So what makes a Bass inappropriate for a certain style of music?

#6
Whether or not a troll plays it.
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#9
I'm not trolling, I'm just curious.

We've discussed what makes a bass appropriate for certain musical styles, but we never seem to discuss what makes an inappropriate choice. A spikey, metal oriented instrument may well be not the best choice for an Evangelical Church gig, where something like a Daisy Rock Flower bass may not be the best choice of instrument for a Death Metal band.

How about what inappropriate instruments you've taken to a gig?
 
#11
I play what I want but my basses are fairly “normal” if using a boutique bass for rock cover tunes is considered normal.

When I was hired as a sideman for a blues gig at NXNE by a fairly famous singer/guitarist, I obviously left the BC Rich Bich at home and brought a Fender to ensure I “looked the part”.

Unless I am hired and there is a reasonable request re: what instrument I should play, I don’t see a problem with playing any bass at any gig. Maybe a pointy Moser covered in 666 stencils at a P&W gig would be a bad idea though.
 
#16
I'm gonna say this bass
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/bass/cort-gene-simmons-axe-electric-bass-guitar
would not be appropriate in our Church's P&W band. It also may depend on your BL.

I read in the P&W thread a while back that someone showed up with a PJ Bass for their Church gig and was encouraged by their BL to kill the volume on the J pickup because that would just not be appropriate...

I guess this has two components; perception and sound/tone of the bass.
Seems pretty obvious to me: Don't show up with a controversial or provocative instrument to a gig that is band-visible and the crowd is conservative. It's that old chestnut about your instrument needs to be acceptable in the bar as well as the bar mitzvah. I'm not even going to address the latter. You just gotta have enough common sense to leave your heavy fuzz-overdrive sound at home when you're doing an acoustic coffee house gig in a 3-piece...
 
#18
I think there are a lot of myths. Most basses will work for the most part. The executions are pretty low.

My one example is that most of the delicate and subtle nuances of fretless bass are lost in a very heavy metal mix. You can still hear the bass, but much of the "fretless-ness" are extremely difficult to hear, even with great headphones.
 
#19
I personally don't think any instrument is inappropriate for any gig, I think the tones that one uses can be inappropriate for certain types of music. Especially when playing covers or trying to stay in a certain genre. Would you want a Geddy Lee/Chris Squire tone at a traditional Gospel gig?
 
#20
As a bass gets more appropriate for a certain style of music, it might gain inappropriaticy for another.

Take a standard bass, a white one with chrome hardware.

A guy that plays weddings and formal stuff buys one, changes the hardware to gold and keeps it well polished.

A kid that plays punk buys one, changes the hardware to black (maybe leaves the knobs he does not use) and slaps a dead kennedys sticker and an anarchy logo on there and gets himself a set of those bright colored strings where every string is a different color.

If those two accidentally swapped their cases on the way to their gigs, both would play an inappropriate instrument for their thing - the guy on the wedding maybe a lot more than the punk kid.
 
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