u/AngleProlapse

As a self-taught bassist/songwriter, for the longest time I’ve been screwing myself over thinking every bassline I write needs to be a memorable and complex riff in itself. I feel like I saw some jokes early on about “bassists who only play root notes”, took it too seriously and internalised the idea that good bass = complex bass.

Finally today I actually went and did a big study session checking out the basslines to all my favourite songs…

Turns out in most genres I play, 95% of the job is just root notes, strong rhythm, and some tasteful flourishes/connecter notes here and there. I’ve been overplaying completely this whole time 🤦‍♂️.

Probably obvious to most people but idk, learning all on my own and coming from playing more ‘lead’ instruments first, it’s just one of those things which slipped by me. Nonetheless, I have fresh excitement now to go and write a heap of songs which I don’t completely muddy and overdo.

Hey everyone, producer who is relatively new to picking up an actual bass guitar here. I’ve been running into an issue when trying to record bass that the low strings output significantly hotter than the high strings. E.g. the low E string really woofs out and pushes the amp sim, while the high G sounds quiet, thin and distant. It’s a very obvious imbalance looking at the recorded waveforms, getting quieter as each string plays.

I was wondering if others have had this problem, or would guess it’s a technique issue (I’m supposed to compensate physically and pluck each string with more/less pressure), a set up issue (pick up height?), or just a natural inevitability (fix it up with a compressor/volume automation in post)? Or something else?

Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you!