified karaoke. Because that's what it is: karaoke, even if you have a guitarist and vocalist, if one or more other "bandmates" happens to be a backing track, you're literally just a doofier version of karaoke. I get the money-over-principles schtick and all, but I dunno'...I just would feel like a goober if I was "performing" with an MP3 instead of other musicians. And while I'm mostly a guitarist, I've spent the last several years focusing on becoming a better bass player. There are times I actually PREFER playing bass, and I don't understand why guitarists and other musicians seem to be so anti-bass.

I have zero interest in bands (aside from power-duos or bands with a bona fide "bass keyboard" player) who don't have a bass guitarist. Never seen or heard one that didn't immediately trigger PTSD from those early years sharing shows with some crummy "meh-tuhl" band who couldn't keep a bassist or whose bassist didn't have a loud enough amp and so they always played with just two guitarists. Speaking of "meh-tuhl", so many of these cookiecutter, milquetoast "meh-tuhl" bands/players are tuning down so low that you can't even hear what note that open heaviest string that they "chuggachugga-chunk-chunk" ad nauseam actually is--and I can't even imagine said note(?) actually translating an octave lower on a bass (it's just be "clackataclackataclacka" and boomy noise pollution at that point).So a bassist in those kinds of bands would literally just be some dude you feel sorry for and let join so he can feel good about belonging, but sonically, he's just augmentation for percussion. In general though, I'd rather see a guitarist AND a bassist than multiple guitarists playing duplicated (or even different, but vastly unnecessary) parts.

What is worse than being a bass player in a band ? .........Not being a bass player in a band . The ladies know who has all the rhythm .😉

I get the point of Johnny's video - to make us bass players to reflect on that. And I understand that your video seeks to participate in the conversation. Which is super valid, btw. But I think there is a bigger point Here, which guys like Rick Beato, Adam Neely or even Scott and Ian from SBL have been talking bout for some time. Live music is a dying art, limited to a few musical genres. And these genres are not exactly at the top of the Billboard or whatever. It's a "symptom" of the era we live in and that's okay. I've been playing bass since I was a kid, I've been doing it for over 30 years. As long as we continue to value REAL and ORGANIC music, there will always be a bassist playing a Jazz Bass and making everyone dance. IMHO, If Periphery decided to go bassist-less live, well, fuck those guys. I’d rather watch Taylor Swift and the amazing Amos Heller live. : )

One reason I haven't seen mentioned is that too many "bass" players are actually frustrated guitar players. They're the ones who go, it's got two fewer strings and no chords. I love playing bass, always have. I love being inventive with bass parts. It's my instrument. The minute that bands know I'm a bass player, and truly a bass player, with no intention of usurping the guitar spot, they ask me to join. In my old city, I got offers from no less than seven bands to play with them. Another reason is that a lot of modern pop music has very simple basslines. Sometimes, there is no bass line whatsoever, with the music using a tuned 808 kick instead. So even if such music is played live, it's a bit pointless to have one person onstage who will only ever play four notes over and over. It's the simplest part to put on a backing track, compared to the others.

periphery fired their bassist so they wouldn't have to spend the money on another member.

Spend years denigrating a group of people and they will instantly stop being seen as necessary.

My band struggled for years trying to find a bass player that fit, never happened. Band is no more.

The more music gets devalued, the more we will see this. Sad. Pretty soon concerts will be overpriced tickets to watch a laptop on stage with AI being the band/artist.

The backtrack option of course requires the show to run to a click, and at that point, I would say why not put all the kick drum in it too, I mean, there is basically no freedom of expression left anyway at the point of running a more or less CONSTANT and very MAIN instrument completely pre recorded and/or pre programmed. In the end the whole touing crew could be just the light guy and his iPod classic, I think. Get random local extras to mime on a heavilly backlit stage and have an ultra consistant, very album like, live sound....

Show

OK I just came over from Johnny's video ... Here my thoughts ... Good bands have basists on stage and the basist is essential to the sound and feel of the band. But the band also need to give room for their basists to shine. I mainly listen to japanese bands and a big reason for that are actually the amazing base players they have. Here some exampels to listen to: BAND-MAID / HATE? (Official Live Video) Gacharic Spin｢MindSet｣ LOVEBITES / Stand And Deliver (Shoot 'em Down) [Live Video from Knockin' At Heaven's Gate - Part II] ASTERISM - Gurenge "Demon Slayer" Kiyoshi - Glorious Days [Live] I feel sorry for all base players that are treated just as a part of the sound scape 😢. Basists are musicians and they can provide a lot to the music and the show. Just let them shine! 🤘💜

All these reasons are a little overly simplistic and some just kinda dumb like chemistry. Bass has been essential to pop, rap, and R&B forever, that's why they always sample the bass heavy parts of songs, because the bass helps create the rhythm. Bass players falling out of favor is more likely due to music becoming more simple and more focused on the singer creating the rhythm along with simplistic drum and keyboard parts. You don't need a strong bass player for that, all you need is a 303. The loudness of music I also think is a reason. Music now days is mixed to be super loud and heavily compressed, which makes it harder to put bass into a mix, because it just muddies it. Keeping a simple no frills bass line is easy to mix and just sits in the background anyways. Metal music is so downtuned that bass just isn't as important. Perception is another issue, bassists have been kinda getting the shaft for years and have often been the lesser known members of the band. Everyone wants to be either a singer or a guitarist, so they are a dime a dozen, a drummer is hard to find because you need someone with a drum kit, can actually play that drum kit, and has a place for that drum kit, and more importantly they aren't either to perpetually injured or drunk to play. The bass player was almost always the friend who drew the short straw when it came to playing an instrument in the band.

