Ever tried to play some slap bass lines, but
the sound just wasn’t quite right? Maybe
you were missing that super crisp attack.
Or maybe when you try to slap, it just turns
into a muddy nightmare. Maybe you spend *hours*
fiddling with the tone knobs on your amp,
but no matter what you try, it never sounds
the way it’s supposed to. Hi I’m Luke
from Become A Bassist and in this bass lesson,
you’re going to learn the 4 most common
things that suck the soul out of a beautiful
slap bass tone and you’re going to learn
how to fix them.
[Video Intro]
Welcome to Become A Bassist where it’s all
about no-B.S. bass lessons designed to get
you playing better bass, having more fun and
becoming the best bass player you can be.
Now if you’re having trouble getting a good
slap bass sound, you’re not alone! But don’t
worry - Chances are, it’s not you! There
are 4 things that kill a good slap bass sound
and I call them the 4 Horsemen of the Slap
Bass Tone Apocalypse. The good news though,
is that the fixes for most of these tone issues
are pretty easy, so today I want to show you
how to slay these four horsemen once and for
all.
The first horsemen that will kill any chance
of a good, consistent slap bass sound is the
setup of your bass. Most importantly you don’t
want your action too high - that is, your
strings shouldn’t be too far off your fingerboard.
Now you’ll know it’s too high if you’re
using a ton of force to get the strings to
actually bounce off the fretboard and get
that slap. You shouldn’t need to pound your
bass super hard to get a good slap sound.
Check this out [plays] I’m not using that
much force at all - and the sound
is still there.
Also if your action is too high, then you’ll
end up wrecking your hand and wrist from overplaying
and that’s definitely bad news, but it’s
an easy-ish fix. All you need to do is take
your bass to someone and get the action lowered
to a more manageable level, or if you know
how to do all that stuff, you can give it
a crack yourself.
The next thing that will suck the soul out
of your slap sound is using flatwound strings.
Seriously, if you’re using flatwound strings
to slap, it’s going to be pretty dull. If
you slap with flatwounds, it’s NOT going
to have that classic bright slap sound - there’s
going to be way less of the crack on every
note, not as much life and definitely not
the kind of sound you think of when you think
of slap. It’s definitely possible to slap
on flats, but if you’re looking for that
classic slap sound, you can’t go past roundwound
strings, which is what most bassists use most
of the time anyway. That’s not to say you
can’t use flats and slap - there are plenty
of examples, but it’s just not the same!
However, the 3rd thing that will demolish
any chance of a glorious slap bass sound is
trying to slap with super old strings. I know
some of you bassists - you change your strings
as often as the UK changes their queen - and
there’s a ton of green and grey gunk and
stuff hanging off your strings and it smells
horrible. Strings like that are not going
to get you a good slap sound. In general,
the newer your strings, the brighter and ‘slappier’
they’ll sound. These ones aren’t brand
new, they’re a little bit older, but they
still have some life in them. [plays] Once
they start getting too dull though, I’ll
have to replace them if I want them to stay
super snappy.
Now these first three of the four horsemen
are external things that you can change without
modifying what you’re doing as a bassist,
right? You could take care of them all in
an hour if you have the know-how. The 4th
horseman though, will actually take some work
from you - and that’s to revisit your slap
technique.
If everything else is taken care of and you
STILL can’t get that slap sound, it could
be that you’re not using enough force or
velocity to get that string to really crack
on the fretboard with the slap [plays] Or
it could be that when you pop, you’re not
lifting the string quite as much as you need
to [plays] so it ends up sounding anemic.
It could be that your plucking hand is accidentally
playing 2 strings at once, [plays] turning
what was a nice crisp bass line into a muddy
stew. If you think your technique might be
the thing stopping you getting a solid slap
tone, check out my video all about slap bass
technique - I’ll put it in the description
below. It’ll take a bit longer than just
slapping a fresh set of strings on your bass,
but it’ll be worth it for that sweet, sweet
tone.
Now here’s a quick little bonus tip. If
there were a 5th horseman, it’d be your
EQ. The kind of classic EQ for a slap sound
is what’s called a ‘scooped’ EQ where
either the mids are taken out - they’re
‘scooped’ out - or the bass and treble
are boosted which means your mids are kind
of relatively scooped by default. You can
scoop the mids on your bass if you have that
much control on your bass or you can do it
on your amp as well. Either turn up the bass
and treble or turn down the mids or maybe
even a bit of both. Boosting the low end means
you get a really solid low end thump so people
can feel it in their chests, and turning up
the trebles gives you clarity with every note
because your high end is really present as
well.
Once your bass has a reasonable action, it’s
strung with new roundwound strings and your
slap technique is nice and solid, you should
be able to get a strong, phat slap bass sound
[plays] without too much trouble, and if you’re
new to slap, you’ll want to find things
to play right away, right? If that’s the
case, then definitely check out my lesson
5 Beginner Slap Bass Lines - Guaranteed To
Impress. I go through 5 super simple slap
bass lines from real songs to get you started
with slap - the video even includes the very
first slap bass line I learned myself. Check
it out right here or in the description - it
also comes with tabs and notation of every
song so it’s as easy as possible to get
started playing real-world slap bass lines
today, so I’ll catch you in that video.
