I’m a bassist in a signed metal band actively recording our third album. I’ve offered to play live and studio bass (for free!) to other great metal bands going through gaps in having a permanent bassist. Turned away. Those bands then released material where the guitarist recorded bass instead, and it really shows…
people just don't get how important is to have a well played bass line and too many so called musicians don't really understand the role of the bass in music in general this is the issue .bass is not there to be the guitars shadow..
Bass player here. Had the same experience at a live show. I heard the bass. Didn’t see one on stage. Something about the way it felt was off. My wife thought I was nuts.
The average music listener/fan does not give a shit if the whole band is a backtrack. Good songs stand on their own and only other musicians are the sole critics of performance or live band make up.
Have you seen someone who is insanely good at rythm games? It's pretty cool. But you wouldn't pay money to go watch it. That is playing an instrument. It isn't enough by itself.
@@NikosKatsikanis Im not sure I understand your question ... but I'll assume the obvious answer - because the vid is, at least in material part, about live bands that clearly play songs with a baseline but there is no bass player on stage, having been replaced by a backing track. This has been happening to keyboard players for well over a decade now.
Tbh I think this is part of why we aren’t seeing as many bassists: there aren’t as many bass players creating songs and bands. That’s how you push and instrument forward and find new ways to use and highlight its characteristics. Keep it up man
100% right. The path of Sting, Les Claypool, or being one of the founding fathers of the band (like Flea in RHCP, Stuart Zender in Jamiroquai) is the best path for a bass player.
Bass player (and guitarist) here. I was the bassist in a modern metal band until very recently. They got rid of me in October, without warning, and in a very cold and dispassionate way too, considering these were people I called friends. The reason I went is because they've decided to run bass on tracks, even though I was doing my job perfectly well. I hope their live sound and show is never quite as good again and they can't work out why.
They sit at home and listen to "injustice for all" by Metalica and think it sounds perfectly fine and don;t know why a lot of fans like master of puppets way better.
Metal is almost as bad as pop music for being completely fake these days. We are so close to losing human created music. Bands need to turn off the click, the backing tracks and drum triggers and focus on actually playing live rather than being primarily recording projects if they want to stand out from all the AI created music.
@@60degreelobwedge82 what you have against triggers? It helps a lot when you play in club with blown up drums or newbie soundguy who have no idea how to make kick sound nice. It also good for monitoring because you hear better what you play in time domain.
@@60degreelobwedge82 the problem is people want to show off , go on stage , have a band and this is what matter more than the music they play or write...there is little honesty and heart even in a niche genre like metal/ extreme metal .
The bass is the most underrated instrument imo. But the issue with bands in the modern day is getting 3-5 musicians together to work on a band seriously with the same mindset is incredibly difficult. We live in a time where antisocial hour jobs are more common, making music is basically an unprofitable venture, entertainment and dopamine is on demand without the need to leave the house, and thanks to technology and social media, it’s generally become easier than ever to be a solo musician without bothering with a band. When you factor all this in, I can see why 2 piece bands are more common and successful, at least whilst starting out. And because of the accessibility of octave pedals, I can also see why bassists tend to be the member that gets axed. I don’t agree with it, but it’s just where we’re at now.
So, I work on tours/shows/festivals as a tech and there's an awful lot of track used these days. Even when you have a 4 or 5 piece band. A certain singer I toured with a few years ago, had a 5 piece band and was playing to thousands of people every night. Drums, bass, electric guitar, piano, percussion. Yet the acoustic guitar, extra percussion, extra keyboards, string section and extra backing vocals were all on track. People listen to highly produced albums nowadays with layers of instruments and so when they go to gigs, they expect that sea of sound. So unless you employ 10 or 12 musicians who all have a fee, need hotels, flights and feeding, which is very expensive... you have to have some track. It was a running joke that our percussionist on that tour "played the Apple Mac" as he fired off all the timecodes and tracks for each song to start 😂 It's a shame, as I think a live performance should be a bit raw and stripped back. Unfortunately, nowadays I'm in the minority it seems.
7:18 FOH Engineer here: I've also noticed a trend of bands not using a bass anymore, although it's not as big as this video makes it seem, I had roundabout 500 Bands in 2024, of which maybe 30 used no bass player. What bands usually do in this case isn't giving me a whole ass backing track premixed but bands who rely heavily on backing tracks usually split bass, backing vocals and other stuff up. In a festival situation we are usually prepared for up to 8 channels (drum samples, bass and 3 stereo) for backing tracks. as for reasoning, especially with semi professional bands, since you're running a timecoded show anyway, the bass will be reliably tight, since there aren't a lot of GREAT bass players out there, even less, when budget can be an issue. it's also 1 less flight, 1 less hotel room, 1 less spot in the nightliner etc. I've seen this happening mostly with well produced metalcore and powermetal acts, young guys that are ambitioned and want to sound "modern". just to give you guys a bit of industry insight, take care and happy new year! :)
Honestly being that rigid about the timing of a live performance is part of the problem. It reminds me of the ridiculous practice of quantising drum parts on recordings. Real drummers are supposed to drift.
What's basically missing in most music these days is the creative spark of spontaneous improvisation which lifts a performance from being a static rendition of a recording to a truely unique once in a lifetime performance. To accomplish that you need humans interacting in the moment. And sorry tech heads, even AI can only pull up a catalog of inputted data samples to mimic that.
Most live music hasn't been improved, especially in rock and metal. A band being able to improvise doesn't mean the set is going to be unique, or that the music is going to be good. Also what does AI have to do with anything?
@@DanieleCantaboni Non penso sia stata la De Angelis l'innesco, un adolescente ogni venti ascolta i Maneskin. Le mie allieve bassiste mi dicono che ascoltano i Tool e i Deftones.
They have bassists like Misa from Band-Maid, Ale from The Warning, Fami from Lovebites, Juna Serita from Jazz Avengers, and 12 year old Ellen Alaverdyan to inspire them.
Metal seems to be heavily afflicted by the backing track syndrome. What’s even crazier, is I’ve seen shows where they had someone holding a bass on stage rocking out all crazy, but they clearly weren’t actually playing a bass and there were bass backing tracks doing the heavy lifting. Like, the person holding the bass will be strumming with a pick and not even holding the neck, but there are actual notes coming out instead of just chugging on the B string. Or the bassist stopped playing anything for a few seconds, but the bass backing track was still going. I’m old enough to remember when backing tracks were enough to end careers; for example, Ashley Simpson. I get the economics of it, but you may as well just have a singer hitting play on a Reaper session if the band isn’t actually playing. Which, coincidentally, I’ve seen a lot of that lately as well.
I'm old enough to remember when literally every live performance for television was a band miming to backing tracks. It ended a net total of zero careers
Even the industry people like to think that it's just so simple to just get people to pantomime to a backing track and that's somehow the way to go. Everyone still seems to just stick to that formula. Most industry people love to think that guitarists and bass players are expendable and aren't actual members of any bands or anything, but the truth is, in most cases, the polar opposite is the case, the main driving force behind the whole band being either one of the two guitarists in that band and not the singer. Lots of people like to think that the singer is the principal member of the band and not just the face of the band, but the reality doesn't even come close. Even the industry people don't really know what they're doing at all.
It's not just metal it's every genre that isn't jazz, blues or classical. So every modern genre. It's a symptom of the cultural decline of the west due to technology and subversion. I can't even listen to modern metal it sounds atrocious, every band sounds identical, everything is quantized and processed to death, drummers using so many triggers and samples that they're asking to be replaced next. No one in the genre even looks cool anymore, a metal gig looks like a reddit convention. Maybe that's connected, it went from a genuinely edgy counter-culture genre to something ultra mainstream, lame, gay and emasculated.
@@burtscho recommend a few for me to check out pls? I know there’s some fantastic Japanese bass RUclipsrs and I’ve listened to a fair bit of Japanese jazz fusion type stuff
@@PaddyLeggBass A few Japanese bands with excellent bass playing: ZUTOMAYO, Gacharic Spin, Band-Maid, Yuroshika, Juna Serita / The Jazz Avengers, MINA (who just joined a band called East of Eden)
If it was purely sequenced, but I'd argue that a bass line played by a keyboardist is still live bass. They can still inject feel into the performance and make changes on the fly.
No kidding. Horn solos are only slightly less rare than bass solos, and so what's left for them to do is "horn stabs". For that you need 3 players, and that's easily covered by a keyboardist.
Same for the drums, many bands play live with a drum machine. Both bass and drums are easy to replicate live and they do sound good but any band that uses a live bassist and drummer definitely is a lot more fun to watch live. Apart from the money, often it is easier working with fewer people. Easier to organise time and gigs etc. I'll always want to see a full band and I don't think this will ever disappear because it's so much more exciting to watch. Great video by the way.
Godflesh has entered the chat. I get your point, but certain genres require the cold inhuman sound of a machine. I play in a grindcore band and we push the bpm well past 250 using 32nd and 64th notes. I have yet to meet a drummer who can do that. I also play in an industrial band who uses a machine and even though the beats could be played by a human, it would lack the consistent relentless POW POW POW necessary. Without fail, drummers will groove during a groove section. I agree that a lot of this comes down to money/time, but there is a significant amount of bands/artists who strive for the mechanical sound.
@@riffsnoleads I also love industrial music and electronic drums can for sure do things that a human drummer cannot. I actually love watching human drummers recreate amen breaks and break beats, so much more fun than a drum machine and with that added pull and push. But I do agree, some genres do need that cold inhuman sound and yeah, playing at 250 bpm :)
Kinda makes you feel bad for all the big band horn section musicians who were suddenly out of jobs when Elvis brought the stripped down Rock and Roll bandset into the spotlight.
*The introduction of the electric keyboard certainly put the nail in horn sections' coffin.* *Paying four or more blokes vs one gangly boffin certainly factored in as well.*
That's a good analogy. Sidemen where completely kicked out of live music once that happened. A guy who could make a living doing gigs was no longer needed.
As a bass player I can say there is a lack of bass players who really add to the feel. It's either jazz twats of mindless strummers. A good rock player should be turning the drums into music, and a good pop player should be putting some serious grease on the backbeat to get people dancing. Space is everything, don't overplay, but don't be boring either.
another, to me interesting point from a guy called Sting, no chord is 'known' until the bass note is added. I prefer melody with a bassline and drums over guitar heavy stuff. I guess it's also the style of music you're chasing, in my case James Jamerson style, or Rocco from TOP
@ I am a big fan of Stings bass playing. I have found that locking down into the drum part and using simple chord tones has led me to melodic lines that sometimes take on a life of their own. Depends on the song and the drummer. Apart from 4 on the floor stuff where the bass line is a hook kind of independent of the drums.
I was at BST Hyde Park last year and Paris Paloma was playing with a drummer and guitarist but using a backing track rather than a bass player. It seemed weird for a major festival, especially when us bass players are starving.
Great video! I don't know about other genres, but in a lot of modern metal the bass just seems to follow the rhythm guitar and is often mixed so, that it just provides those low end frequencies to the mix and does not cut through all that much. If a bass player leaves such band or gets kicked out, it's easy to see why a band might just use backing tracks instead. As "redundant" as a bass player might seem in a band like that, it can also be difficult to find a replacement, because the "bass lines" can actually be really difficult. You know, basically playing rhythm guitar on a bass in modern metal context can easily become needlessly difficult.
Then you have bands like Jinjer who people see as a gimmick act because their singer is female. They have one of the best bass players currently releasing music in the world and literally no one cares but bass nerds
the other side of the coin is trying to even find a 'proper' bass player. By this I mean one who has actually put in the time studying bass, rhythm, theory etc. rather than the 90% of either chancers or failed guitarists, who can only use a pick and have no idea of how to sit in a rhythm, get a great sound, when not to play, etc etc.. This I think is why a lot of bands just give up and use a Macbook, or someone else in the band ends up playing bass (badly).
I'm a "musician pretending to be a band" myself, and it's the only thing that has ever worked for me. I still technically play in a band, but good luck organizing rehearsals and finding a week end that works for 5 adults with children and working full time jobs. Mine is not an ideal solution, but it gets the job done. Whenever I need something, I call one of the members, we meet up and record that.
@@CugnoBrasso its okay buddy, whatever works for you, one way of seeing this is: without backing tracks this "bands" wouldn't exist, I think most of them would hire a bassist if they have some minor success.
The bass department in the GAK store in Brighton is a 2x3 closet at the veeeerrrrry back of the store. When everybody is producing for tinny iphone speakers, sadly, the Low end is Low priority.
same at the guitar center here in Tucson- room about the size of my master bathroom, and nothing but entry level bullshit. If you want a new bass, it's mailorder, and roll the dice.
