The stand-up bass, it is a magical and mystical creature with many allures surrounding it, yet you see so few of them. These strange instruments were once the only way a bass guitar was played in live and recorded music, and now you only see them in a handful of music genres. Is it that no one enjoys the sound or quality of the stand-up bass? Or has today's music developed its own sound that just does not cater to the sound and style of a stand-up bass?
The stand-up bass really only has its grip set one three major styles of music, rockabilly/psycobilly, blue grass, and jazz. These two genres use the stand-up bass as a staple of their sound and style, yet almost all other styles forgo the stand-up bass for an electric jazz or percussion style bass or some form of digital reproduction through a soundboard. Now the areas of hip-hop and rap and other such genres not utilizing the stand-up bass is very understandable seeing since a large portion of this music may or may not even include the use of actual instruments, but other types like punk or rock can still utilize this instrument. With the roots of rock and punk stemming from old bluegrass and jazz one would think it would be quite easy to reincorporate the stand-up bass back into the spotlight. But there are other possible reason as to why this may never happen.
One possible reason is the obvious sound difference and play style that sets ther stand-up bass apart from a jazz or percussion style bass. The stand-up creates a unique sound that can still follow the beat from the drums or percussion source yet is usually played with a walking bass line that gives it a independence from the beat set by the drums or guitar. Where as a lot of music ( IE pop, hip hop, country, and certain forms of rock) the bass line is entirely dependent on either the percussion beat or the guitar riff. It either has an exact timing with the drumbeat or is the exact scale and timing of the guitar riff. There are acceptions to this of course, where bass players create a walking bass line in these types of music but this is a simple generalization. The stand-up bass just doesn’t lend itself to this play style and therefor is not used.
Another possible reason, and possible a big one, is the shear cost of a stand-up bass. When a young and upcoming bass player can go to his local music store and purchase either a new or used bass guitar for approximately $100 or go out and track down and find a stand-up bass guitar for easily 6-8 times that amount, one can assume that they will purchase the more readily available and more financially sound standard bass guitar.
The stand-up bass guitar will always be in the hearts of bass players, although it maybe be a perverbial white whale. It will always be there.
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