That Bassline Though

M

MrBoat

Audioholic Ninja
I'm a sucker for a killer bassline. Not the effect type so much as the melodic type. Something like this with a groove to it that isn't just rumble fill for the drums.

Something like this.

Another is on Elton John's "Rocket man," and ELP's "From the beginning." Some are more subtle than others but manage to present themselves as an important vibe to the whole structure of the song.

Mid-woofers and mid-bass are often overlooked compared to sub bass these days. When I hear so many people looking for "fast, tight bass," I believe it is the lower mid/upper sub bass punch they are talking about, but so much is left to sub-wooferage instead. What I notice about mid and sub bass on the more capable 3-way speakers is, what apparently amounts to rather present, stereo mid and sub bass, for lack of a better description. Highly moving and impactful and as addicting as sub bass effects, IMO.

With that said, and without an endless stream of pictures trying to show off album collections instead, some links to incredible, melodic basslines would be appreciated for discover purposes. I am sitting here getting my audio hat handed to me by some budget 12" JBL woofers right now and the bass from (and everything else, really) is hitting well above their price point and I want more.

I will consider everything except rap/hip hop, unless it is something with real music composition.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I'm a sucker for a killer bassline. Not the effect type so much as the melodic type. Something like this with a groove to it that isn't just rumble fill for the drums.

Something like this.

Another is on Elton John's "Rocket man," and ELP's "From the beginning." Some are more subtle than others but manage to present themselves as an important vibe to the whole structure of the song.

Mid-woofers and mid-bass are often overlooked compared to sub bass these days. When I hear so many people looking for "fast, tight bass," I believe it is the lower mid/upper sub bass punch they are talking about, but so much is left to sub-wooferage instead. What I notice about mid and sub bass on the more capable 3-way speakers is, what apparently amounts to rather present, stereo mid and sub bass, for lack of a better description. Highly moving and impactful and as addicting as sub bass effects, IMO.

With that said, and without an endless stream of pictures trying to show off album collections instead, some links to incredible, melodic basslines would be appreciated for discover purposes. I am sitting here getting my audio hat handed to me by some budget 12" JBL woofers right now and the bass from (and everything else, really) is hitting well above their price point and I want more.

I will consider everything except rap/hip hop, unless it is something with real music composition.
Try J.S. Bach. He was the grand master of the melodic bass line, in his organ works. The melody is often given to the pedals
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Stacked bassists (Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, Victor Wooten) can be nice
 
M

MrBoat

Audioholic Ninja
Try J.S. Bach. He was the grand master of the melodic bass line, in his organ works. The melody is often given to the pedals
Just curious, but do you listen to any contemporary music in a critical sense? I would not have stepped from rock or pop if you would have asked me years ago, but with the advances in audio, it has me listening to things well outside my comfort zone, including baroque/classical. I just have to be in the mood for it.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Just curious, but do you listen to any contemporary music in a critical sense? I would not have stepped from rock or pop if you would have asked me years ago, but with the advances in audio, it has me listening to things well outside my comfort zone, including baroque/classical. I just have to be in the mood for it.
Certainly I do listen to contemporary composers. I find the 12 note atonal scale highly irritating, and I think it is dying a death which it should. I find most minimalist composers very boring. I do count new music as music newly discovered by composers overlooked. Top of that list goes to Florence Price, an African American composer who was forgotten, and by huge luck a vast number of her scores were discovered in the attic of the last house she lived in prior to its demolition. By some luck someone felt that these papers may be important and had them evaluated. Now she is mainstream, and I am pretty sure will come to regarded as the greatest composer this country has so far produced. Her output was vast, and of high quality. She was a brilliant pianist, and organist. She wrote chamber, vocal solo music and quite a large body of organ works. She must have been an accomplished virtuoso as she played the solo in her piano concertos, which are astonishingly difficult. The fact she was so neglected in her lifetime and since, is testimony to the extent of racial discrimination and to some extent I suspect against women. Shortly before she died in the early fifties she was to have played at a Prom Concert of her music at the RAH in London. I think she was booked on the Queen Mary liner. But that was not to be. Thinking about it, we should have a Florence Price thread. Her music is wonderful and absolutely unique. Audiences just go wild after every performance.

I do listen to some jazz and folk, but not a lot. I do not listen to rock at all and can't stand it. When I was in Bologna I went into a CD store and every disc I could have gladly owned. I congratulated the owner, and he said to me:- "Ah, but it only gives me pleasure to sell beautiful music." I could not agree more, and I only want to listen to beautiful music. I have devoted much of my life to bringing it to life in the home in the most accurate fashion and beauty, to do it the justice it deserves.
 
