It's a question that haunts every bass player (if not, then just me). It's an age old dilemma that makes us choose between the 2. There are many players who use one and swear by either one of the methods and shun the other. There's a common myth that if you play with your fingers, you are automatically a better player, as I thought when I started playing, but this is not necessarily true. I have come to a conclusion that whether you play with your fingers or a pick, depends on a number of factors. This is limited to genre, playing style, feel and tempo.
Generally with tempo, the faster it is, then the more people tend to use picks because you can get a faster pluck on the strings. If you use your fingers, your forearm tends to get tired if not trained to be used to it. In thrash metal bands, it is common to find bass players who use picks just for this very fact and they feel they can get more aggression out with a pick.
Feel is another important factor because how you want the bass to sound affects the rest of the music. Fingers are regarded to have a softer, smoother tone when it comes to soul and proper R 'n' B, stuff like that. Like I said before about Thrash Metal, they generally use a pick because it's quite fast aggressive music and a pick can have this feel. Of course, this is just how everybody feels about it but you can easily get a nice soft tone with pick and a hard aggressive tone with fingers. It's interchangeable.
Whether you use a pick or fingers totally depends on your particular playing style also. I feel this is possibly the most important factor. At the end of the day, it all depends what you, as a bass player, are comfortable playing with. Personally I play with both in my band as I feel some songs could benefit, soundwise, with one or the other. Picks, to me, tend to make the bass guitar sound punchy, definite and twangy (poor choice of words i know, but this is how I describe the sound with a pick). Like for example, there's a song my band do called Nibiru and I have a lot of effects on my bass for this song and I think a plectrum makes it sound alot punchier and clearer as the sound deteriorates to a nice tone after you pluck the string. There is an instant pluck, then a twang and then deterioration, or this is how I hear it anyway. Then again, I use my fingers for alot of our songs too just because I like the sound of that and prefer how it sounds it some of the songs. It's just totally dependent of how you feel it should sound and how expressive you want the sound to be in a song. I mean, I can still do all the same things I can do with my fingers with a pick so there's no advantage skill wise in using one over the other.
Genre is sort of a small factor but still has lean over which method you play with. Alot of people will look, and listen, to their favourite bassists and want to play like them so they imitate what they use when they play and how they play.
My conclusion is, I wouldn't corner yourself with one particular method; just be open to which one you are going to use. Both are as good as each other.
I will list my favourite bassists (in no particular order) and list whether they play with a pick or fingers:
Chi Cheng-Deftones (Fingers)
Sergio Vega-Deftones (Pick)
Justin Chancellor-Tool (Pick)
Cliff Burton-Metallica (Fingers)
Jason Newsted-Metallica (Pick)
Robert Trujillo-Metallica (Fingers)
Frank Bello-Anthrax (Fingers)
Thundercat-Solo artist and session musician (Fingers)
Andrew Faley-Late of the Pier (Pick)
Louis Johnson-The Brothers Johnson (Fingers)
Chris Baio-Vampire Weekend (Pick)
Steven Terebecki-White Denim (Fingers)
James Jamerson-Funk Brothers and Motown session musician (Fingers)
So as you can see, there are a wide variety of my favourite bassists that use picks and fingers, so it really doens;t matter what you use at the end of the day which therefore makes this post pointless XD
ellievsbear
tangentwithtanner
andulkaphoto
baratheonpilled
turnnoffyourmind