*I will say this for GAK: I ordered a Squier Affinity Precision from them and they took the time to open the box & inspect it before shipping to me.* *Squier's QC is a bit "hit or miss" and they didn't want to send me a lemon.* *The bass I received was flawless QC wise.* *However, my mate who ordered one on Amazon got a complete write off.* *Regents Sound in Denmark St are brilliant too.* *Don't think I've ever seen a bass there, but they ordered me a 2000 Fender Aerodyne from Japan (last one out the factory door before discontinuing the P/J pickup configuration).* *It was destined for a shop in Germany, but Dom @ RS convinced Fender Japan to send it here for me.* *If there's a brick & mortar fulfilling my online order, I feel a lot better.*
I am inclined to doubt that most people listen to music through a phone speaker. However regardless music was for most of the history of recorded popular music made with the expectation that a lot of people would listen to it on the radio. In other words with minimal bass capability. Yet bands still had bass players.
Jonny - agree with you 100% I’m a music producer and may program in a bass groove while I’m writing but it doesn’t end up on the track in the end. I find a real bassist for the final mix - it’s the pow and the wow factor, the track comes to life! Same for the drums - Regarding touring bands well…that’s a whole separate video and usually centers around the economics of touring - it’s tough out there right now…the game has definitely changed
@ Don’t worry, you’ll be on Universal Basic Income soon enough. 😉 Put that into Google and see how many countries have adopted it or are running trials, especially since the Covid plandemic. You know about “Event 201”, right? October, 2019, NYC. There’s an 11-minute highlights reel here on YT. See if it looks familiar.
@ We’re just getting started…Humanity is on the wrong path. There is only one logical destination. Did you see Boston Dynamics’ new Atlas doing his Xmas backflip?
Back in the 80s when I was doing a lot of session work in LA the bass synth came along and took a lot of our session work. It’s always been tough, but I do notice a lot more bands I’m seeing when I go out to places to listen to music are not using bassists. It’s gotten so tough for the young players. Still gigs though. Before Covid I was out on tour with the Motown group The Miracles for a few years but too old for the road now! 😂 The key is to develop your skill set and cut your teeth as much as possible playing live whenever you can. Big difference between that and doing videos sitting at a desk which seems to be the new model these days. Hope it pays something to you guys for all your efforts.
i found out recently one of my favorite bands are not touring with their bassist anymore. Very sad seeing just the two guitars and the drums on stage. They aren't my favorite anymore.
@@chrislonghurst4253 nekrogoblikon. they hadn't made any official announcements of the bassist leaving but considering they never found a sub and hes been absent for multiple shows is a huge red flag
There is some truth when people say that lead guitarists are dime a dozen. I say that as a lead guitarist myself. It takes an awful lot of commitment to the instrument and an awful lot of trying to nail the technique but once you learn how each technique works and the lifehacks involved, most of it is just pattern recognitions and the other lifehacks; lead guitar is not that hard.
Same here ... swapped to the doghouse and I'm beating away offers with a stick ... and I love it too. So it took a good few years ... but the 'musical wardrobe of doom' is finally having her revenge on Leo Fender for inventing the bass guitar :-)
As a bass player in a modern metal band i can tell from experience that we are redundant in that genre especially. Some bands have more creativity and space for the bass player to shine even if they’re playing in low tunings (VOLA is a great example) but most times all the producer wants is for the bass player to follow the guitars with some very rare moments. My band tunes to Drop F#, the bass only exists to fill a couple gaps and act like a guitar “chunkyfier”, that being said i’m very comfortable with it and i have fun with the project, it’s a big plus that i don’t have to focus a lot of time into practicing those songs since they’re easy.
Spoken like a real bass player (I'm a guitar player). I like the "chukify" the guitar comment. Bass fills stuff out. The thing is,the bassist can be the most experienced in your band or the least experienced, and the audience will rarely be able to tell as long as they can keep time and hit the root notes of chords. You guys are unsung heroes of the band and guitarists salute you and love you! We need the oomf!
Well, that usually is true for the kickdrum as well. And there is a good reason for it if you understand modern mixing. Most consumer speakers that are not dedicated subwoofers, rarely can display frq. below 80 - 70 hz. Next, when you play together in a room live, everyone has their own speakers usually. So, now in recorded state, the kick, ultra-low-tuned-guitars and ultra-low-tuned bass all have to go through mostly 2 tiny headphone speakers. It is difficult enough to get kick and bass to work together and make things punchy instead some of some mushy mess. When you now throw in a few guitar-players that say: "Hey we want to tune that low and this really impractical sound is our signature, so please don´t high-pass the guitars!" - which is a totally valid argument since we are talking about art - you know that the future holds some suffering for someone. My second point is that I started my musical non-career as a self-proclaimed composer, and simply turned to piano, guitar and bass because I needed something to put that music into reality. So my persective at least I think is one that puts the "whole" music, as in the sum of all individual parts, as the primary focus. And I love players that realize that even if they don`t do something sophisticated, they can have an irreplaceable effect on the overall sound. Look at drummers. Irreplaceable, yet if you know the exact drumline - including all breaks to exact detail - of a any song, chances are iguess 99% that you are a drummer. And just as I do not want my metal without drums, I do not want my metal without bass.
@@tonebone69 no offense intended here especially since I don't know your band, but most modern metal regardless of sub genre is generic and boring and it's no shock when they don't break through or find success. It's too the point that I don't even put on a playlist for any specific band and I just put a genre playlist on because it's all gonna sound the same anyways
Mp3 cutting out lots of low end and people listening with crappy earbuds etc or phone speaker😂 are a key reason. Cant really hear bass guitar or feel the difference if there is no bassist there at all! I played my first gig at a hotel function room with drums, guitar and vocals covering Oasis for an hour. Nobody commented on the lack of a bassist! We had compliments on the vocals and drums, I was genuinely surprised as I felt the loss. See video of Oasis at Glasgow 2001 it is bass heavy mix!❤
A Drummer friend that I play with a lot here locally, just went on a national tour with a female metal vocalist/solo act. The bass was all on a track. The stage was just said female vocalist, a guitarist, and a drummer. It looked empty and ridiculous. My Drummer friend said this was done as a cost cutting issue since they were the opener on the tour.
I used to work with some boys during the pandemic who had a little indie psych rock type band putting out some music and doing shows locally and by the end of the pandemic it was literally the kid who started the band singing along with a boombox on a stool (on purpose) because the local venues that were left weren't paying shit even to some of the headliners
*Worst part of using backing tracks is: You're tethered to them.* *Nuances extinguished and a whole host of logistical nightmares are but one misstep away.* *That being said, if it's "use backing tracks or no gig" I can somewhat see their relevance.*
I listen mainly to metal (progressive/death/black/core/etc.), and... the state of bass in metal does make me a little sad. And I'm a guitarist! Metalcore bass, I have to be real, is usually an after-thought. Even bands with cool basslines and excellent bass players (Spiritbox, for instance) often just mix the bass in with the guitars to such an extent that you can barely discern it as a separate instrument. Though, there is hope! Sleep Token has some awesome bass-driven sections, and Poppy apparently usually writes her music on bass first. The prog end of metal still does well, though. Martin Mendez on Opeth's latest album is just lovely. I guess the sad reality is that bedroom producers are usually operating with a lot of constraints that can be solved by doing as much as possible in the box (laptop) - you can program MIDI bass to sound pretty damn good and convincing in the mix, even with the stock plugins in your DAW. Honestly, this has been the case for drums a lot longer than it has been for bass (IMO). My interest in bass really hit when I ran into the limitations of this approach - I have ideas for some bass-first sections of songs that just sound way too fake when the MIDI bass doesn't have a dense mix to hide behind.
Hi, new to your stuff, thanks for the discussion! I was with a particular artist for a decade who continues to use my tracks instead of a live bassist while touring, at least partially for cost-cutting. I just joined another artist who had been using tracked bass and immediately remarked on the improved groove and unity of the band that was already in place when live bass was introduced, which was such a relief. When not on tour I work as a soundguy and backline tech and the bass is the no. 1 instrument I see replaced or eliminated for savings. I agree that even having a human playing key bass once again results in a more dynamic and organic band sound than just using sub synth tracks. Just some disorganized thoughts... you covered most of this!
The problem is not that bands (definition: groups of musicians) aren't using bass players anymore - they (groups of musicians) are not using musicians anymore.
A band JUST being really great at playing instruments and doing nothing else is incredibly boring. It isn't the meta skill that most musicians imagine that it is. I'd rather see a group play with backing tracks that knows how to entertain than a band that doesn't.
@@Dragon-Believer if I want to see performers who cannot sing or play live, I will go to a flying circus or such. The standard should artists who can do both live, they should not be the exception. If a band cannot do both live, they will not get my limited cash
@DaveRyan-oy8ig that's fine. But don't complain that other people don't agree with you. Also I think there are very few who do both. And I have plenty of money for concerts.
Check out Band Maid (Japanese rock band) and you’ll get all the bass goodness-at very high level as well-you’d ever want. For that matter check out any Japanese rock or metal band. The Warning, too, out of Mexico.
Old man yelling at clouds here! My solution to all of my bass problems, including ageism after 50 was to pick up upright bass a bit over 2 years ago. I had literally only been playing the thing for 4 months before I was hired to go on tour. The bands playing older styles, post modern, western, bluegrass, jazz, rockabilly ect will always want that doghouse on stage. Even if your still learning to play the thing! That look is all important for them. For guys playing modern music, my best advice is to become a muti instrumentalist. I'm serious. The one's I know are always busy.
This is a great point! I don't usually comment but this really made me think. I think that in the world of the bedroom recording musician, 9/10 times they play guitar and are programming bass and drums as backing tracks for their songs. And this opens a market for drum and bass VSTs where there is a distinct lack of demand for a guitar plugin. The drums and bass VSTs get better with demand, and the guitar VSTs don't get the same quality. Additionally, in metal, I sense more stigma that "the bass player in the band is the least qualified" among other insults and generalizations. I do think that the "bad guitar player turned bass player" is more common than a dedicated player, but I also think that great musicians are rarely locked into a single instrument. For every Black Keys or White Stripes, there's a Royal Blood or Death from Above 1979 that poses the opposite argument though, but simply due to instrument popularity I don't see this trend growing as quickly.
Bass player here, played in several metal bands, heard the whole "bad guitarist turned bass player" thing and honestly, if I could just put a funnel in people's ears and take a huge shit in it instead of having to play songs that would be fantastic, for me
@hazardeur maybe he thought that because guitarists are 10 a penny compared to bass players. If your guitarist leaves you can spend a week going to your local open mics and you'll find another one. On the flip side drums and bass which are the more difficult band members to source are the easiest to digitally reproduce
@@jamesnell7224 Spot on. It took me a good 5 years to find a drummer for my band (using backing track drums up until then) but Im over flowing with guitarist choices.
Another problem is the current fixation in metal with stupidly low-tuned guitars that are stomping all over the frequency range the bass should be sitting in.
Nothing wrong with it if that's how they want to sound though. Play for a different band like a melodic punk band if you like fast and intense music and want to play bass. Tons of room for great bassists in melodic punk
As a guitarist playing in drop C lately, I can tell you guitars tend to fail miserably when they try to fight the bass on its own territory and the lower you go the bigger the scale of failure. xD On the other hand, there are bassists going full overdrive without realising it takes away their low end and pushes them into guitar territory. Clever ones at least blend their clean and dirty signal. Both can be done but the whole band must work together to make it work at all.
@@flecht No idea why a bassist would want to play with high distortion because it just makes the mix sound like there's no bass in it. But, to each their own and if they prefer it that way that's cool.
And many "recordings" are closer to electronic music production than actual recordings. Well, I guess thats why they are called productions and not recordings anymore...
@johannalvarsson9299 I think the answer to your initial question is that their aren't enough competent bass players to go around, I wonder how many bassists are in several bands or have multiple commitments. I was making a bit of a joke but thank you for your reply and have a happy new year bud
I think the music “industry” (corporations) is heavily to blame. Not enough people are talking about the economics of playing in a band. Spotify, live nation, etc have taken SO MUCH money out of musicians pockets. It’s almost impossible to make even a very modest living as a musician. Playing live and selling merch are really the only way to make anything, and guess what? The more people in your band the more you have to split that TINY piece of the pie. We need to be pointing the finger at the corporations that have gobbled up smaller parts of the music scene and not at other musicians trying to get by on the crumbs. Musicians are nothing if not creative. Well keep making music any way we can, and if that means playing live with a musician or two less, we’ll do what we have to do.
Of the newer bands I listen to, they all have bass players. Band-Maid, Nemophila, The Warning, Hanabie, The Sixsters. Rolling Quartz, The Jazz Avengers, Asterism, Bloodywood, and dozens of others. It is the American and British music industry that is all screwed up. The level of bands in Japan alone is an embarrassment to American and British music without even counting the rest of the world.
