for the life of me i cant play a bass on my songs,help.

dmajor100

dmajor100

New member
i have lots of songs i do and there mostly sampled stuff add have lots of ideas of adding a nice guitar bass to them but usually try to play the bass on a motif first just to see if i can achieve my idea myself and i cant. this goes for most of my other songs to for example ill add drums play a pad,piano,synths,percussion but when it comed to bass im just stuck or just add a simple yet boring bass. to add a groovy bass would i have to be in the same key of the song or what causei really need to learn how to do this myslef instead of having a bunch of songs without no groove in them and having to get a bassist do add stuff. i wanna be a diy kinda producer and im already learning piano and next i wanna learn guitar and bass.
 
Good future planning (learning more than one instrument) it will pay big time in the future to be able to do it all...

In the meantime, you need to learn to think like a bass player.

They think about rhythm - nailing the kick and any snare accents is a good first step, then adding something to any fills if you can

They think about arpeggios of different chord types.

They think about linking their root note work with little scale runs up or down.

They think about the bass line being an independent yet dependent melodic instrument - independent in the sense of not tied to what everyone else is play, dependent in that they are still using the same chord progression.

Listen to Black Night by Deep Purple and also Smoke on the Water - listen to the bass part - it is not doing what the guitar or keyboard is doing most of the time, but is doing it's own thing based on working with the drummer and emphasising the harmonic progression.

Now listen to some Santana (anything) for another take on bass playing. Then some early, mid and late Beatles and anything by McCartney with and without Wings.

Next, find anything by Yes and listen again.

Then do the same with King Crimson.

Becoming a good bass player means listening as much as it does playing......
 
So typicaly do bass players stay in the same key of a song and do bass guitars sound better than any sampled bass or vst. Im looking for a very fat bass
 
Last edited:
If you want to be very basic about it just make your bassline the bottom note of each chord and use a little fill or pitch bend at the end of every 4th bar. Especially if your using a Sine Wave Bass
 
dmajor100 said:
Is that usualy done on music with the botoom note thing.
Click to expand...
What do you mean? Say your progression is Cmajor, Aminor, Fmajor and G Major. Your bass line would be C, A, F, G and a little scale fill at the end of the 4th bar. But that is a EXTREMLY simple way of creating a bassline
 
dmajor100 said:
So typicaly do bass players stay in the same key of a song and do bass guitars sound better than any sampled bass or vst. Im looking for a very fat bass
Click to expand...

Typically bass players stay in key more often than not, there are some exceptions which I can cover if you like.

Using the root of the chord works OK, but you need to make it rhythmic and at least nailing what the kick does.

As for instrument sound, it comes back to how you process the sound period - I have heard some really fat and tight bass guitar sounds and some pretty ordinary and lame bass guitar sounds. Same goes for synthesised sounds and VSti's/samples.
 
A cool/fun technique that is useful for getting you bass to sit with the drums, is to have a bassline triggered by the drums using a side-chained gate. You can get some nice results by adjusting the attack/hold/release of the gate ect, and you dont have to be a pro bass player to get that groove.
 
I hear this from a lot of people and this is why i started my Fiverr gig: fiverr.com/trkkazulu/play-bass-on-your-track I produce professional bass tracks for people. Either original or re-playing their MIDI synth bass tracks on bass guitar. It saves a lot of time having a pro do it so that you can concentrate on what you do best. It also lifts your track. Especially if i'm adding live bass guitar to what is predominantly a MIDI production. Just the one live instrument does wonders for the feel of a track.
 
best advice I can give you that will help you in the long run is to buy a real bass and learn to play it. It's not real hard to learn the basics by ear and there's ton of dvds and vids online or on youtube that you can check out. You can get a nice Squier Jazz or Precision bass and run it through Amplitube 3 free version.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top