are bass players a neccesity?

[conn1e]

Well If your going to say 'Do you need a bassist?' you might as well say 'Do you need a keyboardist/drummer/guitarist/every other instrument ever made?' Thats the most silly question i've every heard. But for your genral average rock band i would assume you need a bassist to make the lead sound good and vice versa. Do you need a lead guitar? not nessisarily.  

[Raharu Ninamori]

Uh f*ck yeah they are!!

The Chili Peppers are like the greatest band who've ever lived, and Flea is a freaking genius. They would've gotten nowhere without him.  

[Rin_Rock_Star]

i LOVE bass in bands. it adds a great touch if the dynamics and the correct places are used!  

[Spectrum_Rhapsody]

av74ever

so you guys are basicly saying that bass players can be in a band but they will never play an important part in a band.i completely disagree with this.i think bass players are a necessity especialy for bands that dont have a rythm guitar.a bass players job is to keep everyone in rythym.without a bass player the rest of the band will have a really hard time keeping on beat when the lead guitar goes into a solo.this might not be true for the better bands who practice rythym all the time.wel...thets my opinion if you dont agree write your opinion.

There are many bands out there with important parts for bass players and there are also bands that were fine without ever having a bass player. As someone said earlier in the topic, it depends on what kind of music you're making and how well trained the musicians are. But a bass player isn't just a metronome in the shape of a guitar, how important they are depends on how you're gonna use them. A good example of one of many bass solo's on songs would be the introduction riff on "Sweet Emotion", without the bass guitar, that song may not have came out as good. If you look at bands like The Doors, they never had a bass player (save for a session being cut on an album in which they had a sit-in musician lay down a few bass tracks). Their keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, used a Fender Rhodes piano bass that did the job of a bass guitar (and continues to this day to use it in The Doors of the 21st Century, later renamed Riders On The Storm). So depending on your musical taste and opinion, is a bass player that important to you? That is really all that matters, some bands have bassists, others don't. In my opinion, I would want a bassist in my band, it would mean the gig pay would be divided evenly among another band member, but I love music for the friends it brings near and not the pay, so it's all good.  

[x.Marsh[mel]low.x]

Of course they're important. They hold up/support/define all the sound and rhythm, and if you've got a GOOD bass player then it REALLY adds to your sound. Being a guitaist myself, I feel kinda bad saying this, but guitar is not as important as bass. You can have a band with a bass player and a drummer, but good sound is AMAZINGLY hard with just a guitarist and a drummer.

x_X You're a guitarist?  

[moosiklady]

of course they are, a synth doesn't quite cover it, plus if you have a good bass player then heshe can make the band alot better by filling in the gaps with awesome stuff  

[_t 0 f u u]

bass players are the backbone to the music!!!
so don't forget about them!
>_____>