How to Write Better Metal Bass Lines (3 Ways)

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[metalmastermind]

***Turn your metal riffs, lyrics, and ideas into complete songs:

[ronswary]

I hung around lol . Great tips brother . Main thing I would throw in from all my years of bass before guitar. Know your key notes, feel the groove from the drums . Try playing around with the rhythm of your riffs to add accent/dynamics . The clips sounded great perfect examples 🤘🏻

[HCkev]

An extremely good example of dynamic bass is God is Dead? by Black Sabbath. The bass line on this song is amazing, it add so much to the song

[Bad.Rabbit]

I started out as a bass player playing blues, then moving to rock and metal before i took up guitar. I think the best way to be great on bass is to stop thinking like a guitar player. It's a supportive role, not a solo instrument, and you're in the rhythm section.

Here's how i try to write bass:
1. Groove on the root note, and only the root note. Don't just double the guitar rhythm. Generate rhythm. Get in a real groove.
2. Once you're grooving, now you can start to incorporate other notes occasionally. I find it best to let the bass melody just come to you while you're grooving, and it may not. I like this way because you're not thinking like a guitarist, adding notes for the sake of adding notes. If it fits and supports the music as a whole, it'll come to you. If continuing to groove works better, you'll want to hang out.
3. You're the foundation of the chords being played. That means you control if the chord is an inversion. You don't have to stick to the actual root, but you better make sure it sounds good. You can add variety to the guitar part by making different inversions through various repeats.

[yukmsacierzorro]

One big thing that I’m missing here is 5ths. I.e. in this case when the guitars are playing an E, the bassist van alternate between E and B. Then when the C happens the bassplayer can go “C, G, G”, and then of course “D, A, D”. It’s a very simple way to add dynamics that almost always sounds good.

I was lucky to grow up with my dad being a very good rock bassplayer. Treating the bass as a guitar but an octave lower is wasted potential that a lot of people fall into.

[willmatos]

Love the way you explained it and how you added actual examples with it to help solidify. I couldn't press the like button enough

[dudarino]

Great video. I'm a rhythm guitarist that leads a band I started with my drummer. Bassist are hard to find here. So I'm borrowing a bass from a friend and going to create my own riffs so we can get a few demos done, with the thinking it might be easier to find a bassist if they can hear what they need to "at least" be able to play. I love rhythm and going to try these techniques out while making my bass lines. \m/

[erickmkm]

Been playing bass since 2004. I have been a Metal player from the start. I use all 3 techniques when I write. If I am doing the same thing as the guitar there is still a difference in how I play it. Small thing like if the guitar player doesn’t hammer on or a pull off I’m just gonna plug the note. Kinda helps with clarity of the notes when you’re playing distorted or in a drop-tuning.

If you are just trying to do the chords that the guitar player is doing. The way I usually go about it is I try to think what notes I’ll go into making that cord and I will play whichever one of those I think sounds better for the song. So is there playing a G cord. You would have a G, B and D. You would pick whichever one of those notes suits the song better. Obviously the overall goal of being a bass player is to serve the song.

With that being said it brings me into playing dynamic. If you’re serving the song correctly you should be able to notice where little Phil and other fun more dynamic things can be put in there to help the song come alive. It also helps you to not be bored out of your skull if you’re playing these songs live and frequently.

[robabrams]

Super clear and helpful lesson! Teaching music theory through metal has be my new favourite youtube genre.

[AAAA-lthq]

I would recommend looking at metal bass lines as the following:

1) Melody based (tends to follow guitars--rules of musical counterpoint are useful here),

or

2) Drum/pocket/groove based (more locked in with rhythm section, especially the kick drum),

or

3) Chordal/jazz metal guitar based. You may only play power chords here on guitar but the bass and lead guitar can imply much bigger chords. We just use power chords because jazz chords (four note chords like 7ths) don't sound good distorted.

In 1), you will often double the guitar, or play a simpler version of what the guitar plays.

*When figuring out melodic bass lines by ear, you can think of a bass line as like playing a lead guitar melody an octave below the guitar, especially during fills. Make sure your notes don't clash with the riff (although they can clash briefly--called a passing tone).*

*By counterpoint, I mean the ability to play independent melodies that don't clash--one melody going up and another going down. Guys like Bach were masters at this. You often hear it in David Ellefson's basslines for Megadeth as well. The rules for counterpoint can be complex so I will leave it at that so users can look them up on their own. The main thing is to use your ears but knowing some basic rules helps prevent a lot of trial and error.*

In 2), you will often be synced with the kick drum or playing a groove. *This is a big thing with finger style players and is more rhythmic oriented. This is where your funk, slap, etc., styles come in and where you can tell real bass players from guitarists playing bass with a pick.*

In 3), *you will have to use a lot of music theory and know how progressions work (what a tonic, subdominant, and dominant are and what each chord in a chord progression does--this is called functional harmony).*

*As an example of #3: If you wanted to write the riff in Em and go to F#, you could use F#5 power chord, but your full F# chord would be F# diminished or F# diminished 7 (I won't explain other than to say if you harmonize the scale by stacking every other note in the scale into chords F# dim/F# dim 7 is what you will get for the second chord).*

*With a dim or dim 7 chord, any note can function as the root (just a music theory rule--take my word for it--think of dim/dim7 chords as like traffic roundabouts that transition you between chords and get you onto other roads or keys.*

