Daktari

Hi there,

Here's a rant I had to get off my chest. Some out there may agree but I'm sure there are more that will not.

Ok, I have played music, danced to music, listened to and written music for around the last 30 years of my life. I have played bass in jazz bands and a reggae band, I had my own reggae band where I was the vocalist and guitarist and loads of other projects covering all kinds of music from Irish to Blues, etc... I'm just pointing this out first so that whatever I say next does at least have some experience behind it.

Today, the level of the bass in the mix is overkill and waaaay out proportion to the rest of the sounds in the track. I love bass, I'm a bass player and I play reggae music but whilst I know that a good deep solid bass is essential, especially as part of a dance beat, nowadays, it goes so far over the top!

I have always enjoyed the experience of live music and it's such a shame that today so many bands crap up their final sound by over emphasising the bottom end in the mix. I'm talking mainly about the kick drum and the bass. A few months back I saw U2 on their 360 deg tour, a great band, the Edge is one of my favourite guitarists but they were guilty of an absolute crappy live sound. Bono's vocals and Edge's guitar were almost completely lost in the boomy and muddy bass sound. I fail to see with the technology today why loads of bands insist on putting out a bass heavy mix which loses the character of the original sound.

My thinking is that folks have been brainwashed into thinking that excess bass levels is the norm and that is why we see all the kids driving round shaking the doors off their cars playing music with all this bass bias.

I got talking to one young guy on a car park one day who had just driven past with his boom, boom coming from the car and I asked him if it sounded good inside the car. He was keen to show it off and invited me to take a seat. It was very, very powerful, loud but sounded like s**t! This was Usher I believe he was playing and the lyrics and any fine detail had gone. Just the bottom end was taking over.

I might be old fashioned here but surely a song, (music with words), is a waste of time and effort if you can't hear what the vocalist is trying to get across.

This guy told me, he had stopped buying music to listen to himself but he chose his collection based on how the bottom end would sound when turned up to full blast in his car.

Ok, I admit, I'm not as young as I used to be and sometimes I do remind myself of my dad, (who is a jazz saxophonist), when I was a teenager.

I still write, perform and record mainly reggae, Celtic, African influenced music and yes, it does have bass in there, sometimes a strong bass.But one thing for sure, if I have lyrics in there or a guitar solo, I'm gonna make sure folks here it, especially if I'm playing out live otherwise, the meaning is lost.

To sum up. All I'm saying is that so many good bands from local bars to bands like U2 are letting themselves down because of this misplaced passion for overdone bottom end. Come on Mr. mixer guys, let the music breathe and don't stifle and muffle it all under a huge bassy quagmire.

Message delivered, now back to work.

Cheers, Gordon Daktari.