Bass Guitar

[auan]

I know there a lot of guitarists in here, anyone ever picked up the old 4-string?

I've had a cheapo bass sitting about unused for ages, but I just picked up a Zoom amp modelling pedal on the cheap and I'm kinda getting into it. I'm shit, my fingers are too used to small frets and strings that take hardly any effort to hold down, but it's helluva fun, and seems a little more relevant to making electronic tunes than regular guitar does.

[two oh one]

them gitar shit cuz they dont wobble c ya lol

[slim]

Yeah, been a bass player for a long time, got out of the habit recently, but it's damn good fun. Would like to incorporate it into production, but probably wouldn't use it for subs.

Love Boxcutter's style of using electric bass in his tunes, thing i love is that you can get a very warm lower midrange that synths sometimes can't do.

Plus it's great for writing stuff on, i always used to sit there coming up with these basslines that i would never do anything with. These days i just learn to play them on my midi controller, and that's the starting point of a tune.

I can imagine a standard 6 string electric guitar might be good for making pads with though, chuck a lot of reverb, delay and maybe a LPF on it and you can get some nice sounds

[djake]

7 string bass is nice

and a 5 string bass they go LOW

a fretless bass is pretty groovy aswell

pick up a bass a couple of times but my fingers are tiny n find it hard

[somejerk]

i used to play bass guitar in punk bands, that's how i got into this whole music making mess in the first place.

[djelements]

Nope, bass guitar doesn't wobble, so it's not real bass.


Only joking. In all seriousness, I've actually been trying to figure out how to get a good bass guitar sample that goes reeeaaaal low

[tempest]

Nope, bass guitar doesn't wobble, so it's not real bass.


Only joking. In all seriousness, I've actually been trying to figure out how to get a good bass guitar sample that goes reeeaaaal low

Well i remember someone posting on here that a 5-string bass low B string has a fundemental of something like 30Hz. I guess you could sample that and roll off the highs

[djake]

Nope, bass guitar doesn't wobble, so it's not real bass.


Only joking. In all seriousness, I've actually been trying to figure out how to get a good bass guitar sample that goes reeeaaaal low

Well i remember someone posting on here that a 5-string bass low B string has a fundemental of something like 30Hz. I guess you could sample that and roll off the highs

yea it does it sikenin to hear on a system aswell

[sro]

Would like to incorporate it into production, but probably wouldn't use it for subs.

Why not? There's nothing better for laying down dubby b-lines...

[djake]

cant belive i forgot about squarepusher earlier



fukin amazin bass player

[auan]

If you were wanting samples, I'd end up using either double bass samples, which goes an octave lower naturally, or plugging the sampler through a modelling plug, like that Ampeg one, which has a octave doubler.

Squarepusher is amazing, yeah. I used to wonder how much of his stuff was 'helped' digitally, but he does that shit live and it's unbelievable. Flea of the Chillis as well, I think is amazing. Definitely wanna get into the slap and pop style.

[tempest]

Definitely wanna get into the slap and pop style.

Look no further than Les Claypool. Frontman vocalist and bassist for Primus. But also has many other side project collabs which are just fucking crazy.
'Les Claypool and The Flying Frog Brigade' is one that springs to mind.

[slim]

I'm not a fan of the whole slap / pop style on the whole. Tastefully done (Bowie's Ashes To Ashes) it's ok, but when it gets ridiculous (anything done by level motherfucking 42) it sounds absolutely terrible.

Bass players i find inspiring would probably be people like Robbie Shakespeare, James Jamerson and Aston Barett for the rhythm, Peter Hook for the melody and "lead bass" sound, and Simon Gallup from the Cure for somewhere in between.

Used to seriously rate Flea, but he can sometimes be a bit too much, when you are slapping so much all you can hear is string buzz, you aren't actually playing bass.

Oh shit, and boxcutter... forgot about him.

What's people's opinions on compressing bass guitar too? I've heard two completely different opinions being presented as the absolute truth (loads of compression vs absolutely none)

[thinking]

Nope, bass guitar doesn't wobble, so it's not real bass.


Only joking. In all seriousness, I've actually been trying to figure out how to get a good bass guitar sample that goes reeeaaaal low

Well i remember someone posting on here that a 5-string bass low B string has a fundemental of something like 30Hz. I guess you could sample that and roll off the highs

yea it does it sikenin to hear on a system aswell

I used to play bass in a live hiphop PA - we wrote beats in the studio then played live with bass, guitar, rhodes/synths and beats/samples off an MPC. I play a pretty nice 5-str and the subs and bass dives I could produce were fucking sick. We used to only play clubs as opposed to gig venues, which guaranteed we'd be on a nice system with decent subs - soooo much fun having that kind of bass at your disposal.

Also, although I used to DI into a desk, there are a few bass heads (i.e. the bit that sits on top of a bass speaker cab) which have a setting to produce harmonics an octave below what you're playing - with a 5-str that could be DEVASTATING!!


my tip for anyone wanting to record bass for stuff like dubstep would be to turn everything up as loud as possible without getting too much signal noise, then play as gently (and accurately) as possible. Whenever I play, I'm literally stroking the strings with my fingers (and often the tip of my thumb) - you'll get much cleaner richer notes.

[rubbadub]

I went through a phase of sampleing some notes from my bass guitar, Processed the fuck out of them and imported them in to reason. Made some interesting sounds but its too much hassle if you want to change something (for the hobbyist producer)

[auan]

Well I'm fucking hooked. Starting bass lessons in a week and everything.

Seriously, I would recommend all you 'failed' guitarists to go invest in one, you can get a cheap P-Bass copy for well under 100 these days, and a DI box to plug it straight into the mixer for another 20. But I've never had so much fun learning an instrument. Not much use for dubstep, you need the long, low sustaining notes only a synth can really do, unless you were going for a really organic, Kode9 type sound. But just jamming over a garage/hip-hop/4x4 beat is amazing. As a guitarist, you probably know the scales already, but it's a challenge in other ways, keeping things tight with the beat, keeping the rhythm steady but putting in your own little fills and variations to keep it interesting.

Awesome

[djake]

i fink i av forgotten most of the scales my mum payed for me to learn

[red shrapnel]

broomstick bass
http://www.bornemark.se/bb/index.htm

[tempest]

lol @ 'failed guitarists' going to the 4 string... My little bro actually failed a bit with the 6 string and i'm teachin him bass now, he's having mad fun with it. Much easier to get a bit of instant satisfaction with the bass, and we can jam out which instantly sparks the passion for music when your playing in time and tune with someone else.

[Sharmaji]

you're only an electroharmonix bass synth pedal away from full-on wub territory.

i've got a jazz bass copy here that i've used on a ton of stuff. always more fun to futz around with than keys and an oscillator. besides, i get to wear it real low and pretend i'm paul simonon.

oooooooh oooh, the guns of brixton....