Can’t remember where I read it, but a lot of bassists have taught themselves off of Where Eagles Dare - Iron Maiden.
I third rush.
While I understand you lean more towards a polished, more modern sound in bands with production, I wouldn’t be so hasty to say Iron Maiden’s rhythm section is a disaster. Saying that means they are incompetent at holding down a rhythm, which is an outright lie if you’ve listened to the first seven albums (and even after that). Usually if anything’s sloppy it’s the leads occasionally and the first vocalist.
I hear what you are saying though, about the tone. I am almost adamantly polar to your preference there, but I will admit that they have a classic feel to their tone, thus more light and trebly and less emphasis on bass or scooped tones.
Still, Crotanks, check out some IM songs and try playing them fingerstyle. It’ll work you out, if you even get around to getting it down. Galloping at the speeds of the Trooper is an endurance test to the extreme.
Their rhythm isn’t sloppy, but it’s not very well defined. What I don’t like about it is that they don’t really pay attention to which beats are stressed and which ones aren’t, and they feel really 4/4 because of it. Not that 4/4 is bad, but the rhythm in Iron Maiden songs just sounds very flatline to me. It’s about more than just accuracy. It’s about having different instruments play in different rhythms to stress certain events in a song, instead of just sounding very consistent for 4 minutes. All of their instruments are always going at the same time and the same speed and volume, and their tone, timbre, and pitch all sound very un-contrasted to me. And as skilled as they are, that makes for some pretty boring songs, at least in the context of metal.
It doesn’t really have anything to do with production. Overproduction is actually the fastest way to get me to hate a song. My favourite guitarist is Andy McKee and I’m pretty sure all his recordings were done with a mic’d acoustic in one take. I’m not against production or anything, just stating facts. Too much of it is awful.
Edit: I shouldn’t have said they don’t pay attention, they clearly DO. It just seems to me like they don’t really know how to go about expressing it.
Edit2: Maybe it’s not fair to compare Iron Maiden to a god like Paul Gilbert, but compare <a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgqxQmAbTBc”>The Trooper</a> to <a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES1RypBww_g”>This</a>. There’s a pretty clear difference in which song hits you harder.
Paul Gilbert’s guitar never really feels “hard,” to me, if you mean hard-hitting in the sense I think you do. That said, neither does Iron Maiden. I like both a lot, but they’re never what I think of as hard-hitting.
Rush is double awesome when you keep in mind the dude sometimes plays keyboard with his feet life. Almost makes up for the stupid Ayn Rand lyrics.
Not the guitar specifically, but the songs. The Paul Gilbert song has higher and louder treble, lower and louder bass, and more percussive texture than the Iron Maiden song, which sounds very middle-frequency and to me.
Iron Maiden does sound much better live though. It might just be shitty mixing. But the end result is the same: I don’t really enjoy listening to music from that era.
Gila: You could say that the first vocalist is the most sloppy, but he’s still my favorite of the three. Di’Anno’s voice sounds more “Iron Maiden” than Dickinson, and Bailey is just generic.
The reason why DiAnno was so sloppy was because he was feening for lines…not sure if that’s why, but his coke addiction did get him kicked out of Maiden.
I just came up with another suggestion for bands with awesome bass.
Necrophagist. As far as death meal goes, easily the best bass playing by any death metal band. Death(the band) comes in a close second. Can’t think of a whole lot of other DM bands with intricate and groovy bass sections.
Sloppy does not equal bad. As long as the proper atmosphere of a song is present I honestly don’t care if the songs are a bit sloppy. Fuck, Di’Anno was definitely their best and most metal vocalist. He fit the scene better than any of them could. I’d say Killers is one of my tops from them, but then again for me it’s hard to pick apart the first seven from each other.
Ugh, fuck Necrophagist and every other lame band that sounds like them. That band and style (tech death) is one of the most boring and superficial styles ever. It’s technical for the sake of being technical, without any attention to actual songwriting. They are to me as to what every band I like is to Hades.
Death on the other hand is quite solid for the most part. The bassist you’re probably thinking of is Steve DiGiorgio, who played bass on Death’s Human album as well as Individual Thought Patterns. Killer stuff.
Death makes way better music, I’d say. Necrophagist songs all require stupidly ridiculous amounts of technical skill, but end up sounding worse for it, sometimes.
Yeah, most of the lyrics of Necrophagist consists of attempts(lyrical content wise) at Cannibal Corpse lyrics. I like the bass player.I admit, it does get ridiculous at times.
Yeah overall Death makes way fucking better music. Death was progressive, but also had bad ass lyrics to go with some of the more technical parts. The progressions also flowed better.
Hey Cro, if you’re still looking for songs with bass… A Perfect Circle - Thinking of You