@@nueeardente4240 Keyboard is not different from a P, J, Spector or a contrabass. It's just another tool to fill the low end. It's a great way to be gluten. Then it's just about what you like most : string instruments have certain tone tricks that keyboards don't, and vice versa.
I listen to Dream Theater for example, seen them a couple of times in concert and they don't appear to be losing John Myung anytime soon. Even bands like Riverside, Threshold, Marillion & IQ (on the progressive side of music) all seem to be using their bass players on their albums and in concert. First time I've ever heard of bands losing their bass player because of costs or whatever.
this. I played with some guys recently, and when asked about the bass for a part of a song I told them "I want to add weight to the guitars for this section."
We used to actually have a bass player (and we are still looking for one) so we can chime in for context. One of the major reasons why getting a bass player is super difficult is that very few bass players actually tend to have the appropriate equipment. Most bass players have Fender P basses with super old strings, which, when you're playing in a tech metal band where the bass tone is super crucial to your sound, the only bass tone that really works for your sound gets super specific, which means having a Dingwall is a must and having Darkglass equipment is also a must. One time when we actually had a bass player on stage, we ended up having to rent the equipment to that bass player ourselves, which worked fine at the time, but with equipment prices starting to skyrocket for obvious reasons (cough) monopoly (cough), even we wound up forced to sell even the equipment that we actually use and wound up having to look for alternatives instead. Still to this day, we keep getting our chains yanked repeatedly from any chances of getting a real amplifier to use for once, simply because lady luck keeps giving us bad hands and prices continuing to be even more prohibitive than ever and the false narrative that "amplifiers are a thing of the past" continuing to be pushed as if it were true, and that's why it's the worst time to be a musician EVER. The second time we got real close to having a permanent bass player she suddenly quit when we wound up criticising a competitor for cheating in a song content (They actually did!) and this is why we don't have a bass player anymore, even though we've been trying super hard. There are good bass players, but they often end up being session musicians instead and often refuse to be full time members of a band. The rest, they don't have the serviceable gear, they don't bother to practice, they get petty and have very bad temper, they refuse to get new strings, all the more reason why getting a proper bass player in a band is literally impossible.
I'm not a gigging musician, but looking in from outside, I see a few things in play. Cost: you alluded to this, but I think it goes deeper; The economics of touring are brutal, so while it's one thing to hire a session player, it's another thing altogether when you have to pay that person on tour. Sound: Aside from a couple of genres that still place a premium on musicianship, a lot of this stuff can be programmed, so it is. Consumer tastes: This stuff matters to musicians, and to people who bother to really listen to music instead of merely consuming it. For the average person, "good enough" is good enough; it may register -- barely -- that something's missing, but I don't know that the average person really listens closely enough to understand what it is. Bassists: I think we (I use "we" loosely here, 'cause I'm just getting started and am not that good yet) are a little too quick to get set in our ways. I've met bassists who won't slap/won't play with a pick/refuse to play finger-style/are absolutely allergic to things like synths and effects. While that's okay in some settings, the way a lot of modern pop especially is produced (often with radically different drum and bass styles from one track to the next) calls for a flexibility that some musicians not only don't have, but can't be bothered to learn. Cost, again: So what do you do when you have something that's more stylistically or at least sonically diverse than what an average bassist might be able to handle? Well, you could hire a more versatile bassist, but like anything else, quality doesn't come cheap, and you've got a record company, accountants, management, an entourage, and a zillion other people to pay, so if corners can be cut... Just my $.02 worth, mind you.
The “consumer” is the primary driver of all these trends, which should be alarming. They simply don’t care because they don’t know. They are fed crap music and want to listen with their eyes.
I once was in a band and twice the bass player arrived to the gig with no bass. Midi tracks dont forget their bass. 😂 But for real- personally there is nothing better than live bass, to hear, see & feel. And, as a guitarist, there are parts and songs that I wouldn’t have written if it weren't for jamming with amazing bass players. We need you, bassists - just remember to bring your gear to the show 😆😆
As a bass player the only thing I ever did close to this was one time at a local gig I hopped in our van got to the gig and didn't notice until I was about to go out on stage I still had my red crush velvet slippers on . Lol
Guitarists assuming they don’t need them / don’t understand a proper locked in quality bassline. Plus the guitars are essentially so low tuned it’s like bad basslines. I play both but bass is my first love!
The band Powerwolf comes to mind, even they are officially endorsed by Warwick basses it's still the guitar player who recorded bass for the albums and backing tracks for live. They said they feel like this is a perfect balance in terms of interpersonal relationships to be able to work with each other long term, with the balance of keeping the cost of touring to not go too high. Me as a bass player and guitar player who's not at their caliber I'm not sure how to feel haha.
I'm the lead guitar player in a 4 piece rock band (two guitars, bass and drums, and we all sing. Our rhythm guitarist is our lead vocalist tho), and I'll tell you now - we wouldn't be a great sounding band if we didn't have our bass player. The bass in our band is what glues everything together, and our bass player doesn't just stick to root notes. If anything his parts are the hardest to play in our songs and he utilizes the entire fretboard. We also bonded over our shared love for John Paul Jones and Paul McCartney, and I can hear that influence throughout his playing. Not only that, but he also sings backing vocals, as do I, and we both contribute lyrics and song ideas to the band AND he's also a certified doctor, so when we are on the road, if there's a medical emergency, we have a qualified professional on deck in the event of an emergency. All four of us split the songwriting, getting 25% each, no matter who originally wrote the idea for the song, because if our band didn't have any one of us in it, it wouldn't be our band anymore. We play with a metronome in studio and live (we don't use tracks and don't really want to), but during our live shows, we always have borderline post-rock improvised jams between songs, especially if there's a guitar change or something like that going on, and it's become a huge part of our live show. We are currently recording our first record as a full band and there's so many great bass moments throughout the entire record. If we didn't have our bass player, I wouldn't be anywhere near as excited about playing music in a group. He's also inspired me to think more about my bass parts in my solo material too, and with the new songs I've been writing, the bass really shines through in all of them.
I did not realize that bands are getting rid of their basists at all ... is it that bad with western bands? Granted I listen mainly to japanese bands (BAND-MAID, Lovebites, Gacharic Spin, Asterisim, and Kiyoshi) and they have amazing base players. In fact the base players are a big reason why I listen to the bands. On all the live concerts I went to in 2024 there was always a base player on stage (only exception was Powerwolf).
I blame modern production, especially metal. The overt focus on note perfect playing and mixing means that bass gets jammed into this role of always being on time with no push or pull, and it's always holding down the low end. I saw an interview with Nolly where he said that he records bar by bar if needed to get every note exactly right. At that point, you might as well just use a plugin. Bass can contribute so much to a mix if played well, but so many people are blind to the possibilities.
I think bass players themselves are rendering themselves unusable. I’ve been playing bass for over 31 years and I’ve seen some absolutely insane bassists come to fruition in the last decade. But!!! They’re all crazy talented people let’s say Charles Berthoud. As an example. So so many young bassists aspire to that level. Which is cool and all. Yet they see more traditional bass playing and holding down the bottom end as beneath them. And “so boring a machine could do it”. Plus what has been echoed above. Music today is very “Big Mac”. People just want the same easily made garbage that looks good over and over. Pop star musicians don’t really play from their heart. They play from a spreadsheet and hardly ever deviate for fear of delivering something other than the Big Mac that consumers have been programmed to expect.
I think you are on to something. a lot of music is becoming formulaic. a bassists are great for "creating music" but if you are just clicking the random button on a computer there is no need for one.
Re: Charles Berthoud, crazy talented but I tried listening to his stuff and I find it so dull - its just a vehicle for him to show off his chops. Perhaps if these really good RUclips players got themselves in bands with equally good drummers, guitarists and other musicians, they could make something that really inspires
Outside of Rock and Metal, the guitar can be replaced by other instruments. I mean every big Pop Star has a Bassist and Drummer, but not always a guitarist.
The goth rock band Sister of Mercy has been notorious for this for many years. What's weird is that some of their songs have iconic basslines. Sometimes the guitarist plays those instead. 😐
I have major issue with bands that substitute members with backing tracks. But I'm a musician myself and depending on a genre a large chunk of listeners just don't notice the difference. I know, I was there. Before I started my musical journey I was completely oblivious to which sounds belong to the guitar and which to the bass.
It depends on the kind of music and role the bass plays in it... For example, I went to see Crosses and yes the stage looks a bit sparse with just 2 guys but I didn't feel a bassist was missing UNTIL they played Telepathy which has an awesome and prominent bass line. Then it felt super weird.
Bottom line, the business model for the whole industry is FUBARed. People are expected to do professional work, normally across multiple domains, whilst the overwhelming majority are struggling to break even. At some point I strongly suspect that, even in the arena level gigs (the only part of the live music industry where there is real £), the bottom is going to fall out. The artists that can fill those venues are limited; many are old and touring less/dying/retiring. And the pipeline below is utterly fucked. So you inexorably run into increasingly ridiculous costs for tickets, declining quality and oversupply of venues. Unless and until there is a reckoning with improving the realities of the business model, and a recognition that you don’t have an industry without artists… we are in a pattern of decline. As to why bassists? I’ve played to backing tracks live quite a bit. Up to large festival size. TBH, if you’re playing to a track it isn’t hugely important which instruments are live vs on the track. Personally I don’t agree that bass is more important than e.g. guitar in that context - I want live performance to be live, and the limitations of playing to a track are universal not instrument-specific.
Oh and some other thoughts… 1. On plugins… I think the important thing to focus on is the things that plugins can’t give you in terms of performance. Sonically there’s no doubt they are already there in most respects. The player piano didn’t kill off pianists - this is another of those scenarios (although where AI goes is certainly a variable). 2. I’m not having the gluten argument, sorry. Since I’ve Been Loving You by Led Zeppelin sounds pretty good to me. 3. In my experience anyone using backing tracks seriously is not sending 1 feed to FOH. Kids just starting out might do that maybe but it doesn’t take many experiences of the real world problems that creates to realise that, if you’re going to do it, you need to do it properly.
Solo Artists and Autotune have killed most bands. drummers and guitarists are also disappearing, as bands are as well. I hate that. I’ll continue listening to Sabbath and Reggae for BASS
The reason many bands aren't bringing bass players and keyboardists on tour is the high cost, which has been driven up by the decline in CD sales and low payouts from streaming platforms. As a result, bands are increasingly relying on backing tracks instead.
I don't remember the exact quote or who said it but something like "A band is basically drums and bass with a few random novelty acts" The heart of the band is what they turn over to backing tracks then the band lacks soul. There is nothing better than when drums and bass lock in with each other except fried chicken and a Star Trek marathon.
I think a lot of modern heavier bands are using bass tracks that are sticking purely to the root note for sure. There is 0 creativity in the basslines. It does lose that organic element. I've seen guitarists playing the basic chuggy parts and the majority of lead parts are backing track. That is certainly a strange watch. Might be fine as a regular consumer but as a musician you sit there counting the layers of guitars on the backing track. With so much writing being done in a digital manner, the end product comes out far quicker than a band that churns out the songs in a regular rehearsal routine. I come from a punk & hardcore background where everything has to have an impact. Depending on the genre, some elements would be given priority over others.
We’re leading our own bands… also unfortunately a lot of bassists can’t actually write memorable bass riffs/parts. I spend a lot of time teaching students about how to use the scales etc cause they’ve all spent time learning other people’s stuff but not enough time writing original bass parts.
That’s why I still love listening and watching bands like Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson, Marillion, Pinneaple Thief and so many other bands that shines with all of the members and instruments playing a good show live 😊
As a keyboard player, I do love working with bass players that have good musical sensibilities, reasonable knowledge, great ears and good technique. If I cannot find with those qualities, I can get parts that I want to hear by programming them myself. Maybe bass players need to make themselves indispensable by ensuring that they can play parts better than I can. Having said that, I have played the odd gig where I played left hand bass live and I love hearing good synth bass. In that instance, I prefer to hear someone dedicated to just that one role. How do YOU feel about bands that replace bass players with keyboard bass?
