I couldn’t help but chime in on this topic since the majority of work I do as a performer is bass. My background is classical double bass but I have played in loads of bands both upright and electric, mainly country, jazz, and blues are the sort of bands I’ve been in.
As a starting point the root/five approach is always a great place to start. I really had to get all of the young, go gettter out of my head before I accepted that might be all a tune needs. Sometimes all that’s needed is an “anchor” for everything else and that’s cool. I tend to think of lines as being either the anchor, a “bassline” (like a walking figure, but that can be a loaded one to dissect), melodic, or countermelody/counterpoint. Emphasizing the melody down way low can be super cool and reinforce what everyone else is doing but I do always enjoy the lines that act like a different Melody or counterpoint. But as to where to start with any of those? Well, if I could answer that with confidence then I’d probably be Nathan East.
In terms of bassline in the mix? Well the other part of my career/work life/hustle is managing a recording studio. A lot of my background prior was in hip hop styled beats where there’s a ton of sub. After working with a bunch of rock bands that’s most definitely what is not needed. So I’ve just adopted a mantra of kick below the bass ie the sub frequencies should be more present in the kick and a more low mid bass. That’s what I’ve noticed most rock bands want to hear even though I just keep wanting more sub bass - gotta feel that bass ya know? Talk about a moment where you’re your own enemy. I’ve also been applying that thought process to more of my electronic productions and everything just seems to translate better.
Well I feel like I’ve ranted more than enough now.