I'm into metal he says while rocking a Red Hot Chili Peppers hoodie *sus*

I would say that there's a few main reasons. 1. Music overall now has gotten much simpler, so most just want the bass to play the root. Which is really easy to program. 2. Styles that need a bass player are nowhere near as popular as they used to be. 3. The popular Styles of music in today's world have all of the above, and are slower tempo wise. Think lo-fi and rap/hip hop. And with those styles it's easier to just program a few simple root notes. 4. Polyphia....... (not a fan) 5. With metal, bands tune so obscenely low now that a bass player just makes things muddy and hard to mix, due to playing in Drop Z.

Yes I seen a live video of Morgan wallen and he just have a guitar and a drummer and him

"Artist" don't even have singer's anymore... Metal 🤘❗❗❗

I feel the problem is even deeper than these aspects listed. I have an excellent bass player in my band but he is not a bass player he is a guitarist that got forced to play bass. I don’t know that many bass players. The ones I do know DO NOT serve the song, have shit gear taste or no gear, flakey or mask themselves as bass players and proceed to try to play guitar instead lol. So yeah I completely understand why people are bypassing bass players.

I'd love to have a bass player in my band, but it's so hard to find people in my area I can't even find a singer and a drummer, I've been searching for years. I've come to the realization I might have to live without a bass player at least for a while

I play in a duo where I do vocals and have a hybrid guitar that does guitar and bass at the same time. Is mostly for me a new way to be creative and really focus on good songwriting. Writing guitar parts that have basslines in them and being able to come up with new ways of writing songs with bass parts in them. It’s also the fact that I can do the melodic part and my drummer that does the rhythmic part that allows us to make songs very quickly. The main reason was also that I didn’t want to go through the process of finding a new bass player when my old band broke up, most of them in my area sucked. And believe in or not, I play bass in a coverband on the side to make some extra money which helps with thinking like an actual bass player haha

Basically be the front man and also play bass, right? 😉

A month ago I had my first live show, me and my band practiced really hard for a solid month. Like we talking about 12 hours a week but it was our first show so we take it very seriously, maybe even bit too much. The bar we played in is the only place that allows band performances so there is a lot of competition among bands. They attack other bands, speak behind them, be little and even spread rumors. I know, it's pretty stupid. But since these bands are formed by lots of freshmen and passionate people I didn't think much of it, eventually the other bands and we started to get along just by constantly being in the same studio for practice sessions. But I was specially being ignored, spoken behind, made fun of and threated plainly mean just because I was playing bass. I get it, bass is not always the flashiest instrudment but it's a fundamental one and every band has one for a reason. Maybe it was because I was an unproven musician, didn't look or had a metalhead attitute (which is funny because none of them play metal songs on stage, just popular rock and pop songs like us lol) or maybe they where just new and ameteur musicians that have surfice level understanding of music. A thought supported by most of them having subpar guitarist forced to playing bass or just having none at all, which is insane to me. Anyway, the day of concer came and we get on to the stage and killed it. The bar was swarming with people and everybody in the audience was singing and dancing to the songs, they begged us to play the songs again and again. We ended up playing the 6 out of 9 songs again cause of demand. It was incredible, euphoric even. It was the best 2 hours of my life, everyone in band where ecstatic. I sh*t you not after the concerd the bar owner, sound guy, studio owner, camera man, other band's members came to shook my hand one by one. Suffice to say that the attitute towards me changed drastically, everyone was so used to sh*tty performances when they saw a proper one they lost it. lol The camera man had so much fun he didn't charge us and offered to came to shows free of charge as long as we where playing. Long story short, the bass matters because the song matters, same apply for the live shows. Be it bass, guitar, drums or vocals. If its being replaced by a recording then it's not a live performance anymore and if your fellow musicians don't value your contribution and settle for a laptop, I say f*ck em. It's their sound that suffers anyway, and why the most live shows suck these days. Like seriously, if you're going to replace human element why bother with live shows? You'll have a easier time and more fun in electronic music.