As someone who does both guitar and bass I'm saddened to see this happen I enjoy both instruments and I really feel differently playing both instruments; like the mentality just switches I notice that my ideas for basslines are often less usual than the basic things (like just playing the roots) I like to add power chords and add the possibilities of a 5-string bass to a set of regular 6-string guitars without any sort of downtuning or whatever and I like to prevent mindlessly hammering on the same note and on calmer parts I like to apply arpeggios (usually just on power chords tho) and I like to add a fuck ton of distortion to the bass (although not 100% of the time) And I love adding bass solos in songs (but I won't be shredding the shit out of the bass tho, even if I had the skills to do so) That's something a regular backingtrack bass wouldn't just do (and I feel like backing track instruments can't draw too much attention before it gets too obvious)
I went to two concerts last year at the same 1500-person standing-room venue -- one in February, one in October. Both roughly sold out. The first concert: $53 general admission to see two 4-member bands, each with their own bass player. Both bassists sang background vocals, too. The second one: $37.50 general admission to see 3 bands, 11 total band members.. only the headliner had a bass player; he also sang backing vocals and he also set down his bass guitar for 3-4 songs to play keyboard. Each support band played 30-40 minutes (maybe 17 songs between the 2 support bands) All 3 bands were touring together (in some concert tours at this price point, only the headliner goes on tour from city to city and local or regional bands serve as the support acts). The energy level on stage was noticeably less for the acts that used a backing track instead of a bassist. Some observations here: A) Would it have been a deal breaker to fans had the second concert ticket been $41-$42 so the first two bands could share a bass player on tour? I don't think so. Nor would it have been too big an ask for the one bassist to learn 17-18 songs from each of the two bands. B) Maybe people who principally are bass players need to become musical Swiss Army Knives... sing backing vocals, play keyboards or a baritone guitar on some songs instead of the bass. The more you CAN do, the more you WILL do.
5:14 Drums became disposable in the '80s. But it does seem like the disposability of bass is more absolute. But I think there are way more niche sub-sub-sub-genres of music now than there ever were before. I'm just not interested in the stuff that dumps the live musicians in favor of backing tracks. Of course, while there's more music than ever before, it seems like there's simultaneously less money to go around. It's a great time to be a consumer of music, not so great for producers of music. (And I mean "musicians" not "producers" here.)
I am fortunate enough to play guitar in a trio and after decades of playing in 7, 6 ,5 and 4 pieces this is my favorite format . My bassist is incredible I am lucky to have him. It is very difficult to find a bass player that has good gear, good tone and serves the song. So I understand some bands or artists bypassing the bass player to keep things moving a long. Yes you can backtrack the bass too the only people who will care and notice are other musicians.
What a great topic! I actually get turned off from a band the moment I don't hear or see a bassist involved live. Another thing is some bands have the bassist playing what the guitarist is playing or there is a guitarist playing a detuned 7 or more stringed guitar that totally drowns out the bass.
It's simple. Low tuned guitar and chugga wuggas get the workout bros excited and there is no glamour in holding down the rhythm section. I play bass myself and the only praise that ever comes to me is for the amount of distortion I use. For most people, that kind of irrelevancy is discouraging to want to bother learning bass or using a hired gun.
I totally agree. It started with the White Stripes, Ting Tings. Periphery use midi/taped bass. Animals as Leaders dont have a bass player. I always had a bass as a kid in bands. In fact, when we didn't have a bassist I recruited a friend to play keyboard bass (our jr high jazz band did this, I played trumpet and we had two pianists so one would play a Moog bass!). Anyway I think u need a bassist. He's not there to just follow guitar in my opinion. I like a Geddy Lee type. I won't use a fake bass plug in. I'll grab an actual bass and come up with a part. And I play metal. So I could just follow the guitar but I won't.
In my experience I've only seen this happen once, when Sikth played ArcTanGent and their bassist couldn't make it due to having another conflicting gig.
I volunteered at a festival. There was a band with two vocalists. Pop band. I guess they were singing about partying. I was not feeling it. But I was standing on the bassist side. And he was just rocking it. He was playing around the melody and the root notes. Doing fills. Had a 3-4 bar slap breakdown. Awesome. And that was much cooler than when I played bass in a metal band as a glorified EQ.
30 years ago, I switched from guitar to bass in order to get into a band, because guitarists were two a penny. Hearing Jaco confirmed to me that it was a good decision back then.
my first laptop was a piece of crap that didnt have good bass response(before people listened to music on phones). I thought the bass was unnecessary and just a back up guitar. I finally heard music the right way and realized how dumb I was. Even though people are listening to music on their phones more I don't think thats the problem. The speakers on mid range to pro phones are pretty good. Everyone has high quality ear buds, portable bluetooth speakers and soundbars that have excellent bass response (sometimes too much) and DJs always play bass heavy music. Fidelity is better now than it was in 2008. I think the issue is bass players aren't writing music or organizing the bands enough. Guitar is built as a song writing weapon so primary guitarists are starting bands and cutting the bass thinking they can double plus there are too many guitar players. Bass players who write their own music seem to be doing just fine. IMO if you can play 5/6 string bass or double on extended baritone guitar you can do a reverse uno and cut the guitar player entirely.
I am a bedroom producer, I bought a bass (two) because everything just seemed off if I wasn't able to play my own, also it stunted creativity not being able to actually play.
As a drummer and live sound engineer, great groove and feel is definitely lost without a live bassist. However, most bands are really constantly chasing that “larger than life” sound… and the solution is backing tracks. Bass is the hardest thing to get right consistently in a live mix unless you have a real pro bassist who really knows their gear, and a great engineer. A great engineer is probably even more rare than a great bassist, honestly. Getting that consistently impactful but very controlled dynamic balance is just so much easier when you can spend hours programming it in a studio and then just sling it on a backing track. The tech is so easy and accessible and the results are consistent. I agree, it’s missing the point of a live band… but more and more bands really feel the need for everything to be “perfect”… I think it stems from the same social media effect.
We’re a four piece band of working musicians that play the hell out of our instruments, but we use backing tracks for synths, sound effects, etc. It gives people the “album version” and they’re happier that way. And we can’t afford to hire a bunch of musicians when we travel. That being said, as a bass player, I’d never track the bass.
My thoughts, there is a crowd that believes the bass should be "felt, not heard" which leads to the thinking bass is simple, "you only have to play the root notes". Just like any other instrument, you play according to your ability....you don't have to be John Entwhistle but you don't have to stick to root notes either. Bass players, don't let anyone regulate you to the background, "just play the roots". Develop your bass line. Make it melodic. Find places to make a harmony. Write a bass line that could stand on its own. The other part of playing bass is timing. You can drive the song. Play to the beat, get a groove with drums. Listen for a hole and fill it with a tasty fill then get back in the groove. Or, synchopate your bass line, play off beat but still in time. Give that song an entirely different feel. Most importantly, if you're playing with a band that wants to put you in a box, you don't need that kind of negativity in your life. Find some like minded musicians and start your own project.
I’m a bass player in a two piece rock band (drum and bass). My main goal with this project is to show importance for bass players and to prove to people that the bass is not just a dispensable instrument. Great video, Jonny. Long time fan and subscriber.
As a bass player I backed out from the band setting myself because more often then not all I was doing was doing what I was told by stuckup guitar players. Always in minority my input didn't matter. I play bass, keys and have a guitar lying around when I need it for a specific sound. Drums - plugins. I am now creatively independent from 2-4 morons. From my experience bass players are always musically more open minded than other band musicians and they moved on to produce on their own with their own tools.
I think it’s fine not have a bass player if its a stylistic choice but seeing bands that play to tracks is so lame. Especially when having someone rocking out on a bass just adds some extra energy. Especially as someone who’s played both Bass and Guitar in bands. I’d pick to be the bassist 9/10. Even if I wrote the music for the guitar. Also seeing those bass plug ins always makes me sad. I feel like it’s cool if say you’re someone who physically can’t play an instrument to use having an accurate representation of a bass would cool.
Bass player here. I've been in and jammed with quite a few bands in my day and one thing that I can say about this is, where is the spontaneity? There has been times that I've know the drummers style so well, when he improvs a fill, I can place a lick of my own on top of it to compliment his. When I see a live band and I hear bass and not see one, something always seem off to me. Example, Animals as Leaders, or now Periphery. Some bands have the bass so ingrained in their sound like Tesseract that there is no way for them to really get away with replacing it with a track and still have the same effect. I understand if you're some guy in a room that just wants to write and has no plan on doing it live, but a touring band makes things a little strange when you hear instruments and don't see them. How would a band be received if they used a tracked guitars and the rest of the band was live? I don't know if it's an elitist thing with guitarist or singers or even drummers that can just go "yeaaahhh, we can do without one of the foundations of the band. We'll just digitize it". I believe bands that have everyone participate in song writing brings something unique from their respected instrument. @psmail007 made a really good point. Keyboardist have been replaced by backing tracks for years now. One of my favorite bands is Dream Theater, so I'm all about a real keyboardist instead of tracks. I just enjoy the well roundedness of playing a complete band. I've learned a lot from playing and writing with other instruments. Sorry for the rant. Didn't mean for it to go on that long.
Bassist / Drummer here…i completely understand the argument being made. It feels almost unnatural to sub in bass parts or make them MIDI tracks. I will say however it shouldn’t be a limitation to people who want to create. My example and experience is, I have a full on drum kit with rack and tons of cymbals at home that I can’t use due to having a baby, But I can use MIDI drum samplers ( Drumeforge, GGD ETC) to sub in drums. This way I still have a creative outlet and can make my own songs.
lol I don't follow modern bands or whatever, but its really weird seeing all of this. To me, the fun thing was seeing how a 4 piece band would put out a show.
Because the other band members are jealous of our superior musical ability and overwhelming sex appeal
Facts.
Danny's here to save us all@@JonnyDibble
what do you call a woman on a bass player's arm? a tattoo. love your vids!!
Chicks dig bass players, always have, always will
I think all guitarists feared this day would come... the day the real bassists of the world become more necessary than us 😂
I’m a bassist in a signed metal band actively recording our third album.
I’ve offered to play live and studio bass (for free!) to other great metal bands going through gaps in having a permanent bassist. Turned away. Those bands then released material where the guitarist recorded bass instead, and it really shows…
for free, why turn down?
@@NikosKatsikanis this is the only time Guitarists ever turn anything down.
@@joninawhitecoat lol
people just don't get how important is to have a well played bass line and too many so called musicians don't really understand the role of the bass in music in general this is the issue .bass is not there to be the guitars shadow..
@@naturalianoss yeah all my favourite songs have good bass
Bass player here. Had the same experience at a live show. I heard the bass. Didn’t see one on stage. Something about the way it felt was off. My wife thought I was nuts.
To be fair, both could be true 😅
maybe you should get a new wife.
Your wife's reaction is horrifying.
The average music listener/fan does not give a shit if the whole band is a backtrack. Good songs stand on their own and only other musicians are the sole critics of performance or live band make up.
Have you seen someone who is insanely good at rythm games? It's pretty cool. But you wouldn't pay money to go watch it. That is playing an instrument. It isn't enough by itself.
Welcome to the world of the keyboard player - this has been the case for us for some years now :(
😭😭😭
i whould like ur balls to play with u... cant find one... nowhere... its like u guys are extinct😥
Drummers anyone?
why
@@NikosKatsikanis Im not sure I understand your question ... but I'll assume the obvious answer - because the vid is, at least in material part, about live bands that clearly play songs with a baseline but there is no bass player on stage, having been replaced by a backing track. This has been happening to keyboard players for well over a decade now.
That's why I made my own band where I sing and play bass! No one gonna get rid of me except me!! Muahahahah
I got kicked out of the first band I started by the guitarist’s girlfriend 30 years later I’m the only one still playing
Got stuff to share? I would love to hear lol
Tbh I think this is part of why we aren’t seeing as many bassists: there aren’t as many bass players creating songs and bands. That’s how you push and instrument forward and find new ways to use and highlight its characteristics. Keep it up man
Yeah dude but what if your bass player sucks? Awkward conversation :)
100% right. The path of Sting, Les Claypool, or being one of the founding fathers of the band (like Flea in RHCP, Stuart Zender in Jamiroquai) is the best path for a bass player.
His jawline is more defined than my future
At best, it's a second-rate jawline.
😂😂😂@@onbedoeldekut1515
@@onbedoeldekut1515 lol
Bass player (and guitarist) here.
I was the bassist in a modern metal band until very recently. They got rid of me in October, without warning, and in a very cold and dispassionate way too, considering these were people I called friends. The reason I went is because they've decided to run bass on tracks, even though I was doing my job perfectly well.
I hope their live sound and show is never quite as good again and they can't work out why.
I’m sure their experience will suffer, but I doubt they’ll ever understand why. I hate that happened to you.
They sit at home and listen to "injustice for all" by Metalica and think it sounds perfectly fine and don;t know why a lot of fans like master of puppets way better.
Metal is almost as bad as pop music for being completely fake these days. We are so close to losing human created music. Bands need to turn off the click, the backing tracks and drum triggers and focus on actually playing live rather than being primarily recording projects if they want to stand out from all the AI created music.
@@60degreelobwedge82 what you have against triggers? It helps a lot when you play in club with blown up drums or newbie soundguy who have no idea how to make kick sound nice. It also good for monitoring because you hear better what you play in time domain.
@@60degreelobwedge82 the problem is people want to show off , go on stage , have a band and this is what matter more than the music they play or write...there is little honesty and heart even in a niche genre like metal/ extreme metal .
The bass is the most underrated instrument imo.
