Bass In Pop Music

If you succeed in pulling off the rest of the components in your production, you only need an epic bass line to finish off your awesome pop song (you probably wouldn’t leave bass until the very end, but let’s pretend you did).

Any pop music producer worth his or her salt should know there are no rules in pop music production. But it’s fair to say that the bass is among the most crucial instruments in pop music. Even if the bass isn’t overly noticeable or present, some other instrument will likely be playing its role, because without the fundamentals, you're producing your pop song on sand and the tide is coming in.

Bass Guitars

Pop music producers tend to build bass lines on the roots of chords. A bass note drives the root home for a time that allows harmony to be achieved in the long or short note-lengths of the higher frequency instruments. Without the root, you don't have a 3rd or a 5th. Without the root, you lose sense of the chord changes. Only because the listener’s ears lock into the bass' tones and rhythms can we even build the rest of the song.

Some of the biggest hits ever recorded would be unrecognisable if they didn't achieve the perfect low-end balance of bass and kick drum.

Without bass, a track can sound thin and lifeless. One could say it's the bedrock foundation of a song or musical piece.

Bass In Pop Music

Why is bass so important?

Types Of Bass to Use