M

MrBoat

Audioholic Ninja
Certainly I do listen to contemporary composers. I find the 12 note atonal scale highly irritating, and I think it is dying a death which it should. I find most minimalist composers very boring. I do count new music as music newly discovered by composers overlooked. Top of that list goes to Florence Price, an African American composer who was forgotten, and by huge luck a vast number of her scores were discovered in the attic of the last house she lived in prior to its demolition. By some luck someone felt that these papers may be important and had them evaluated. Now she is mainstream, and I am pretty sure will come to regarded as the greatest composer this country has so far produced. Her output was vast, and of high quality. She was a brilliant pianist, and organist. She wrote chamber, vocal solo music and quite a large body of organ works. She must have been an accomplished virtuoso as she played the solo in her piano concertos, which are astonishingly difficult. The fact she was so neglected in her lifetime and since, is testimony to the extent of racial discrimination and to some extent I suspect against women. Shortly before she died in the early fifties she was to have played at a Prom Concert of her music at the RAH in London. I think she was booked on the Queen Mary liner. But that was not to be. Thinking about it, we should have a Florence Price thread. Her music is wonderful and absolutely unique. Audiences just go wild after every performance.

I do listen to some jazz and folk, but not a lot. I do not listen to rock at all and can't stand it. When I was in Bologna I went into a CD store and every disc I could have gladly owned. I congratulated the owner, and he said to me:- "Ah, but it only gives me pleasure to sell beautiful music." I could not agree more, and I only want to listen to beautiful music. I have devoted much of my life to bringing it to life in the home in the most accurate fashion and beauty, to do it the justice it deserves.
I listen too much to have too many limitations. I have discovered that there is time allotted in life for all music, really. My limitations are with the most modern cookie-cutter pop that is selling a cartoon image more than music. Obvious by the overuse of vocal synth because the person with the actual singing voice isn't built for twerking or the fashion stage. I was also not a fan of that older carnival style country music with the rhinestones and silly hair styles but there are some exceptions. Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Doc Watson, Merle Travis, Chet Atkins and a few others.

When my music choices were limited, I spent a lot of time with repeats. Like following a top 40 radio station that still plays the same handful of classics this many decades on. Then there is the other people who know nothing other than the radio, to inflict the same songs on me yet again because that's all they know to be popular. Repetitive music is a good way to get someone like me to quit music. I don't care to watch most movies more than twice, or read the same book too many times. I'll give it a few chances to help with what I may have missed, but after it becomes too familiar, I want to move on, for awhile at least before coming back to it.

Rock music is more like classical than you might think. Many of the better ones, actually compose complicated music on piano or acoustic instruments. Look at some of the compositions from groups like Kansas, and you can't help but notice there is classical training, or interests at the very least.

Randy Rhoads, one of the most well known electric guitarists of classic rock music, was very much into classical guitar. You can hear it in his playing. Talk about virtuosity. He would visit and train with classical musicians just to expand his skillset and to keep it inspired. There are many others.

Lindsay Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac. The acoustic guitar in the song, "Never Going Back Again," is touted as one of the most difficult to play, styled after a folk/country artists playing of note among guitar players by the name of Merle Travis. Listening to some of the intricacies in even Merles most simplistic playing is noteworthy. Not to mention the tones some of these people pull out of their playing style. And I am not a huge fan of country music, and can't go modern country, which also overuses vocal synth in everything new.

But Jazz? Talk about talent. Some of it's biggest names from some of the most blight areas of this country would be easy to stereotype as a lucky story. Surely they rose up from the ghetto and got a break somehow to be heard at all. But then one starts to dig, and finds many of them are actually formally educated with degrees, and many end up serving what amounts to accredited professorships at some of the more distinguished schools of music, and do indeed know their way around classical theory. Again, you can't help but hear it in their playing. It's what causes me to research their bios sometimes.

The violin player from the rock group Kansas. I recall the first time I went to see them live. What the heck is this hippie violinist doing in a rock band? Hmmm. . . Robby Steinhardt. His father, Milton Steinhardt, was the director of music history at the University of Kansas. Lifted from Wiki: "Robby started violin lessons at age eight and was classically trained. When his family traveled to Europe, the young Steinhardt played with some orchestras there. Steinhardt attended Lawrence High School and was the concertmaster during his high school years." The rest of the band certainly had the same in common, in order to even know each other at all.

In more ways than not, rock music ends up being simplified (where common people can understand it too), or even evolved classical music that technology could not pass up. I often wonder what a JS Bach could have done with electrified instruments. He probably would have made rock music. It's easier for me to believe that many of these rock musicians have been into classical music, but also could not be constrained by it's apparent limitations, much like that which antiquated religions tended to inflict on the other arts as well.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I listen too much to have too many limitations. I have discovered that there is time allotted in life for all music, really. My limitations are with the most modern cookie-cutter pop that is selling a cartoon image more than music. Obvious by the overuse of vocal synth because the person with the actual singing voice isn't built for twerking or the fashion stage. I was also not a fan of that older carnival style country music with the rhinestones and silly hair styles but there are some exceptions. Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Doc Watson, Merle Travis, Chet Atkins and a few others.