I agree with you on basically all points here. Well put, Erik! Periphery's decision to go bassist-less live (after having had one of the world's best metal bass players in the band) still feels like a slap in the face of the entire community, even though they had their reasons (likely touring costs and band chemistry as you mentioned). Nolly was one of those rare bass players that were actually a big reason why people wanted to go see Periphery live, unlike most other metal bands. Personally I would have instead liked Symphony X to go bassist-less live, at least as long as Michael "Sloppy" LePond is in the band.

How do you get a bass player off your porch? Pay for the pizza.

I've always primarilly played bass, but every band I've been in I do a lot more than just that. I'll book shows, studio time, get merch made, etc. etc. It's imprtant to bring more to the table in general in this business. I see this affecting gun-for-hire bassists playing for established bands or artists, but this won't affect the medium as a whole. This same thing happened with drum machines in the 80's. They also tried to replace us with keyboards around that time, and look how that turned out 😂

thanks for sharing :) we probably *are* the easiest member to remove, especially these days with all the down-tuned guitars. A long enough scale clean guitar sounds a lot like a bass, too, with thicc enough strings. I'm thinking about trying to experiment and evolve a bit to see how it works. I have an SRC6 that sounds great with heavy distortion using the Fluence Bass I put into it (apparently they are J bass pickups), but I also have a multiscale baritone coming and EMG makes P pickups in a HB housing. I may see what that sounds like in the neck position. My Fender Rumble Stage 800 sounds GREAT as a metal guitar amp (TS into DS-1 into Hiwatt clean channel, Marshall Greenback or V30 cab it comes with for some reason). I guess this is a long way to say that I may try to double on instruments at the same time. I can rock out as a low-tuned guitar with a lot of low end and then switch to a clean patch for those "only bass and drums in the verse" moments. I like to joke that with an 8-string guitar you can be a 4-string bass player and a lead guitarist at the same time LOL. The Darkglass Alpha Omicron also sounds great on low-tuned guitars :D I guess the TL;DR is that playing bass is often a mentality, and if these 'no bass player' is the new rule then we can still play by the rule and adapt. Modern modeling setups can let us do a lot more than in the past. Granted, what I'm talking about doing is a lot harder for aggressive finger pluck playing >_> Guitar string-spacing is not great for that lol

Heck just get a singing keyboard player, you won't need anyone.

Another aspect that I see super common in modern Metal as well is just sometimes you have to do it. You might HAVE a bassist, but something happens and they can't come on the tour/can't get into the country, etc. Not necessarily Metal, but I remember years ago seeing Chunk No Captain Chunk on Warped Tour and wondering why they didn't have a bassist, and then I found out that there was an issue with him getting into the US that year and he was stopped at the border.

Imagine Nirvana or Iron Maiden without a Bassist. Wouldn’t even exist 😮

Guitarists are disappearing too, we’re in the era of solo artists. Songs that no one remembers and that don’t stand the test of time imho 😏

My olde band replaced me with some sort of box..... Ooooh well.

Saves money on beer and bail money

The real frustration as to why bass players often get cut from the band is actually something that also pertains to why lead guitar players also get cut for the same reason. Industry people just have NO CLUE what they're doing. They often think that simply because the singer is someone that has the most presence in the band they're somehow the face and the one responsible for everything but in actuality, in almost all cases, the polar opposite is true, where it's often either the bass player or the lead guitar player that's often the one doing the vast majority of the heavy lifting, and this is why bands end up sounding completely differently from what they used to sound like prior to getting signed. It's also a possibility that they're intentionally cutting the key people just so they want to have more control over the band's identity and this also perpetuates the false narrative that the visuals matter more when the reality is the other way around.

I saw Powerwolf and they sounded awesome live and I like their music. I feel like a bassist would add more to the band though.

We rule!!!!Happy 2025

Even most bands have 1 writer either way.

I come from electronic music and I often have more than one basslines in my tracks, one in the lowend, supporting a floor for the kick and one in the above 100hz range for the groove. So, if I had a band I'd even use two bass guitars.

Honestly if we think about money and logistics, it's the drummers we should get rid of 😂. They take up too much space and often a trailer or a bigger car is needed only because the drumkit takes so much room. Also drums take much much longer to set up, soundcheck and move out of the stage than anything else.

Thanks Erik! Great contribution to the conversation 😊

We have a local band where I live where the drummer and guitarist (who sings as well) have been tight friends since high school, and they are both in their late 40s now. They play out most of the time as a duo only with bass backing tracks. Occasionally, they bring in a guest bassist from their rotation list on certain gigs. At one point, they did have a top-notch bassist with them for about 8 years as a trio on all gigs. However, the bassist grew tired of the same songs every week and joined another band. Now, they are back to being a duo again with an occasional guest bassist. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, so the only rock band I knew without a bassist was The Doors. I never saw a local or even a professional band without a bassist until the past few years with these bassless bands playing out and gigging. You make solid points, and I do agree with your assessment on this topic. I also saw that Johnny Dibble video when he first released it and was looking forward to seeing follow-up videos like yours. Great job.

@erikarko ok now I have to ask a follow up question... this or the microtubes infinity as per my last question?