*The notes in F# dim are F#, A, and C, and in F# dim 7 they are F#, A, C, and D#. If you wanted to do this as a power chord, you could do it as an F#(b5) (F# and C).*

*You could also play the full F# dim or F# dim 7 chord but this would be messy because of all the distortion.*

*Technically you could play the bass note on any note in F# dim/F# dim7, which would be F#, A, and C for F# dim or F#, A, C, and D# for F# dim 7. The bass guitar can ride any of these notes: F#, A, C, or D#, and thus spin the progression into another key--maybe from E to D#. Or you could keep it in E min. Notice how D# is not in E min. The bass riding D# would be a neat way to get you from Em to E harmonic minor. which is E F# G A B C D# E.*

*What I call the chordal/jazz metal approach is mentioned at **13:44** with F# and D. What's a longer explanation for why these work?*

*In Em, the full chord for D is D major (often written as D7 as well. The notes in D major are D, F#, A, and in D7 they are D, F#, A, and C.*

*Why does F# work well with D? It's part of the D major chord. In this case it would be written as D/F#, or D with F#, the major third, in the bass. This is also called a first inversion. Second inversion would be D/A, or D with A, the fifth, in the bass.*

*Second inversion is very common in metal because it makes the chord sound very muscular. Try Emin/B sometime. The B in the bass gives the chord more fullness. It's why a lot of guys use 5 string basses tuned to B or A against standard tuned 6 string guitars. They are playing below the guitar's root note and giving it a fuller sound.*

*Third inversion would be D/C# for D major, with C#, the major seventh, in the bass. D7 would be D7/C, or the minor 7th, in the bass. Third inversions are used more in jazz and sound very unstable in metal, but they create tension that usually leads to another chord.*

*So, even if you are just playing power chords, you can imply other, denser chords with the bass.*

*In E minor, with the bass or guitar solo, you could use E harmonic minor's D# and it would work as long as you don't ride the D underneath on guitar. This is how scales and modes work. As long as the main chord tones match up (1, 3, 5 or, in jazz, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13), you should be fine.*

*Although metal often keeps the 5th, in jazz and other styles you can often drop the 5th. So you can have Emin7 with only E, G, and D in the chord. This gives you a sparser note grouping. Maybe the bass could fill in the B?*

Hope this helps. Please let me know if I made any mistakes (I'm not holding my guitar) or if anyone has any questions.

[robertgibbs]

Solid advice. I've been playing bass for 25yrs and I still start off with these 3 methods and elaborate from there on by also using the rhythm of the drums and melodies/harmonies of the vocals etc. Sometimes I'll use polyrhythms to add more dynamics. Love the video. Very helpful indeed. My son is learning bass as well and I will show him this video.
I'm not very good at teaching and I know he'll appreciate this. Thank you.

[JohnDoe-sqnv]

One thing I recommend bass players doing is to harmonize with the guitars like Cliff used to do. Listen to the chorus of No Remorse for a great example of this. This gives you some structure when constructing your bass line because you are basically doubling guitars only on a lower string, but since you have already deviated in a clear way it is easier to add your own fills without coming in conflict with the guitars.

[SeansYTEntertainment]

What a great perspective on writing bass lines! Very helpful, thank you

[Criz_Py]

When i write the bass lines i really like to see the bass as some sort of glue. In my early days i used to use method 1 and after a time it sounds really boring. What i mean with see the bass as glue: sometimes it is nice if the bass follows the bass drum with accents of the guitar riffs. To glue guitar and drums together. This way it creates sometimes a whole new song experience.
But i love to work on this together and i really think if someone is not only wiriting on their own, the result is getting better. This way you can expand your horizons and really learn or think of something for your song, you propaby never throw a single thought on.
If i‘m writing for my band Incantatem and writing my riffs i always write some fundamental bass lines. I‘m a guitar player myself and i know i‘m no bassist. For sure i‘m no drummer either. So what i do i write my ideas for bass and drums as close as i can to my taste and export always two files. One with all my tracks and one without the bass track or the drum track. Then i hand it over to my bass player or drummer and let them first listen to the file without the drums or bass and let them write their own stuff. Then they get to hear my idea of their instrument and mostly of the time, the end result will be a combination of both.

Nice vid and greetings from Germany

[voronOsphere]

Thanks, Jason. I'm primarily guitar & drums, so these bass concepts will help me a great deal!

[HCkev]

All 3 types has its place depending on what you're trying to achieve. Playing the same thing as the guitar makes the riff sound very fat and heavy. Playing the root notes leaves a lot of room for the other instruments (including vocals), that's something I tend to use for choruses. And of course, dynamic bass lines add dynamics to the song.

[gregtimpany]

Excellent coverage of the key ideas. Thank you for sharing! (First-time listener, long-time bass player)

[mortenlau]

I've played bass for almost 30 years myself and been a teacher for 5-6 years - I thoroughly enjoyed this vid. Your voice, your approach, your language... spot on, man.

[ThymeforBouldering]

Really nice, one. I learned nothing new, but the way you've explained it was more helfull than the sources I've used before when I didn't know those

[Sheldyck]

my usual first thot when I pick up a bass is to make damn sure I sync with the kick drum