What Type Of Bass Do Producers Normally Use On Basslines?

J

J-Mazin

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Everytime I make a bassline it seems so "ComputerMusicIsh". Please Help. Thanks.
 
lol, brilliant! "ComputerMusicIsh"

Try ReFx TBL Bassline - u can get some rip-roaring bass tones out of that, apply very hard limting to it to get a powerful sound - u'll need to turn down the output tho ;)

The TBL Bassline even has a distortion knob on it - go nuts man ;)
 
Alot of what makes music sound "ComputerMusicish" (lol, i love it) isnt necessarily the tone you are using, sometimes its the timing used. Computer sequencers place things in perfect time, especially if youre using a sequencer with a snap feature. Try turning off the snap feature and seeing how it comes out, it usually will have a more "human" feel. Also extend your notes and experiment with cut offs. Slides are cool on bass too.

As far as tone goes, try just sampling a real bass and see how that treats ya.
 
Dont get into the habit of quantising everything. Listen first to see if any loose notes actually sound better unquantised. If they are too much, use a percentage quantization in 16ths which will nudge the note/s in nearer but bit by bit.

Also if you are using synth bases, openening up the filter here and there esp. on notes you want to emphasize can be effective.

Theres lots of stuff, but were you on about sounds themselves or playing/programming basslines????
 
85maestro said:
quote: "What Type Of Bass Do Producers Normally Use On Basslines?"

that's what he's asking, lol
Click to expand...

85maestro said:
quote: "Everytime I make a bassline it seems so "ComputerMusicIsh". Please Help"
Click to expand...

that's also what he's asking. Which can be interpreted as 'too rigid' no feeling/over quantized...

If you ( seemingly ) knew exactly what he meant, how come you havent offered anything, except to come along and critisize other people who have tried to help???
 
"computermusicish" was most likely directly related to the question, meaning it does not sound like the type of bass producers normally use in their songs (sound familiar?), I didn't respond because I'm awaiting an answer also, I never said I knew the answer, I just said I knew the answer, & I wasn't criticizing just to hate, I was criticizing the fact that everybody makes a big deal out of simplicity, sometimes people have vague questions but they can be answered easily, but "'net producers" also over-complicate the mixing process, so I should expect it (I'm a 'net producer too, if you wanna get technical, but when I say 'net producer' I'm speaking of a specific breed of producers, see the tag "you might be a net producer if...")
 
I think there is only one person overcomplicating issues here and that's you. Analysing and squandering over peoples comments to personally decide whether they are suitable for the topic of the thread, seems a rather sad and pointless exercise.

Perhaps your energy could be channelled into other, more creative pursuits....like 'Net Producing'?

Like a lot of things, the question initially asked cannot be answered with a simple answer, ( as you seem to think ) and alternatives/tricks etc, are often worth mentioning to encapsulate the 'area' of the question.

It is/was my understanding, that people asking about stuff on this forum, often prefer to receive a lot of 'alternative' answers, which they may find useful to their point. I don't know about you, but in my experience, anything in music is not black and white and you only have to read other threads to appreciate that there is a vast amount of possibilites for a single solution...

And there are a lot of useful users on here, who provide a lot of useful info. What these types of forums don't need are the 'in the background types' lurking around, offering nothing more than a sniggering remark, after which they return to the 'background state' to jack off or whatever and pride themselves on their analytical expertise..
 
it is sooo hard not to push on the quantize button. I do it all the time for 9 years now, but I should not USE it, but I can't....I forget it sometimes.....YOu get more human feels whne yuo work with offbeat notes (notes which do not fall in the 16 th note beat)....try delaying 0,035 milisecond and you know what I am talking.

so:

2:1:2:000.>>>> 2:1:2:035

try this one in cubase sx 2.
 
