Bassline - Instruments

Instruments

Most popular musical ensembles include an instrument capable of playing bass notes. In the 1920s, a tuba was often used. In the 1930s and 1940s, most popular music groups used the double bass as the bass instrument. Starting in the 1960s, the louder, easier-to-transport bass guitar replaced the double bass in most types of popular music, such as rock and roll, blues, and folk. By the 1970s and 1980s, the electric bass was used in most rock bands and jazz fusion groups. The double bass was still used in some types of popular music that recreated styles from the 1940s and 1950s such as jazz (especially swing and bebop), traditional 1950s blues, jump blues, country, and rockabilly.

In some popular music bands, keyboard instruments are used to play the bass line. In organ trios, for example, a Hammond organ player performs the basslines using the organ's pedal keyboard. In some types of popular music, such as hip-hop or house music, the bass lines are played using synthesizers, sequencers, or electro-acoustically modeled samples of bass lines. In electronic music and house music, bass lines are often performed on electronic devices such as the Roland TB-303.

Chinese orchestras use the zhōng ruǎn (中阮) and dà ruǎn (大阮) for creating basslines. Other, less common bass instruments are the lā ruǎn (拉阮), dī yīn gé hú (低音革胡), and da dī hú (大低胡) developed during the 1930s.

Also people playing European organs use their feet for baselines notes and Australia's native music uses didjeridus for baseline.