People say that Yoshiki doesn't like bass sounds. This is a thing that occurred even when Taiji was in X. Reportedly, Yoshiki often reduced the bass sound during the mixing stage, so Taiji played the bass in irregular ways to prevent Yoshiki from losing the bass sound later on.
I never heard anything like this. Even the first reunion songs, I.V. and Jade, have some parts focused on the bass. Maybe he wanted to say that on the first albums, Yoshiki wanted his drums to sound louder than anything. Which happened on Blue Blood and Vanishing Vision.
Yeah, Pata does hit the wrong notes often, not so much before (well, in X Japan Returns he was super sloppy) but he's been getting more and more sloppy since the reunion but he seems to be doing better lately. About Sugizo and Pata, I honestly think the issue is more on Pata's side, it's very obvious when you listen to Art of Life, when Sugizo harmonizes with hide's recording it's on point but when Pata plays with the recording it's often a little off-beat.
149% agreed. Pata seems to be more sloppy as he is getting older. On 2015 and 2016 concerts, on the twin guitar parts (take X for an example -
https://youtu.be/8okmMw_UJfs?t=185), he plays quite delayed from Sugizo. On Coachella, during Endless Rain, when his guitar is louder than Sugizo's, you could notice how bad it sounds.
and to be honest, nobody will say that Yoshiki and Heath are close.
For the 1994 concerts, they made some phone calls between the members and recorded them to put on pamphlets, kind of a joke to promote the concerts. I don't remember exactly the order, but I remember reading the "Toshi x Heath", then "Heath x hide", "hide x Pata", then "Yoshiki x Heath". "Yoshiki x Heath" was the most boring call ever. Like, two complete strangers which didn't know a line to talk about (BTW, hide x Pata was hilarious). On the "Heath x hide" call, Heath says that Toshi supported him a lot, as he played only the X JAPAN Returns concert so far, he was new in a huge band and his first concert in this huge band was in Tokyo Dome. But Heath x Yoshiki was the shortest one. It wasn't that they don't get along well, they are just not close. Sometimes looks like Yoshiki seems Heath like "just some bass player".
Yeah, you will always be compared if you replace someone...
Heath replaced Taiji, he surely received a lot of criticism. Even Sugizo, which was already a huge famous guitarist when joined X, received criticism. And hide wasn't even replaced, he DIED.
But something is not right with Heath. He is a nice guy, he is a good bassist. But seems like his participation on X is decreasing. From 2010 onwards, he stopped the backing vocals (oh, the 2015 Week End performances would be amazing if wasn't for the awful hide recordings for the backing vocals). On the acoustic concerts, his part of Week End backing vocals were handed to Sugizo (which was great doing it, btw).
From 2014 onwards, he is getting even more unassertive. As I said earlier, since the 2016 concerts you could replace Heath with a cardboard picture with a bass and nobody would notice the difference. Even Pata has his social media accounts to interact with the public, and Heath doesn't have anything. His website isn't updated in years, someone just posts dates of X appearances. He seems the only one in the band who doesn't have an active solo work. I remember in one of Yoshiki videos where he joked about it, it was something he asked the fans to "ask on Toshi's Facebook, on Sugizo's twitter, on Pata's Facebook and... go to the bar where Heath drinks".