yo, just because you have 4 times as many posts as I do doesn't make me a lurker, it just means maybe YOU need to rethink how you spend your time, I just started using this forum recently, don't make snap judgements like that, & I'm not the only one who talks about "net producers", I don't just post smart retorts, I've asked questions on here & I've answered questions, and your the only one who's ever gotten offended, maybe its just that your the kind of person I'm talking about...I never said anything about extra info, I merely commented on how people overcomplicate people's question, especially with someone who just started to do production around the time they made the post, its very likely that their not thinking as deeply as you are, either cause you've studied your craft long enough or your over complicating, I think its a mixture of both, that's why I point it out instead of just saying "don't be a dickhead", maybe people just can't take themselves outside of their "expert" shoes to think simply, the man said what type of basses do producers usually use, he wants to know what type of basses do producers use, most likely he doesn't know what a sine wave is, doesn't know that he needs a synthesizer to create one, doesn't know what layering is, maybe someone could have just asked "do you mean like smooth soulful R&B basses, or synth basses,...?" & that would be different, I'm not hating, I'm just saying as much as you call me a hater, this forum isn't so much of a friendly climate, if you don't know what your doing, that's kind of reflective of the industry's "no way in" atmosphere, you can't get in unless you know, but people won't let you know...I'm just trying to help people out, if I ask a question, I don't want to have everyone dilly-dallying around an obvious question, not talking about "vague question, vague answer", but when people just are too wrapped up in being technical about it, I'm sure ya'll feel the same way when you ask a question and James McFadden comes on & gives you classical theory that may or may not apply to what your trying to do, or when few pads touches a keyboard...
 
ok back to the original question. You need high quality sounds first and foremost. If you're trying to program a realistic bass via midi. Then make sure you have the notes slide, realease, etc like a real bass would.

Peace
 
I didn't mean to drift off topic, basically what you just said was what I started out talking about originally, that he was probably asking about the actual sound (sample, soundfont, VSTi, instrument,...)
 
KomplexBeats said:
ok back to the original question. You need high quality sounds first and foremost. If you're trying to program a realistic bass via midi. Then make sure you have the notes slide, realease, etc like a real bass would.

Peace
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Also good on synth basses too. A bit of portamento, pitch bend can go a long way into bringing a bassline to life ( if thats what you want ) FM7 has some good basses ( in the DX patches ) that are nice to play like this.

Those FM bases have been used in pretty much every genre. That Yamaha TX81Z, lately bass esp.

Similar to what Komplexbeats was saying, if you reduce the synths polyphony to 1 note and switch it to legato mode ( if it has one ) when you overlap the notes in the sequencer, you'll get that sliding.

maybe its just that your the kind of person I'm talking about...
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Probably...., I had a rough childhood... I'm a f*cked up, spliffed out, anti-authority twenty something, who is also happy with what he is....
 
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what does your childhood have to do with anything, we were talking about 'net producers', and didn't we already get off of that, why you tryna start stuff
 
Sampling some real bass sounds will make a huge difference. From my experience it's good to have not just one sample, but a few, super short staccato notes in combination with slightly longer ones are good to make it sound more real. Having said this I actually play bass and I can tell you now that real live bass just sounds so much better, you don't realise this until u actually get a bass out and do it, it's unbelievable. THough you have to be able to actually play bass well, I spent years in bands and that made a huge difference. Crappy bass playing would sound a lot worse than good programming
 
Definately turn off quantise and use a
keyboard rather than a matrix or step
sequencer.

Also try making lines longer than 1-bar
loops. Even if the sound is a 1-bar
loop, a real bass player will play 16
different slight variations on that in
16 bars.

Chord changes.... Sections..... Movement.

-Ben
 
i recommend that u get the maxxbass plugin which comes in most of wave bundle packages for me it came with the waves diamond bundle package... it can really add sum thump in ur music. also i have another plugin that came with cubase that was called mda subsynth....i use it fruity loops ver5 and it tones up ur bass aswell.

using these plugins aswell with compression and eq u can make a good bass sound out of anything. if ur looking for some authentic real bass then i suggest u get a mini moog voyager or the antular moog plugin (i have this 1) its a vst modular system and it has sum phat bass sounds also get the edirol plugin i think its called edirol super sumthin lol but it has sum good bass tones and that aswell hope this helps
 
**** Programming a bassline. You want a real bass tone then use a real base. If you got a ear for music pickin up a real bass shouldnt be to hard. If not find a bass player. I have 2 session players that i use. Nothin will ever compare to a real bass player.
 
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