But the issue with bands in the modern day is getting 3-5 musicians together to work on a band seriously with the same mindset is incredibly difficult. We live in a time where antisocial hour jobs are more common, making music is basically an unprofitable venture, entertainment and dopamine is on demand without the need to leave the house, and thanks to technology and social media, it’s generally become easier than ever to be a solo musician without bothering with a band.
When you factor all this in, I can see why 2 piece bands are more common and successful, at least whilst starting out. And because of the accessibility of octave pedals, I can also see why bassists tend to be the member that gets axed. I don’t agree with it, but it’s just where we’re at now.
The sitar is underrated, not the bass
Haha, you nailed it! Except I replaced the guitar with an octave pedal! Bass and drums metal duo.Nice insights.
1:18 1:24 1:26
@@miromax811can’t argue with that point. I guess I meant in a more traditional rock band set up.
I realize I'm going to sound like an " old man yelling at clouds" but when I came up we played in bands to have fun.And meet girls.
So, I work on tours/shows/festivals as a tech and there's an awful lot of track used these days.
Even when you have a 4 or 5 piece band.
A certain singer I toured with a few years ago, had a 5 piece band and was playing to thousands of people every night.
Drums, bass, electric guitar, piano, percussion.
Yet the acoustic guitar, extra percussion, extra keyboards, string section and extra backing vocals were all on track.
People listen to highly produced albums nowadays with layers of instruments and so when they go to gigs, they expect that sea of sound.
So unless you employ 10 or 12 musicians who all have a fee, need hotels, flights and feeding, which is very expensive... you have to have some track.
It was a running joke that our percussionist on that tour "played the Apple Mac" as he fired off all the timecodes and tracks for each song to start 😂
It's a shame, as I think a live performance should be a bit raw and stripped back.
Unfortunately, nowadays I'm in the minority it seems.
Dude, this happens at tiny shows, bar shows, little church service, etc.
So it's all just karaoke 🎤😮
Next time I go to the orchestra I hope they don't have a backing track :(
We finished our first Album and we are only guitar/bass/drummer/vocalist. That will gonna be a very raw live sound😂
Hard to justify bringing a string quartet on tour for a few bars
7:18 FOH Engineer here: I've also noticed a trend of bands not using a bass anymore, although it's not as big as this video makes it seem, I had roundabout 500 Bands in 2024, of which maybe 30 used no bass player. What bands usually do in this case isn't giving me a whole ass backing track premixed but bands who rely heavily on backing tracks usually split bass, backing vocals and other stuff up. In a festival situation we are usually prepared for up to 8 channels (drum samples, bass and 3 stereo) for backing tracks.
as for reasoning, especially with semi professional bands, since you're running a timecoded show anyway, the bass will be reliably tight, since there aren't a lot of GREAT bass players out there, even less, when budget can be an issue. it's also 1 less flight, 1 less hotel room, 1 less spot in the nightliner etc.
I've seen this happening mostly with well produced metalcore and powermetal acts, young guys that are ambitioned and want to sound "modern".
just to give you guys a bit of industry insight, take care and happy new year! :)
Honestly being that rigid about the timing of a live performance is part of the problem. It reminds me of the ridiculous practice of quantising drum parts on recordings. Real drummers are supposed to drift.
What's basically missing in most music these days is the creative spark of spontaneous improvisation which lifts a performance from being a static rendition of a recording to a truely unique once in a lifetime performance. To accomplish that you need humans interacting in the moment. And sorry tech heads, even AI can only pull up a catalog of inputted data samples to mimic that.
Most live music hasn't been improved, especially in rock and metal. A band being able to improvise doesn't mean the set is going to be unique, or that the music is going to be good. Also what does AI have to do with anything?
I work as a high school teacher and I've noticed an increase in bass players among teens, especially teen girls for some reason.
This is excellent
i think the reason could be named (sadly) as Victoria de Angelis, or (more happily) Ale Villarreal
@@DanieleCantaboni Non penso sia stata la De Angelis l'innesco, un adolescente ogni venti ascolta i Maneskin. Le mie allieve bassiste mi dicono che ascoltano i Tool e i Deftones.
Because it's easy to play basic notes on
They have bassists like Misa from Band-Maid, Ale from The Warning, Fami from Lovebites, Juna Serita from Jazz Avengers, and 12 year old Ellen Alaverdyan to inspire them.
Metal seems to be heavily afflicted by the backing track syndrome. What’s even crazier, is I’ve seen shows where they had someone holding a bass on stage rocking out all crazy, but they clearly weren’t actually playing a bass and there were bass backing tracks doing the heavy lifting. Like, the person holding the bass will be strumming with a pick and not even holding the neck, but there are actual notes coming out instead of just chugging on the B string. Or the bassist stopped playing anything for a few seconds, but the bass backing track was still going.
I’m old enough to remember when backing tracks were enough to end careers; for example, Ashley Simpson. I get the economics of it, but you may as well just have a singer hitting play on a Reaper session if the band isn’t actually playing. Which, coincidentally, I’ve seen a lot of that lately as well.
I'm old enough to remember when literally every live performance for television was a band miming to backing tracks. It ended a net total of zero careers
Infact, entire bands made entire multi decade long careers of pretending to play music
Even the industry people like to think that it's just so simple to just get people to pantomime to a backing track and that's somehow the way to go. Everyone still seems to just stick to that formula. Most industry people love to think that guitarists and bass players are expendable and aren't actual members of any bands or anything, but the truth is, in most cases, the polar opposite is the case, the main driving force behind the whole band being either one of the two guitarists in that band and not the singer. Lots of people like to think that the singer is the principal member of the band and not just the face of the band, but the reality doesn't even come close. Even the industry people don't really know what they're doing at all.
Sounds like Mötley Crüe :D
It's not just metal it's every genre that isn't jazz, blues or classical. So every modern genre. It's a symptom of the cultural decline of the west due to technology and subversion. I can't even listen to modern metal it sounds atrocious, every band sounds identical, everything is quantized and processed to death, drummers using so many triggers and samples that they're asking to be replaced next. No one in the genre even looks cool anymore, a metal gig looks like a reddit convention. Maybe that's connected, it went from a genuinely edgy counter-culture genre to something ultra mainstream, lame, gay and emasculated.
Go check out japanese Bands where the Bass shines.I wish Bands in the West would utilize the Bass like they do.
Agree, city pop from Japan is so good.
Misa, the bass player from Band Maid kicks ass
@@andyunwin9260 Or look up Juna Serita. She's literally unbelievable with her double thumb technique.
@@burtscho recommend a few for me to check out pls? I know there’s some fantastic Japanese bass RUclipsrs and I’ve listened to a fair bit of Japanese jazz fusion type stuff
@@PaddyLeggBass A few Japanese bands with excellent bass playing: ZUTOMAYO, Gacharic Spin, Band-Maid, Yuroshika, Juna Serita / The Jazz Avengers, MINA (who just joined a band called East of Eden)
We survived the 80s synth bass craze. We will prevail! After all, WE are the purveyors of the booty shaking factor in popular music.
Yes but, there were still a shed load of "traditional" bands out there at the same time.
In the Nashville area, I haven’t seen this trend. Bass players are a bit hard to find but still highly valued, it seems to me.
If it was purely sequenced, but I'd argue that a bass line played by a keyboardist is still live bass. They can still inject feel into the performance and make changes on the fly.
@ good point! Plus, a bass player with a synth pedal can be a “keyboard” player?
A horn player listening to a bass player claiming that bass is the most disposable player in the band...
Welcome to the club, mate.
🥲🥲🥲
No kidding. Horn solos are only slightly less rare than bass solos, and so what's left for them to do is "horn stabs". For that you need 3 players, and that's easily covered by a keyboardist.
They can’t deal with smart quiet guys with good hygiene 😐
🤣🤣🤣
Have you heard of Lemmy?
@@bobbyzig3879 he was smart and quiet compared to the rest of the guys in the 70s lol
The bassist is essentially the tambourine player. Worthless rock instrument
@@chevy4x466 is the plague that makes your booty move
Same for the drums, many bands play live with a drum machine. Both bass and drums are easy to replicate live and they do sound good but any band that uses a live bassist and drummer definitely is a lot more fun to watch live. Apart from the money, often it is easier working with fewer people. Easier to organise time and gigs etc. I'll always want to see a full band and I don't think this will ever disappear because it's so much more exciting to watch. Great video by the way.
Godflesh has entered the chat.
I get your point, but certain genres require the cold inhuman sound of a machine. I play in a grindcore band and we push the bpm well past 250 using 32nd and 64th notes. I have yet to meet a drummer who can do that. I also play in an industrial band who uses a machine and even though the beats could be played by a human, it would lack the consistent relentless POW POW POW necessary. Without fail, drummers will groove during a groove section.
I agree that a lot of this comes down to money/time, but there is a significant amount of bands/artists who strive for the mechanical sound.
@@riffsnoleads I also love industrial music and electronic drums can for sure do things that a human drummer cannot. I actually love watching human drummers recreate amen breaks and break beats, so much more fun than a drum machine and with that added pull and push. But I do agree, some genres do need that cold inhuman sound and yeah, playing at 250 bpm :)
Kinda makes you feel bad for all the big band horn section musicians who were suddenly out of jobs when Elvis brought the stripped down Rock and Roll bandset into the spotlight.
*The introduction of the electric keyboard certainly put the nail in horn sections' coffin.*
*Paying four or more blokes vs one gangly boffin certainly factored in as well.*
And then came Kurt Cobain who apparently made it everyone's life goal to be a heroin addict and deceased during the tour instead of playing guitar
That's a good analogy. Sidemen where completely kicked out of live music once that happened. A guy who could make a living doing gigs was no longer needed.
I cannot remember where I heard it first, but its my favorite … Drums provide the heartbeat, Bass provides the blood pressure.
That seems so descriptive... yeah, I like that. Thank you, Derrek.
As a bass player I can say there is a lack of bass players who really add to the feel. It's either jazz twats of mindless strummers. A good rock player should be turning the drums into music, and a good pop player should be putting some serious grease on the backbeat to get people dancing.
Space is everything, don't overplay, but don't be boring either.
Well said, from a fellow rock/pop/soul bassist.
Lol at 'jazz twats'
You’ll like my bass player-led music 😉
another, to me interesting point from a guy called Sting, no chord is 'known' until the bass note is added. I prefer melody with a bassline and drums over guitar heavy stuff. I guess it's also the style of music you're chasing, in my case James Jamerson style, or Rocco from TOP
@ I am a big fan of Stings bass playing.
I have found that locking down into the drum part and using simple chord tones has led me to melodic lines that sometimes take on a life of their own. Depends on the song and the drummer.
Apart from 4 on the floor stuff where the bass line is a hook kind of independent of the drums.
I was at BST Hyde Park last year and Paris Paloma was playing with a drummer and guitarist but using a backing track rather than a bass player. It seemed weird for a major festival, especially when us bass players are starving.
Great video! I don't know about other genres, but in a lot of modern metal the bass just seems to follow the rhythm guitar and is often mixed so, that it just provides those low end frequencies to the mix and does not cut through all that much. If a bass player leaves such band or gets kicked out, it's easy to see why a band might just use backing tracks instead. As "redundant" as a bass player might seem in a band like that, it can also be difficult to find a replacement, because the "bass lines" can actually be really difficult. You know, basically playing rhythm guitar on a bass in modern metal context can easily become needlessly difficult.
Then you have bands like Jinjer who people see as a gimmick act because their singer is female. They have one of the best bass players currently releasing music in the world and literally no one cares but bass nerds
Bass Guitar will never die out. Music lovers won't stand for it.
the other side of the coin is trying to even find a 'proper' bass player. By this I mean one who has actually put in the time studying bass, rhythm, theory etc. rather than the 90% of either chancers or failed guitarists, who can only use a pick and have no idea of how to sit in a rhythm, get a great sound, when not to play, etc etc.. This I think is why a lot of bands just give up and use a Macbook, or someone else in the band ends up playing bass (badly).
bands arent using bass players anymore because bands dont exist anymore, you have musicians pretending to be a band.
There's havent been many bands for a long time. They arent as financially lucrative as solo artists.
I'm a "musician pretending to be a band" myself, and it's the only thing that has ever worked for me. I still technically play in a band, but good luck organizing rehearsals and finding a week end that works for 5 adults with children and working full time jobs.
Mine is not an ideal solution, but it gets the job done. Whenever I need something, I call one of the members, we meet up and record that.
@@CugnoBrasso its okay buddy, whatever works for you, one way of seeing this is: without backing tracks this "bands" wouldn't exist, I think most of them would hire a bassist if they have some minor success.
Kleptoplastique
Okay boomer calm down. You sound like Rick Beato (derogatory)
The bass department in the GAK store in Brighton is a 2x3 closet at the veeeerrrrry back of the store.
