Tesseract is a band that wholeheartedly embraces the bass. Bass lines and bass tone are an integral part of their rhythm centric music. Their bass player Amos Williams recently sat down with Reverb.com and gave some tips on how to get that fat ‘thwack’ bass tone and, importantly, how he gets it to sit within a band’s frequency spectrum.
Amos Williams is like the embodiment of a 70’s English prog rock artiste / befuddled, experimental, metaphysics professor that drops acid on the weekend to conceive new theorems. I dig it.
Bass guitar is usually the redheaded stepchild of metal. It’s kinda dumb how sonically underutilized it is in the genre. Having a superb bass tone that sits neatly in the mix can really add balls to a band’s sound. It makes things sound infinitely heavier. So metal bands, if anyone, should be utilizing the bass.
Even if you’re not a bass player this is crucial stuff. The ability to pull good bass tones separates the pro producer/mixers from the amateurs. It’s one of the clearest indicators as to how deep your production skills really go.
That’s not to say the bass should stick out in a mix. A lot of the time, especially when you first listen to an album, what you think of as part of the guitar tone is actually the bass. Which has to do with what Amos was saying about carving out your own spot and complimenting the frequencies of other instruments.
If you want more gems of knowledge like this, go follow Amos Williams’ page on Facebook.
