Bass Line Quotes

So I'll set a cycle in motion and pop it into record and I'll lay down a drum pattern, a bass line, a keyboard and guitar part, and once the groove is going I launch into the song and sing my song over the top.

Songs come to me and I hear them. At least in part, they are very complete; I hear the whole chorus, including the drum pattern, the base, the countermelody, the basic harmonic structure and the main thrust of the lyric.

There's a very thin line between rock and funk. Funk is like a dirtier blues, and so is rock. They're close cousins.

I wouldn't want to hear Beethoven without beautiful bass, the cellos, the tuba. It's very important. Hip-hop has thunderous bass. And so does Beethoven. If you don't have the bass, it's like being amputated. It's like you have no legs.

The core of all the music I love is a good bass line and a good rhythm.

Hip-hop and electronic music are so similar, in the fact that they're both very visceral, have so much bass; a lot of times, it's the same tempos. The culture and some of the sound design is different but a lot of times, it's the same stuff.

Prince might be bringing that low sound back, because he has that double bass.

Once I've got something that I feel is strong, if I get long enough to think about it, it'll turn into something. I'll start thinking about the drums - what the drums are doing, what the bass is doing. Then, if I can remember it by the time I get to a recording device, it'll turn into a song.

Look closely, and you can see where the grooves of a record widen, indicating a sparseness that can only be a bass solo, or grow denser to accommodate a cresting density of sound.

The first song I wrote was "Look Both Ways Before You Cross" from Imaginaryland. I started the song by singing a bass line, "hoo hoo hoo hoo."

The heart of a music is its rhythm. The heart of rhythm section music is the rhythm.

The world likes trap and EDM unless it's a fire melody.

I feel safe and comfortable to do that once I know that the song structure around the bass part is very interesting and it satisfies me in a compositional sense.

I wonder if I could make an electric bass.

In the late '80s and early '90s, there was a slightly retro drum sound that was popular in hip-hop music called the 808 bass drum sound. It was the bass drum sound on the 808 drum machine, and it's very deep and very resonant, and was used as the backbone as a lot of classic hip-hop tracks.

Jack Bruce, as soon as I saw him, it changed me. I didn't even know what bass players did until I saw Cream.

I'm the greatest bass player in the world.

I have a sound. It's called 'funk mixed with stank.' That's what I do.

The bass line is the anchor for me. I started with the bass, and either doubled that and then added the harmonies, or sometimes added my own harmonies that I've always wanted to sing on the song. And then it just went on from there - singing violin parts and trumpet parts and just trying to emulate the sounds of the instruments.

I'm like soft Ray Manzarek. I think of the keyboard as almost like a bass or a lead.

It's always been my dream to have a monster rhythm section that's just all groove and pocket.

In 1972, I got my first electric bass and started playing the kind of instrument I play now. I found that the majority of musicians couldn't bear that. They are not used to listening to the bass because they think the bass is in the background to support them.

I loved Mal Evans holding one note down on You Won't See Me from Rubber Soul.

At the time, I didn't know that bass would not be enough for me. I'm not a bass player because bass is always a background instrument even to this very day.

I can always tell if a band has a British rhythm section due to the gritty production.