When everybody is producing for tinny iphone speakers, sadly, the Low end is Low priority.
same at the guitar center here in Tucson- room about the size of my master bathroom, and nothing but entry level bullshit. If you want a new bass, it's mailorder, and roll the dice.
However, you can also play out of your iPhone onto your car stereo, and there you do need the bass or it sounds bad.
*I will say this for GAK: I ordered a Squier Affinity Precision from them and they took the time to open the box & inspect it before shipping to me.*
*Squier's QC is a bit "hit or miss" and they didn't want to send me a lemon.*
*The bass I received was flawless QC wise.*
*However, my mate who ordered one on Amazon got a complete write off.*
*Regents Sound in Denmark St are brilliant too.*
*Don't think I've ever seen a bass there, but they ordered me a 2000 Fender Aerodyne from Japan (last one out the factory door before discontinuing the P/J pickup configuration).*
*It was destined for a shop in Germany, but Dom @ RS convinced Fender Japan to send it here for me.*
*If there's a brick & mortar fulfilling my online order, I feel a lot better.*
true been there :))) but everywhere is like this
I am inclined to doubt that most people listen to music through a phone speaker. However regardless music was for most of the history of recorded popular music made with the expectation that a lot of people would listen to it on the radio. In other words with minimal bass capability. Yet bands still had bass players.
Jonny - agree with you 100%
I’m a music producer and may program in a bass groove while I’m writing but it doesn’t end up on the track in the end.
I find a real bassist for the final mix - it’s the pow and the wow factor, the track comes to life! Same for the drums -
Regarding touring bands well…that’s a whole separate video and usually centers around the economics of touring - it’s tough out there right now…the game has definitely changed
Let’s be honest. Humanity is working hard to make itself obsolete through automation, robotics and A.I..
That sounds nice. When do I get to quit my job?
@ Don’t worry, you’ll be on Universal Basic Income soon enough. 😉 Put that into Google and see how many countries have adopted it or are running trials, especially since the Covid plandemic. You know about “Event 201”, right? October, 2019, NYC. There’s an 11-minute highlights reel here on YT. See if it looks familiar.
@damianrf6309 if you think AI can do 99 percent of jobs you don't understand AI.
@ We’re just getting started…Humanity is on the wrong path. There is only one logical destination. Did you see Boston Dynamics’ new Atlas doing his Xmas backflip?
😂
Back in the 80s when I was doing a lot of session work in LA the bass synth came along and took a lot of our session work. It’s always been tough, but I do notice a lot more bands I’m seeing when I go out to places to listen to music are not using bassists. It’s gotten so tough for the young players. Still gigs though. Before Covid I was out on tour with the Motown group The Miracles for a few years but too old for the road now! 😂 The key is to develop your skill set and cut your teeth as much as possible playing live whenever you can. Big difference between that and doing videos sitting at a desk which seems to be the new model these days. Hope it pays something to you guys for all your efforts.
i found out recently one of my favorite bands are not touring with their bassist anymore. Very sad seeing just the two guitars and the drums on stage. They aren't my favorite anymore.
Sad times. What band is this?
Periphery I assume
@@chrislonghurst4253 nekrogoblikon. they hadn't made any official announcements of the bassist leaving but considering they never found a sub and hes been absent for multiple shows is a huge red flag
@@rockereivanivanif it was periphery it’d be three guitars players
Northlane?
I was never in demand as a guitar player, or a piano player. Since I picked up a double bass the offers have been pouring in (!) (And also I LOVE it)
There is some truth when people say that lead guitarists are dime a dozen. I say that as a lead guitarist myself. It takes an awful lot of commitment to the instrument and an awful lot of trying to nail the technique but once you learn how each technique works and the lifehacks involved, most of it is just pattern recognitions and the other lifehacks; lead guitar is not that hard.
Same here ... swapped to the doghouse and I'm beating away offers with a stick ... and I love it too. So it took a good few years ... but the 'musical wardrobe of doom' is finally having her revenge on Leo Fender for inventing the bass guitar :-)
Lol lucky you. Its dry by me. That's why i want to move. Ive turned down many classic rock dad bands though
Good to hear! I love the bass viol
As a bass player in a modern metal band i can tell from experience that we are redundant in that genre especially. Some bands have more creativity and space for the bass player to shine even if they’re playing in low tunings (VOLA is a great example) but most times all the producer wants is for the bass player to follow the guitars with some very rare moments. My band tunes to Drop F#, the bass only exists to fill a couple gaps and act like a guitar “chunkyfier”, that being said i’m very comfortable with it and i have fun with the project, it’s a big plus that i don’t have to focus a lot of time into practicing those songs since they’re easy.
Spoken like a real bass player (I'm a guitar player). I like the "chukify" the guitar comment. Bass fills stuff out.
The thing is,the bassist can be the most experienced in your band or the least experienced, and the audience will rarely be able to tell as long as they can keep time and hit the root notes of chords.
You guys are unsung heroes of the band and guitarists salute you and love you! We need the oomf!
Well, that usually is true for the kickdrum as well. And there is a good reason for it if you understand modern mixing.
Most consumer speakers that are not dedicated subwoofers, rarely can display frq. below 80 - 70 hz. Next, when you play together in a room live, everyone has their own speakers usually. So, now in recorded state, the kick, ultra-low-tuned-guitars and ultra-low-tuned bass all have to go through mostly 2 tiny headphone speakers. It is difficult enough to get kick and bass to work together and make things punchy instead some of some mushy mess. When you now throw in a few guitar-players that say: "Hey we want to tune that low and this really impractical sound is our signature, so please don´t high-pass the guitars!" - which is a totally valid argument since we are talking about art - you know that the future holds some suffering for someone.
My second point is that I started my musical non-career as a self-proclaimed composer, and simply turned to piano, guitar and bass because I needed something to put that music into reality. So my persective at least I think is one that puts the "whole" music, as in the sum of all individual parts, as the primary focus. And I love players that realize that even if they don`t do something sophisticated, they can have an irreplaceable effect on the overall sound. Look at drummers. Irreplaceable, yet if you know the exact drumline - including all breaks to exact detail - of a any song, chances are iguess 99% that you are a drummer. And just as I do not want my metal without drums, I do not want my metal without bass.
@@tonebone69 no offense intended here especially since I don't know your band, but most modern metal regardless of sub genre is generic and boring and it's no shock when they don't break through or find success. It's too the point that I don't even put on a playlist for any specific band and I just put a genre playlist on because it's all gonna sound the same anyways
Mp3 cutting out lots of low end and people listening with crappy earbuds etc or phone speaker😂 are a key reason. Cant really hear bass guitar or feel the difference if there is no bassist there at all! I played my first gig at a hotel function room with drums, guitar and vocals covering Oasis for an hour.
Nobody commented on the lack of a bassist! We had compliments on the vocals and drums, I was genuinely surprised as I felt the loss.
See video of Oasis at Glasgow 2001
it is bass heavy mix!❤
P.s. I am a drummer that dibbles in bass at home.😂
Have a great New Year and better times in 25!
A Drummer friend that I play with a lot here locally, just went on a national tour with a female metal vocalist/solo act. The bass was all on a track. The stage was just said female vocalist, a guitarist, and a drummer. It looked empty and ridiculous. My Drummer friend said this was done as a cost cutting issue since they were the opener on the tour.
I used to work with some boys during the pandemic who had a little indie psych rock type band putting out some music and doing shows locally and by the end of the pandemic it was literally the kid who started the band singing along with a boombox on a stool (on purpose) because the local venues that were left weren't paying shit even to some of the headliners
*Worst part of using backing tracks is: You're tethered to them.*
*Nuances extinguished and a whole host of logistical nightmares are but one misstep away.*
*That being said, if it's "use backing tracks or no gig" I can somewhat see their relevance.*
@@neilpatrickhairless in a lot of cities venues allowing for live drums are in extinction also
It’s as the old heads say: no one appreciates good music anymore
I listen mainly to metal (progressive/death/black/core/etc.), and... the state of bass in metal does make me a little sad. And I'm a guitarist! Metalcore bass, I have to be real, is usually an after-thought. Even bands with cool basslines and excellent bass players (Spiritbox, for instance) often just mix the bass in with the guitars to such an extent that you can barely discern it as a separate instrument. Though, there is hope! Sleep Token has some awesome bass-driven sections, and Poppy apparently usually writes her music on bass first. The prog end of metal still does well, though. Martin Mendez on Opeth's latest album is just lovely.
I guess the sad reality is that bedroom producers are usually operating with a lot of constraints that can be solved by doing as much as possible in the box (laptop) - you can program MIDI bass to sound pretty damn good and convincing in the mix, even with the stock plugins in your DAW. Honestly, this has been the case for drums a lot longer than it has been for bass (IMO). My interest in bass really hit when I ran into the limitations of this approach - I have ideas for some bass-first sections of songs that just sound way too fake when the MIDI bass doesn't have a dense mix to hide behind.
Hi, new to your stuff, thanks for the discussion! I was with a particular artist for a decade who continues to use my tracks instead of a live bassist while touring, at least partially for cost-cutting. I just joined another artist who had been using tracked bass and immediately remarked on the improved groove and unity of the band that was already in place when live bass was introduced, which was such a relief. When not on tour I work as a soundguy and backline tech and the bass is the no. 1 instrument I see replaced or eliminated for savings. I agree that even having a human playing key bass once again results in a more dynamic and organic band sound than just using sub synth tracks. Just some disorganized thoughts... you covered most of this!
The problem is not that bands aren't using bass players anymore - they are not using musicians anymore.
The problem is not that bands (definition: groups of musicians) aren't using bass players anymore - they (groups of musicians) are not using musicians anymore.
A band JUST being really great at playing instruments and doing nothing else is incredibly boring. It isn't the meta skill that most musicians imagine that it is.
I'd rather see a group play with backing tracks that knows how to entertain than a band that doesn't.
@@Dragon-Believer one thing does not exclude the other
@@Dragon-Believer if I want to see performers who cannot sing or play live, I will go to a flying circus or such. The standard should artists who can do both live, they should not be the exception. If a band cannot do both live, they will not get my limited cash
@DaveRyan-oy8ig that's fine. But don't complain that other people don't agree with you. Also I think there are very few who do both. And I have plenty of money for concerts.
I’ve heard the band Avoid live without a bass player and the bass was punching through like crazy and it was kinda sad the nobody was playing it
Check out Band Maid (Japanese rock band) and you’ll get all the bass goodness-at very high level as well-you’d ever want. For that matter check out any Japanese rock or metal band. The Warning, too, out of Mexico.
Old man yelling at clouds here!
My solution to all of my bass problems, including ageism after 50 was to pick up upright bass a bit over 2 years ago.
I had literally only been playing the thing for 4 months before I was hired to go on tour.
The bands playing older styles, post modern, western, bluegrass, jazz, rockabilly ect will always want that doghouse on stage. Even if your still learning to play the thing! That look is all important for them.
For guys playing modern music, my best advice is to become a muti instrumentalist. I'm serious. The one's I know are always busy.
I just wanted to say that the OG question reads like "why bands stopped to use the violone".
Upright bass sounds so good though, especially with those styles!
This is a great point! I don't usually comment but this really made me think.
I think that in the world of the bedroom recording musician, 9/10 times they play guitar and are programming bass and drums as backing tracks for their songs. And this opens a market for drum and bass VSTs where there is a distinct lack of demand for a guitar plugin. The drums and bass VSTs get better with demand, and the guitar VSTs don't get the same quality.
Additionally, in metal, I sense more stigma that "the bass player in the band is the least qualified" among other insults and generalizations. I do think that the "bad guitar player turned bass player" is more common than a dedicated player, but I also think that great musicians are rarely locked into a single instrument.
For every Black Keys or White Stripes, there's a Royal Blood or Death from Above 1979 that poses the opposite argument though, but simply due to instrument popularity I don't see this trend growing as quickly.
Great points! Thanks for your comment 😄
Bass player here, played in several metal bands, heard the whole "bad guitarist turned bass player" thing and honestly, if I could just put a funnel in people's ears and take a huge shit in it instead of having to play songs that would be fantastic, for me
Honestly, I thought guitarrists were going to be replaced before bass players.
Me Too...
any why would you think that? the bass as an instrument is much easier to produce artificially
@@hazardeur Guitars arent needed for a lot of genres. Bass is needed for almost everything.
@hazardeur maybe he thought that because guitarists are 10 a penny compared to bass players. If your guitarist leaves you can spend a week going to your local open mics and you'll find another one.
On the flip side drums and bass which are the more difficult band members to source are the easiest to digitally reproduce
@@jamesnell7224 Spot on. It took me a good 5 years to find a drummer for my band (using backing track drums up until then) but Im over flowing with guitarist choices.
Periphery minus Nolly illustrates the problem. Loved the ensemble with Nolly yet just like 'em without. Great topic; carry on!
Another problem is the current fixation in metal with stupidly low-tuned guitars that are stomping all over the frequency range the bass should be sitting in.
