Black_Daimon wrote:
Aye, turn it up and make it sound filfy..right fuckin filf.

There are quite a few bm albums which feature cool bass. As well the ones mentioned:

Mystifier (Slap-bass!)
Mayhem-De Mysteriis...( Pretty sure there are two bass lines at certain points; an overdriven and clean)
Ved Buens Ende,(Virus)
Dodheimsgard- Kronet Til Konge
Ulver-Bergtatt
Arcturus
Drudkh-Microcosmos
Bethlehem
Misery's Omen
Code
the last two Abigor cds, especially on 'Time is the sulphur..'(at many points the bass is the most dominant and feels like is leading the music), as well as later DsO.

What a load of jive!
CorpsepaintSmurf wrote:
Almost none of those bands were ever black metal, I mean, they were good bands, but I wouldn't even call Aspera or Bergtat black metal. The reason bass works on them is because it's melody/lead driven as opposed to wall-of-sound driven.

Aye, I'll give you Arcturus and Bergtatt. Bethlehem and possibly Misery's Omen as 'dark metal'.

Yeah, I'm generous like that.

If a bass just follows the guitar line with single notes, it isn't really important or dare say necessary in black metal. As said, a bass sounds like crap when used with chords, but that's clearly not the only other option. The bass guitar isn't supposed to act like the left hand on children songs for the piano, aka playing an accompanying chord every measure to the right hand. However, A bass guitar has quite a bit of potential like the left hand on more complicating piano pieces, in particular the use of counterpoint melodies or even just arpeggios, if you want to be more simple.

CorpsepaintSmurf seems to like wall of sound black metal with no prominent melody, and so I can see how counterpoint (unless you introduce it for dissonance) wouldn't always be able to provide that sound. Also, maybe even arpeggios would be too melodically distracting to the atmosphere, but the potential with a bass guitar is clearly there for the more more melodic leaning black metal.

Now, one of the main problems with a prominent bass in black metal is that it usually has too clean/smooth of a sound, but a bit of tweaking and use of overdrive or whatever usually takes care of that problem.

Cold As Ice wrote:
No, I mean its not so hard to write a bass line that has a purpose in its own right, especially if you get over the fact that its a bass, and think of it as another author of music, along with the guitar.Ahh, well, it's not hard no, but I find the instrument limited.

Why not use a piano? - The OP was about bass. Use a piano if you like.Ah yes, fair point of course.

Black_Daimon wrote:
Aye, I'll give you Arcturus and Bergtatt. Bethlehem and possibly Misery's Omen as 'dark metal'.

Yeah, I'm generous like that.Dark metal might be the vaguest and least defined genre in history only second to 'goth music'.

jeffnogo wrote:
If a bass just follows the guitar line with single notes, it isn't really important or dare say necessary in black metal. As said, a bass sounds like crap when used with chords, but that's clearly not the only other option. The bass guitar isn't supposed to act like the left hand on children songs for the piano, aka playing an accompanying chord every measure to the right hand. However, A bass guitar has quite a bit of potential like the left hand on more complicating piano pieces, in particular the use of counterpoint melodies or even just arpeggios, if you want to be more simple.Fair point there, but then again, I would just use a piano for that while I'm at it.

I think basically 'embedding'—if you get what I mean—a full fledged piano solo inside a lovely noisy buzzy ocean of vaccuum noise has its charm.

CorpsepaintSmurf seems to like wall of sound black metal with no prominent melody, and so I can see how counterpoint (unless you introduce it for dissonance) wouldn't always be able to provide that sound. Also, maybe even arpeggios would be too melodically distracting to the atmosphere, but the potential with a bass guitar is clearly there for the more more melodic leaning black metal. Oh, it's there, I just feel that a piano is better at doing the very same thing.

CorpsepaintSmurf wrote:
Fair point there, but then again, I would just use a piano for that while I'm at it.

I think basically 'embedding'—if you get what I mean—a full fledged piano solo inside a lovely noisy buzzy ocean of vaccuum noise has its charm.

Indeed, you won't get much disagreement with me when it comes to the usefulness of a piano, as it is the only instrument I seriously play and I get quite a bit of enjoyment out of it. I've written quite a bit for it recently and have put a lot of thought into throwing some black metal guitar, drums, and vocals over it.