When my music choices were limited, I spent a lot of time with repeats. Like following a top 40 radio station that still plays the same handful of classics this many decades on. Then there is the other people who know nothing other than the radio, to inflict the same songs on me yet again because that's all they know to be popular. Repetitive music is a good way to get someone like me to quit music. I don't care to watch most movies more than twice, or read the same book too many times. I'll give it a few chances to help with what I may have missed, but after it becomes too familiar, I want to move on, for awhile at least before coming back to it.

Rock music is more like classical than you might think. Many of the better ones, actually compose complicated music on piano or acoustic instruments. Look at some of the compositions from groups like Kansas, and you can't help but notice there is classical training, or interests at the very least.

Randy Rhoads, one of the most well known electric guitarists of classic rock music, was very much into classical guitar. You can hear it in his playing. Talk about virtuosity. He would visit and train with classical musicians just to expand his skillset and to keep it inspired. There are many others.

Lindsay Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac. The acoustic guitar in the song, "Never Going Back Again," is touted as one of the most difficult to play, styled after a folk/country artists playing of note among guitar players by the name of Merle Travis. Listening to some of the intricacies in even Merles most simplistic playing is noteworthy. Not to mention the tones some of these people pull out of their playing style. And I am not a huge fan of country music, and can't go modern country, which also overuses vocal synth in everything new.

But Jazz? Talk about talent. Some of it's biggest names from some of the most blight areas of this country would be easy to stereotype as a lucky story. Surely they rose up from the ghetto and got a break somehow to be heard at all. But then one starts to dig, and finds many of them are actually formally educated with degrees, and many end up serving what amounts to accredited professorships at some of the more distinguished schools of music, and do indeed know their way around classical theory. Again, you can't help but hear it in their playing. It's what causes me to research their bios sometimes.

The violin player from the rock group Kansas. I recall the first time I went to see them live. What the heck is this hippie violinist doing in a rock band? Hmmm. . . Robby Steinhardt. His father, Milton Steinhardt, was the director of music history at the University of Kansas. Lifted from Wiki: "Robby started violin lessons at age eight and was classically trained. When his family traveled to Europe, the young Steinhardt played with some orchestras there. Steinhardt attended Lawrence High School and was the concertmaster during his high school years." The rest of the band certainly had the same in common, in order to even know each other at all.

In more ways than not, rock music ends up being simplified (where common people can understand it too), or even evolved classical music that technology could not pass up. I often wonder what a JS Bach could have done with electrified instruments. He probably would have made rock music. It's easier for me to believe that many of these rock musicians have been into classical music, but also could not be constrained by it's apparent limitations, much like that which antiquated religions tended to inflict on the other arts as well.
I don't think classical music has limitations, anything goes as far as I know. The modern percussion section introduced by Maurice Ravel, continues to expand, and I would have thought be a rock musicians dream.

J.S. Bach was an ecclesiastical composer by virtue of his job and beliefs as Capellmeister of St. Thomas Church Leipzig. However he was also a "rocker" with his secular music and held regular jam sessions at the local coffee house and by contemporary accounts the crowds extended way into the street. Incredibly he was proficient on every instrument except the lute. He did play a keyboard version of the lute called the Lautenwerk.
 
Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
You probably know a lot of the same rock bassists as I. :) For melodic bass I love Mars Cowling's playing on Pat Traverse Live! Go For What You Know. Kansas had a very melodic bass player as well. I also like anything by Yes or Rush but you're probably familiar with their material. The challenge is to think of something that you may not have heard.
With Jeff Back's passing I came across his live performance at the Crossroads festival. Tal Wilkenfeld toured a lot with Jeff Beck and I am always amazed at her playing. The 30 minute set is below or search YouTube for more Tal Wilkenfeld with Jeff Beck.

One of Canada's premier jazz bass players (electric) is Alain Caron. I was fortunate enough to see his band UZEB twice in a local club. Jazz rock fusion on the contemporary side. They didn't make any videos so YouTube is mostly live performances but their studio albums are on YouTube as well, like Fast Emotion, Noisy Nights and UBEZ.

'Yes' is not known for doing covers, but I absolutely love their rendition of Simon and Garfunkel's America, which is nothing like the original. Chris Squire is amazing on this track, which was included on the remaster of Fragile. I love the sound of his Rickenbacker here!
 
Eppie

Eppie

Audioholic Ninja
Heard Soul To Squeeze on the radio this morning. Nice melodic bass line from Flea, especially at the end of the song where he runs free for a while.
 
M

MrBoat

Audioholic Ninja
This is simple with a melodic bassline. Really nice on Amzon HD. I used to take all of this for granted after the radio stations had their ways with it back in the day. Sure do appreciate it now though.

 

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