How's that a problem ?
Nothing wrong with it if that's how they want to sound though. Play for a different band like a melodic punk band if you like fast and intense music and want to play bass. Tons of room for great bassists in melodic punk
As a guitarist playing in drop C lately, I can tell you guitars tend to fail miserably when they try to fight the bass on its own territory and the lower you go the bigger the scale of failure. xD On the other hand, there are bassists going full overdrive without realising it takes away their low end and pushes them into guitar territory. Clever ones at least blend their clean and dirty signal.
Both can be done but the whole band must work together to make it work at all.
@@flecht No idea why a bassist would want to play with high distortion because it just makes the mix sound like there's no bass in it. But, to each their own and if they prefer it that way that's cool.
@@devilsoffspring5519 Can high disto + blend work though ?
Bands have played in our local pub and it has been ALL backing tracks... Come to think of it it might have been the jukebox
And many "recordings" are closer to electronic music production than actual recordings. Well, I guess thats why they are called productions and not recordings anymore...
@johannalvarsson9299 I think the answer to your initial question is that their aren't enough competent bass players to go around, I wonder how many bassists are in several bands or have multiple commitments. I was making a bit of a joke but thank you for your reply and have a happy new year bud
There are still bands around?
I think the music “industry” (corporations) is heavily to blame. Not enough people are talking about the economics of playing in a band. Spotify, live nation, etc have taken SO MUCH money out of musicians pockets. It’s almost impossible to make even a very modest living as a musician. Playing live and selling merch are really the only way to make anything, and guess what? The more people in your band the more you have to split that TINY piece of the pie. We need to be pointing the finger at the corporations that have gobbled up smaller parts of the music scene and not at other musicians trying to get by on the crumbs. Musicians are nothing if not creative. Well keep making music any way we can, and if that means playing live with a musician or two less, we’ll do what we have to do.
Of the newer bands I listen to, they all have bass players. Band-Maid, Nemophila, The Warning, Hanabie, The Sixsters. Rolling Quartz, The Jazz Avengers, Asterism, Bloodywood, and dozens of others. It is the American and British music industry that is all screwed up. The level of bands in Japan alone is an embarrassment to American and British music without even counting the rest of the world.
The Doors didn't have a bass player but all their studio recordings had session musicians playing bass.
Bass lines were played on keyboard.
@nueeardente4240 google "who played bass guitar on the doors albums"
@@nueeardente4240 Keyboard is not different from a P, J, Spector or a contrabass. It's just another tool to fill the low end. It's a great way to be gluten.
Then it's just about what you like most : string instruments have certain tone tricks that keyboards don't, and vice versa.
@@PsyX99 agreed
Imagine RHCP, RATM or even Primus without a bass player on stage.😂😂😂
😂😂😂 no!
I listen to Dream Theater for example, seen them a couple of times in concert and they don't appear to be losing John Myung anytime soon. Even bands like Riverside, Threshold, Marillion & IQ (on the progressive side of music) all seem to be using their bass players on their albums and in concert. First time I've ever heard of bands losing their bass player because of costs or whatever.
Really wish bands would still use bass players. Bass is what makes guitars sound great. It having one and using a backing track is just weird to me.
Indeed!
this. I played with some guys recently, and when asked about the bass for a part of a song I told them "I want to add weight to the guitars for this section."
We used to actually have a bass player (and we are still looking for one) so we can chime in for context.
One of the major reasons why getting a bass player is super difficult is that very few bass players actually tend to have the appropriate equipment. Most bass players have Fender P basses with super old strings, which, when you're playing in a tech metal band where the bass tone is super crucial to your sound, the only bass tone that really works for your sound gets super specific, which means having a Dingwall is a must and having Darkglass equipment is also a must. One time when we actually had a bass player on stage, we ended up having to rent the equipment to that bass player ourselves, which worked fine at the time, but with equipment prices starting to skyrocket for obvious reasons (cough) monopoly (cough), even we wound up forced to sell even the equipment that we actually use and wound up having to look for alternatives instead. Still to this day, we keep getting our chains yanked repeatedly from any chances of getting a real amplifier to use for once, simply because lady luck keeps giving us bad hands and prices continuing to be even more prohibitive than ever and the false narrative that "amplifiers are a thing of the past" continuing to be pushed as if it were true, and that's why it's the worst time to be a musician EVER.
The second time we got real close to having a permanent bass player she suddenly quit when we wound up criticising a competitor for cheating in a song content (They actually did!) and this is why we don't have a bass player anymore, even though we've been trying super hard.
There are good bass players, but they often end up being session musicians instead and often refuse to be full time members of a band. The rest, they don't have the serviceable gear, they don't bother to practice, they get petty and have very bad temper, they refuse to get new strings, all the more reason why getting a proper bass player in a band is literally impossible.
I hate the sound of new bass strings. Way too bright.
@@loganmedia4401 Producers in general are going to hate an attitude like that.
I'm not a gigging musician, but looking in from outside, I see a few things in play.
Cost: you alluded to this, but I think it goes deeper; The economics of touring are brutal, so while it's one thing to hire a session player, it's another thing altogether when you have to pay that person on tour.
Sound: Aside from a couple of genres that still place a premium on musicianship, a lot of this stuff can be programmed, so it is.
Consumer tastes: This stuff matters to musicians, and to people who bother to really listen to music instead of merely consuming it. For the average person, "good enough" is good enough; it may register -- barely -- that something's missing, but I don't know that the average person really listens closely enough to understand what it is.
Bassists: I think we (I use "we" loosely here, 'cause I'm just getting started and am not that good yet) are a little too quick to get set in our ways. I've met bassists who won't slap/won't play with a pick/refuse to play finger-style/are absolutely allergic to things like synths and effects. While that's okay in some settings, the way a lot of modern pop especially is produced (often with radically different drum and bass styles from one track to the next) calls for a flexibility that some musicians not only don't have, but can't be bothered to learn.
Cost, again: So what do you do when you have something that's more stylistically or at least sonically diverse than what an average bassist might be able to handle? Well, you could hire a more versatile bassist, but like anything else, quality doesn't come cheap, and you've got a record company, accountants, management, an entourage, and a zillion other people to pay, so if corners can be cut...
Just my $.02 worth, mind you.
The “consumer” is the primary driver of all these trends, which should be alarming. They simply don’t care because they don’t know. They are fed crap music and want to listen with their eyes.
I once was in a band and twice the bass player arrived to the gig with no bass.
Midi tracks dont forget their bass. 😂
But for real- personally there is nothing better than live bass, to hear, see & feel.
And, as a guitarist, there are parts and songs that I wouldn’t have written if it weren't for jamming with amazing bass players.
We need you, bassists - just remember to bring your gear to the show 😆😆
As a bass player the only thing I ever did close to this was one time at a local gig I hopped in our van got to the gig and didn't notice until I was about to go out on stage I still had my red crush velvet slippers on . Lol
@@rdhudon7469 no doubt the slippers added to the show😆
I find hard to find dedicated bass players that are purely bass players and make the bass sounds good and distinctive locally
Guitarists assuming they don’t need them / don’t understand a proper locked in quality bassline. Plus the guitars are essentially so low tuned it’s like bad basslines. I play both but bass is my first love!
The band Powerwolf comes to mind, even they are officially endorsed by Warwick basses it's still the guitar player who recorded bass for the albums and backing tracks for live. They said they feel like this is a perfect balance in terms of interpersonal relationships to be able to work with each other long term, with the balance of keeping the cost of touring to not go too high. Me as a bass player and guitar player who's not at their caliber I'm not sure how to feel haha.
Check out Tesseract. The bassist is probably more important for their sound than the guitars themselves. Monuments are awesome for that, too.
I'm the lead guitar player in a 4 piece rock band (two guitars, bass and drums, and we all sing. Our rhythm guitarist is our lead vocalist tho), and I'll tell you now - we wouldn't be a great sounding band if we didn't have our bass player. The bass in our band is what glues everything together, and our bass player doesn't just stick to root notes. If anything his parts are the hardest to play in our songs and he utilizes the entire fretboard. We also bonded over our shared love for John Paul Jones and Paul McCartney, and I can hear that influence throughout his playing. Not only that, but he also sings backing vocals, as do I, and we both contribute lyrics and song ideas to the band AND he's also a certified doctor, so when we are on the road, if there's a medical emergency, we have a qualified professional on deck in the event of an emergency.
All four of us split the songwriting, getting 25% each, no matter who originally wrote the idea for the song, because if our band didn't have any one of us in it, it wouldn't be our band anymore. We play with a metronome in studio and live (we don't use tracks and don't really want to), but during our live shows, we always have borderline post-rock improvised jams between songs, especially if there's a guitar change or something like that going on, and it's become a huge part of our live show.
We are currently recording our first record as a full band and there's so many great bass moments throughout the entire record. If we didn't have our bass player, I wouldn't be anywhere near as excited about playing music in a group. He's also inspired me to think more about my bass parts in my solo material too, and with the new songs I've been writing, the bass really shines through in all of them.
gg
Sounds like a really nice band with a great chemistry. I hope for you that this works for a long time.
I did not realize that bands are getting rid of their basists at all ... is it that bad with western bands?
Granted I listen mainly to japanese bands (BAND-MAID, Lovebites, Gacharic Spin, Asterisim, and Kiyoshi) and they have amazing base players.
In fact the base players are a big reason why I listen to the bands.
On all the live concerts I went to in 2024 there was always a base player on stage (only exception was Powerwolf).
I blame modern production, especially metal. The overt focus on note perfect playing and mixing means that bass gets jammed into this role of always being on time with no push or pull, and it's always holding down the low end. I saw an interview with Nolly where he said that he records bar by bar if needed to get every note exactly right. At that point, you might as well just use a plugin. Bass can contribute so much to a mix if played well, but so many people are blind to the possibilities.
I think bass players themselves are rendering themselves unusable. I’ve been playing bass for over 31 years and I’ve seen some absolutely insane bassists come to fruition in the last decade. But!!! They’re all crazy talented people let’s say Charles Berthoud. As an example.
So so many young bassists aspire to that level. Which is cool and all. Yet they see more traditional bass playing and holding down the bottom end as beneath them.
And “so boring a machine could do it”.
Plus what has been echoed above. Music today is very “Big Mac”.
People just want the same easily made garbage that looks good over and over.
Pop star musicians don’t really play from their heart.
They play from a spreadsheet and hardly ever deviate for fear of delivering something other than the Big Mac that consumers have been programmed to expect.
I think you are on to something. a lot of music is becoming formulaic. a bassists are great for "creating music" but if you are just clicking the random button on a computer there is no need for one.
Re: Charles Berthoud, crazy talented but I tried listening to his stuff and I find it so dull - its just a vehicle for him to show off his chops. Perhaps if these really good RUclips players got themselves in bands with equally good drummers, guitarists and other musicians, they could make something that really inspires
Look at the jazz fusion bands that have a bassist, but no guitarist.
Exception rather than the rule I think
@@PaddyLeggBass Is he thinking of Weather Report? That's going back a ways, tho'.
@@aquamarine99911they have guitar.
Chick corea toured without guitar sometimes
Outside of Rock and Metal, the guitar can be replaced by other instruments. I mean every big Pop Star has a Bassist and Drummer, but not always a guitarist.
The goth rock band Sister of Mercy has been notorious for this for many years. What's weird is that some of their songs have iconic basslines. Sometimes the guitarist plays those instead. 😐
I have major issue with bands that substitute members with backing tracks. But I'm a musician myself and depending on a genre a large chunk of listeners just don't notice the difference. I know, I was there. Before I started my musical journey I was completely oblivious to which sounds belong to the guitar and which to the bass.
It depends on the kind of music and role the bass plays in it... For example, I went to see Crosses and yes the stage looks a bit sparse with just 2 guys but I didn't feel a bassist was missing UNTIL they played Telepathy which has an awesome and prominent bass line. Then it felt super weird.
Bottom line, the business model for the whole industry is FUBARed. People are expected to do professional work, normally across multiple domains, whilst the overwhelming majority are struggling to break even.
At some point I strongly suspect that, even in the arena level gigs (the only part of the live music industry where there is real £), the bottom is going to fall out. The artists that can fill those venues are limited; many are old and touring less/dying/retiring. And the pipeline below is utterly fucked. So you inexorably run into increasingly ridiculous costs for tickets, declining quality and oversupply of venues.
Unless and until there is a reckoning with improving the realities of the business model, and a recognition that you don’t have an industry without artists… we are in a pattern of decline.
As to why bassists? I’ve played to backing tracks live quite a bit. Up to large festival size. TBH, if you’re playing to a track it isn’t hugely important which instruments are live vs on the track. Personally I don’t agree that bass is more important than e.g. guitar in that context - I want live performance to be live, and the limitations of playing to a track are universal not instrument-specific.
