Bass-less "bands"...

[Peter H. Boer]

There once was a dude on sevenstring.org tuning bass to 16 Hz, so, at least someone cares about the bass ;)

2 questions:
Did he have speakers that produce that low a fundamental, or were only the overtones reproduced?
Did he attract any female elephants?

[vansinn]

Don't remember, but it is physically possible to build speakers for 16Hz, so..
WRT to atracting female elephants, I think this will remain as unresolved as the old question:
"If your uncle Jack helped you off an elephant, would you help you uncle Jack off an elephant?" 

[kawai2g4b]

As a stoner/doom enthusiast myself and a bass player primarily, I lament this recent development. I don't know exactly know what is causing the proliferation. I can only theorize on the following: YouTube video demos showing gear that can generate heavy fundamental tones, growing accustomed to those tones during practice runs, less people=more cash, and lack of understanding from upstart bands on how to blend the sounds of the bass and guitar through smart EQ-ing. You can only out-heavy your competition for so long before nuance and interplay is lost.

[Peter H. Boer]

the old question:
"If your uncle Jack helped you off an elephant, would you help you uncle Jack off an elephant?" 

(btw how does this tie in with your political correctness post )

[vansinn]

the old question:
"If your uncle Jack helped you off an elephant, would you help you uncle Jack off an elephant?" 

(btw how does this tie in with your political correctness post )

Fits just fine: Politics is the Jack of all trades, and politicians behaves like Elephants - although without the big brain and long-term memory, but still, will Trump on everything - and you can't help them get off it..
Further, they've missed the beat, and could use some serious deep bass grooves alongside the jungle drums.

Disclaimer: Once again, I've been drifting off the beaten track.  I shall stand corrected, before being told so..

[Chip Roberts]

Then you have these THREE GUITAR bands with NO BASSIST.  Whatever happened to keyboardists?  We're working on some stuff in B standard, but that's about as low as I'll go, and even then, we're mostly just experimenting with it and still maintain sequenced keybass tracks and/or bass guitar.  We play New Wave synth metal though, so not exactly a run-of-the-mill djent or deathcore stuff, so what do I know?  I'm not going to speak down and say maybe kids these days don't know how to write bass lines that aren't just pedal points...but I'll allude to it.

[vansinn]

Look, my overall opinion is that music[k] always has and will be, changing, hence, new ideas new ways and new, or altered, instruments and as such, score writing.

Way back, the predecessors to the modern guitar, like the luth, had less than six strings.
EDIT: Was thinking of another instrument - the luth could have many many strings; bad choice..
What if the guitar, as we know it, had been made with five strings - and then someone had the nerve to add a sixth string?  Same thing as with today's multi-stringers..
The early double bass had three strings; the fourth was added, and today we can 5-string buy carbon DB's.

Will anyone oppose me if I start playing violin again, just now on a 5-string carbon fiddle? - hint: that extra string would be for additional lows, and, apart from learning to play beautiful, I'd also learn to rasp the bow staccato for producing low chops to go with .. tada .. djent! 

Anyone heard of Wesley Belmont? No? One of his arrangement is titled "Do you even hyperdjent, bro?"
Here's an excellent example of making 9-strings work right - if you can get yourself to dig his style ;)
The reason his works are crisp with attack down there is the use of a 30" Agile, which allows using not-too-fat strings.
(BTW, this arrangement would be super sexy with an added fretless bass)

[herbyguitar]

I'm getting old. It sounds like noise to me. All the forest animals were running for the hills.

[vansinn]

Careful with such statements, you just might start believing in them..
You know, age is but a number on a piece of paper.
Now, of course we do not all subscribe to the same mechanisms in life; it would be boring if we did, and I can understand why you don't like this clip, which was merely intended to illustrate how a multi-stringer can sound crisp in the low register when build right and played as such.

While I really like Belmont's arrangement, it is nevertheless a contemporal piece, not an everlasting song.
And, hehe, I'm 61 and in my teens swore I would fight getting old from lack of interest in what's new and hot.
Please note that this wasn't a comment towards anyone having any particular musical orientation ;)

[Dante]

I really respect his musicianship and all, but I'm not hearing a melody. My cousin plays in a band of four of these guys...meaning, playing solos all the time without a melody. Again, they got chops...but I guess it ain't my cup o'tea.

This instrument's tones are pretty interesting...like a bass and an acoustic sounding electric. I just wish I was hearing something a little more Michael Hedges out of it (he played a Harp Guitar).

[vansinn]

Hehe, I fully agree quite a lot of the severely downtuned stuff does lack melody.
FWIW, I sitting here listening to Iron Maiden Rock in Rio from Oct 4th - they don't need more than a bunch of strats, and there's ample melody to boot ;)

Still, I enjoy some of the extended stuff, while, as said earlier, I do consider much of it to be a contemporal thing of the times we live in.
The video I posted above is somewhat of a standalone thing, because he doesn't try to do away with bass, but rather made it to be for just that one instrument covering the whole range as is.

FWIW, my only reason for potentially getting me an 8-stringer again would be for finalizing a bridge design I've been working on.  My next axes will be a regular 7-stringer and an old-school 5-string fretless bass ;)
No way I'd be working on mju-sick without a real bass, and I agree with Kim that much below B (or Bb) is pretty useless, if not for any other reason that most audience won't have the gear to really reproduce it.

[Peter H. Boer]

I think this guy really sounds like a guitar player, wannabee bass player.

He is honing his bass chops but using it on something that doesn't sound like a bass and he's still thinking as and sounding like a guitarplayer.

That being said if any of you 6, 7, 8 , 9 , 10 string guitar players needs a real bass backing, just send me an message 

[Zilthy]

This thread has actually gotten me feeling a bit frisky.... I think I will setup a new axe I just got for D Standard (Drop C with a D-Tuna).  Which is no where near as low as a lot of these new ones are, but might be kind of fun.

[Kim]

I really respect his musicianship and all, but I'm not hearing a melody....

Same here.  While I'd never say it's bad or passionless playing, I'm just not feeling anything in there at all.

This thread has actually gotten me feeling a bit frisky.... I think I will setup a new axe I just got for D Standard (Drop C with a D-Tuna).  Which is no where near as low as a lot of these new ones are, but might be kind of fun.

One time I had four guitars; each tuned differently for experimental/research/practice purposes.  Standard E, Standard Eb, Drop D (later Standard D), and Standard B.     I can say that I personally found the D guitar the "chunkiest" and the "shreddiest" even when using the exact same amp and settings for each guitar.  If I ever decide to do another project besides my current band, I'm going with the Standard D tuning for it.

[Kim]

Digging up an old thread.... ::)

There was a local show this last weekend.  5 bands (gaa don't get me started on that.  Get off my lawn!) playing and 4 of those bands had 2 members all consisting of a guitarist/vocalist and a drummer.  The fifth band had three members, a guitarist, a vocalist, and a drummer but still...no bassist.  DAMMIT. >:(

So it seems to be a trend that's lasting a little longer than I hoped.