As for the bass in my "band", I was just recently talking with a musically inclined friend about this, and we both agreed that with a full piano and guitar the bass guitar becomes unnecessary. However, it would still be pretty useful to add a few touches with a bass in brief moments here and there. I see no need to restrict ones use of instruments, as long as it doesn't become overbearing.

Oh, it's there, I just feel that a piano is better at doing the very same thing.

As for the piano always being better than a bass, I wouldn't necessarily agree when it comes to certain types of black metal. The bass is much better at "blending in" but still providing a low end, which is sometimes necessary when the guitars want to do something more than create a "buzzy ocean of vaccuum noise," etc. The piano just doesn't blend nearly as well, and so the guitars will have a much harder time setting the mood, which is necessary for the more rock/punk leaning black metal or the general "fuck you" raw BM.

Black_Daimon wrote:
Aye, I'll give you Arcturus and Bergtatt. Bethlehem and possibly Misery's Omen as 'dark metal'.

Yeah, I'm generous like that.

CorpsepaintSmurf wrote:Dark metal might be the vaguest and least defined genre in history only second to 'goth music'.

Oh definitely. That's why I originally mentioned Bethlehem and Misery's Omen.

Carry on.

jeffnogo wrote:
Indeed, you won't get much disagreement with me when it comes to the usefulness of a piano, as it is the only instrument I seriously play and I get quite a bit of enjoyment out of it. I've written quite a bit for it recently and have put a lot of thought into throwing some black metal guitar, drums, and vocals over it.Piano + violin + screams, also sounds lovely, some ritual ambient behind it or whatever.

As for the bass in my "band", I was just recently talking with a musically inclined friend about this, and we both agreed that with a full piano and guitar the bass guitar becomes unnecessary. However, it would still be pretty useful to add a few touches with a bass in brief moments here and there. I see no need to restrict ones use of instruments, as long as it doesn't become overbearing.Well, to be honest, since I do as much as I can digitally, the term 'instrument' begins to fade. I can easily just feed a guitar and a piano that play the same melody (has to be pretty sharp through) through some machine and let it compute a sound that lines in-between of those.

Marvels of technology, I take full advantage, fuck being primitive, I reject your established timbres of instrument and substitute my own imagination.

As for the bass always been better than a piano, I wouldn't necessarily agree when it comes to certain types of black metal. The bass is much better at "blending in" but still providing a low end, which is sometimes necessary when the guitars want to do something more than create a "buzzy ocean of vaccuum noise," etc. The piano just doesn't blend nearly as well, and so the guitars will have a much harder time setting the mood, which is necessary for the more rock/punk leaning black metal or the general "fuck you" raw BM.Ahh, that's true.

But thankfully I'm far too sophisticated to enjoy that, instead I listen to t.A.T.u.

The topic is "writing black metal riffs ON bass", not FOR bass.

CorpsepaintSmurf wrote:
One writes on paper.

One composes in the head, then optionally writes it down on paper for any of the following reasons:

- poor memory
- others need to play it
- claims to intellectual property
- showing off to be able to write musical notation

Or you didn't mean to say that you need sound feedback to compose some melody? As in, you just fool around on trial and error? Oh ghasp, how sub-99.999999 percentile of you.

I know, we just like to get off topic and debate our best flavour of bass tones in black metal.

It at the least gives us some ideas to work with, right?

fricative wrote:
CorpsepaintSmurf wrote:
To be honest I find bass guitar in black metal nonsense for the reasons stated by Belial, you basically just use the lowest line from the lead and maybe put it an octave down, that's it.

That's why I tend to use piani for that purpose,

So what, you two cannot compose something more interesting on the bass??? I thought there were no rigid rules in composing black metal...

Just bumped on this thread. I want to apologise to Belial for including him in a statement directed mainly at Smurf.

...And now let's continue. The main tendency in black metal is the one described above. Another popular choice is the jazzy bassline.
Any bands that follow a more Sabbath-y bass approach? Like, holding a basic rhythm line (related but not identical to the riff) and filling-in here and there?

Also, my flatmate recently bought a bass and I've been fooling around with it. I can't write riffs on it
It gets me in a mood sometimes (when I actually find a good set of frequencies) which then triggers the creative process.

Niroth use the bass guitar as a key element of their sound and the results are spectacular.