Oh and some other thoughts…
1. On plugins… I think the important thing to focus on is the things that plugins can’t give you in terms of performance. Sonically there’s no doubt they are already there in most respects. The player piano didn’t kill off pianists - this is another of those scenarios (although where AI goes is certainly a variable).
2. I’m not having the gluten argument, sorry. Since I’ve Been Loving You by Led Zeppelin sounds pretty good to me.
3. In my experience anyone using backing tracks seriously is not sending 1 feed to FOH. Kids just starting out might do that maybe but it doesn’t take many experiences of the real world problems that creates to realise that, if you’re going to do it, you need to do it properly.
Solo Artists and Autotune have killed most bands. drummers and guitarists are also disappearing, as bands are as well. I hate that. I’ll continue listening to Sabbath and Reggae for BASS
rent, mortgage and neighbours killed drumming
The reason many bands aren't bringing bass players and keyboardists on tour is the high cost, which has been driven up by the decline in CD sales and low payouts from streaming platforms. As a result, bands are increasingly relying on backing tracks instead.
I don't remember the exact quote or who said it but something like "A band is basically drums and bass with a few random novelty acts" The heart of the band is what they turn over to backing tracks then the band lacks soul. There is nothing better than when drums and bass lock in with each other except fried chicken and a Star Trek marathon.
That was either Roger Waters or Nick Mason who said that
I think a lot of modern heavier bands are using bass tracks that are sticking purely to the root note for sure. There is 0 creativity in the basslines. It does lose that organic element.
I've seen guitarists playing the basic chuggy parts and the majority of lead parts are backing track. That is certainly a strange watch. Might be fine as a regular consumer but as a musician you sit there counting the layers of guitars on the backing track.
With so much writing being done in a digital manner, the end product comes out far quicker than a band that churns out the songs in a regular rehearsal routine. I come from a punk & hardcore background where everything has to have an impact. Depending on the genre, some elements would be given priority over others.
We’re leading our own bands… also unfortunately a lot of bassists can’t actually write memorable bass riffs/parts. I spend a lot of time teaching students about how to use the scales etc cause they’ve all spent time learning other people’s stuff but not enough time writing original bass parts.
That’s why I still love listening and watching bands like Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson, Marillion, Pinneaple Thief and so many other bands that shines with all of the members and instruments playing a good show live 😊
As a keyboard player, I do love working with bass players that have good musical sensibilities, reasonable knowledge, great ears and good technique. If I cannot find with those qualities, I can get parts that I want to hear by programming them myself. Maybe bass players need to make themselves indispensable by ensuring that they can play parts better than I can.
Having said that, I have played the odd gig where I played left hand bass live and I love hearing good synth bass. In that instance, I prefer to hear someone dedicated to just that one role. How do YOU feel about bands that replace bass players with keyboard bass?
If it sounds good, then why not?
As someone who does both guitar and bass I'm saddened to see this happen
I enjoy both instruments and I really feel differently playing both instruments; like the mentality just switches
I notice that my ideas for basslines are often less usual than the basic things (like just playing the roots)
I like to add power chords and add the possibilities of a 5-string bass to a set of regular 6-string guitars without any sort of downtuning or whatever and I like to prevent mindlessly hammering on the same note and on calmer parts I like to apply arpeggios (usually just on power chords tho) and I like to add a fuck ton of distortion to the bass (although not 100% of the time)
And I love adding bass solos in songs (but I won't be shredding the shit out of the bass tho, even if I had the skills to do so)
That's something a regular backingtrack bass wouldn't just do (and I feel like backing track instruments can't draw too much attention before it gets too obvious)
I went to two concerts last year at the same 1500-person standing-room venue -- one in February, one in October. Both roughly sold out. The first concert: $53 general admission to see two 4-member bands, each with their own bass player. Both bassists sang background vocals, too. The second one: $37.50 general admission to see 3 bands, 11 total band members.. only the headliner had a bass player; he also sang backing vocals and he also set down his bass guitar for 3-4 songs to play keyboard. Each support band played 30-40 minutes (maybe 17 songs between the 2 support bands) All 3 bands were touring together (in some concert tours at this price point, only the headliner goes on tour from city to city and local or regional bands serve as the support acts). The energy level on stage was noticeably less for the acts that used a backing track instead of a bassist.
Some observations here:
A) Would it have been a deal breaker to fans had the second concert ticket been $41-$42 so the first two bands could share a bass player on tour? I don't think so. Nor would it have been too big an ask for the one bassist to learn 17-18 songs from each of the two bands.
B) Maybe people who principally are bass players need to become musical Swiss Army Knives... sing backing vocals, play keyboards or a baritone guitar on some songs instead of the bass. The more you CAN do, the more you WILL do.
5:14 Drums became disposable in the '80s. But it does seem like the disposability of bass is more absolute. But I think there are way more niche sub-sub-sub-genres of music now than there ever were before. I'm just not interested in the stuff that dumps the live musicians in favor of backing tracks. Of course, while there's more music than ever before, it seems like there's simultaneously less money to go around. It's a great time to be a consumer of music, not so great for producers of music. (And I mean "musicians" not "producers" here.)
I am fortunate enough to play guitar in a trio and after decades of playing in 7, 6 ,5 and 4 pieces this is my favorite format . My bassist is incredible I am lucky to have him.
It is very difficult to find a bass player that has good gear, good tone and serves the song.
So I understand some bands or artists bypassing the bass player to keep things moving a long. Yes you can backtrack the bass too the only people who will care and notice are other musicians.
What a great topic! I actually get turned off from a band the moment I don't hear or see a bassist involved live. Another thing is some bands have the bassist playing what the guitarist is playing or there is a guitarist playing a detuned 7 or more stringed guitar that totally drowns out the bass.
That’s why plugins are especially prevalent in the metal/prog scene. The lower we seem to keep going, the harder it is to get good bass sounds
It's simple. Low tuned guitar and chugga wuggas get the workout bros excited and there is no glamour in holding down the rhythm section.
I play bass myself and the only praise that ever comes to me is for the amount of distortion I use. For most people, that kind of irrelevancy is discouraging to want to bother learning bass or using a hired gun.
I totally agree. It started with the White Stripes, Ting Tings. Periphery use midi/taped bass. Animals as Leaders dont have a bass player. I always had a bass as a kid in bands. In fact, when we didn't have a bassist I recruited a friend to play keyboard bass (our jr high jazz band did this, I played trumpet and we had two pianists so one would play a Moog bass!). Anyway I think u need a bassist. He's not there to just follow guitar in my opinion. I like a Geddy Lee type. I won't use a fake bass plug in. I'll grab an actual bass and come up with a part. And I play metal. So I could just follow the guitar but I won't.
In my experience I've only seen this happen once, when Sikth played ArcTanGent and their bassist couldn't make it due to having another conflicting gig.
I volunteered at a festival. There was a band with two vocalists. Pop band. I guess they were singing about partying. I was not feeling it. But I was standing on the bassist side. And he was just rocking it. He was playing around the melody and the root notes. Doing fills. Had a 3-4 bar slap breakdown. Awesome.
And that was much cooler than when I played bass in a metal band as a glorified EQ.
30 years ago, I switched from guitar to bass in order to get into a band, because guitarists were two a penny. Hearing Jaco confirmed to me that it was a good decision back then.
my first laptop was a piece of crap that didnt have good bass response(before people listened to music on phones). I thought the bass was unnecessary and just a back up guitar. I finally heard music the right way and realized how dumb I was. Even though people are listening to music on their phones more I don't think thats the problem. The speakers on mid range to pro phones are pretty good. Everyone has high quality ear buds, portable bluetooth speakers and soundbars that have excellent bass response (sometimes too much) and DJs always play bass heavy music. Fidelity is better now than it was in 2008.
I think the issue is bass players aren't writing music or organizing the bands enough. Guitar is built as a song writing weapon so primary guitarists are starting bands and cutting the bass thinking they can double plus there are too many guitar players. Bass players who write their own music seem to be doing just fine. IMO if you can play 5/6 string bass or double on extended baritone guitar you can do a reverse uno and cut the guitar player entirely.
The fact is that the hardest person to find in a band is a decent bass player. It can hold everything up
I am a bedroom producer, I bought a bass (two) because everything just seemed off if I wasn't able to play my own, also it stunted creativity not being able to actually play.
As a drummer and live sound engineer, great groove and feel is definitely lost without a live bassist. However, most bands are really constantly chasing that “larger than life” sound… and the solution is backing tracks. Bass is the hardest thing to get right consistently in a live mix unless you have a real pro bassist who really knows their gear, and a great engineer. A great engineer is probably even more rare than a great bassist, honestly.
Getting that consistently impactful but very controlled dynamic balance is just so much easier when you can spend hours programming it in a studio and then just sling it on a backing track. The tech is so easy and accessible and the results are consistent.
I agree, it’s missing the point of a live band… but more and more bands really feel the need for everything to be “perfect”… I think it stems from the same social media effect.
We’re a four piece band of working musicians that play the hell out of our instruments, but we use backing tracks for synths, sound effects, etc. It gives people the “album version” and they’re happier that way. And we can’t afford to hire a bunch of musicians when we travel. That being said, as a bass player, I’d never track the bass.
My thoughts, there is a crowd that believes the bass should be "felt, not heard" which leads to the thinking bass is simple, "you only have to play the root notes". Just like any other instrument, you play according to your ability....you don't have to be John Entwhistle but you don't have to stick to root notes either. Bass players, don't let anyone regulate you to the background, "just play the roots". Develop your bass line. Make it melodic. Find places to make a harmony. Write a bass line that could stand on its own.
The other part of playing bass is timing. You can drive the song. Play to the beat, get a groove with drums. Listen for a hole and fill it with a tasty fill then get back in the groove. Or, synchopate your bass line, play off beat but still in time. Give that song an entirely different feel.
Most importantly, if you're playing with a band that wants to put you in a box, you don't need that kind of negativity in your life. Find some like minded musicians and start your own project.
I’m a bass player in a two piece rock band (drum and bass). My main goal with this project is to show importance for bass players and to prove to people that the bass is not just a dispensable instrument. Great video, Jonny. Long time fan and subscriber.
As a bass player I backed out from the band setting myself because more often then not all I was doing was doing what I was told by stuckup guitar players. Always in minority my input didn't matter. I play bass, keys and have a guitar lying around when I need it for a specific sound. Drums - plugins. I am now creatively independent from 2-4 morons. From my experience bass players are always musically more open minded than other band musicians and they moved on to produce on their own with their own tools.
My personal experience as well, basically
Band-Maid. 'nuff said.
I think it’s fine not have a bass player if its a stylistic choice but seeing bands that play to tracks is so lame. Especially when having someone rocking out on a bass just adds some extra energy. Especially as someone who’s played both Bass and Guitar in bands. I’d pick to be the bassist 9/10. Even if I wrote the music for the guitar. Also seeing those bass plug ins always makes me sad. I feel like it’s cool if say you’re someone who physically can’t play an instrument to use having an accurate representation of a bass would cool.
Bass player here. I've been in and jammed with quite a few bands in my day and one thing that I can say about this is, where is the spontaneity? There has been times that I've know the drummers style so well, when he improvs a fill, I can place a lick of my own on top of it to compliment his. When I see a live band and I hear bass and not see one, something always seem off to me. Example, Animals as Leaders, or now Periphery. Some bands have the bass so ingrained in their sound like Tesseract that there is no way for them to really get away with replacing it with a track and still have the same effect. I understand if you're some guy in a room that just wants to write and has no plan on doing it live, but a touring band makes things a little strange when you hear instruments and don't see them. How would a band be received if they used a tracked guitars and the rest of the band was live? I don't know if it's an elitist thing with guitarist or singers or even drummers that can just go "yeaaahhh, we can do without one of the foundations of the band. We'll just digitize it". I believe bands that have everyone participate in song writing brings something unique from their respected instrument. @psmail007 made a really good point. Keyboardist have been replaced by backing tracks for years now. One of my favorite bands is Dream Theater, so I'm all about a real keyboardist instead of tracks. I just enjoy the well roundedness of playing a complete band. I've learned a lot from playing and writing with other instruments.
Sorry for the rant. Didn't mean for it to go on that long.
As a lifelong bass player: it's always been like that, but you probably just noticed it now.
Bassist / Drummer here…i completely understand the argument being made. It feels almost unnatural to sub in bass parts or make them MIDI tracks. I will say however it shouldn’t be a limitation to people who want to create. My example and experience is, I have a full on drum kit with rack and tons of cymbals at home that I can’t use due to having a baby, But I can use MIDI drum samplers ( Drumeforge, GGD ETC) to sub in drums. This way I still have a creative outlet and can make my own songs.
lol I don't follow modern bands or whatever, but its really weird seeing all of this. To me, the fun thing was seeing how a 4 piece band would put out a show.