Hello and Happy Easter to everyone

Over the past few weeks I have been unhappy with my bass tracks. I use Trilogy it sounds great but I don't feel im creating a good groove with my drum tracks. So my question is, to what extent do you think a midi keyboard can emulate a real bass ? and if you can, give some practical advice on how to play realistic bass lines on a midi keyboard

Thanks
zingerzingz

What genre...? Can you post up any examples...? Best way to get your head around basslines is to analyse ones you like. It's not going to sound exactly like the real thing, but you should be able to put together something useful. One of the first pieces of advice is usually to get the bass working with the kick. And keep it low.

A good bass part is just about a line that supports the song in a way that you like. When you're new to it it can be too easy to fall back on root notes, or end up playing a melody.

It is often important to leave plenty of space. It could also be that your drums need to support the bass part a little better.

But without hearing your example it's going to be hard to know how to guide you. Let us hear what you have.

--------------------
An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

IMO, one can do better than a poor bass player, as well as a decent bass player, but the expert player will blow away the keyboard every time.

In my experience, the biggest thing is the timing. If it isn't working and grooving with the drums then it doesn't matter how "accurate" the sound is, it just won't be convincing.
The second biggest thing is the phrasing. Especially making sure that notes don't overlap (unless they're supposed to, which isn't very common). See also, timing. For bass, where the note ends is just as important as where the note starts...
Third would be appropriately putting in the various performance articulations a bassist plays (whether they play them intentionally or not). Slides, string bends, hammer-ons, fret buzzes, slaps, trills, etc. This is what sells the performance once the timing and phrasing is spot-on.

Load a track with bass parts you want to emulate into your DAW, put a few bars on loop, load up a bass patch and learn to play/program it. Get to understand how it's constructed. It isn't exactly formulaic, but each genre does seem to have its own vocabulary of riffs, turns and phrases. Even just humming along with the bass parts in the car (mentally humming it on the tube, etc.) will build your vocabulary, and then it's a matter of getting your fingers to play what you've been humming.

And now I'll duck out of the way of the Fender Precision that's undoubtedly flying towards my head for suggesting this is possible...

thanks for the advice. Neo soul bass lines. They tend to sit tight with the kick but are played slightly late to give that human feel/swingy feel do you quantise your bass lines ?

thanks again

Thanks great Advice!

Quote zingerzingz:

---

do you quantise your bass lines ?

---

It depends. If am programming a bass part I'd probably quantise it, but if I played it I'd be more inclined to keep at least some of the timing vagaries of my playing. It very much depends on what the style of music is trying to convey. Hard-core dance and cocktail jazz have very different requirements!

The way a human might play a part is reactive to what they are hearing/feeling, and this is changing from moment to moment. Trying to simplify this to a notion of always playing late/early might not be the best approach. A good player might play a lazier part in a laid-back verse section, but lead into a chorus by anticipating and pushing the beat as the excitement grows.

Perhaps more importantly a human rhythm section (e.g. drums, bass, guitar, etc) will feed off each other. Unless the whole rhythm machine feels like it's working together some parts are possibly going to sound out of time. This is why you maybe need to look further than just the bass part. But don't be surprised how difficult this is to do - a human player would do this naturally, but trying to dispassionately program these qualities in is extremely difficult.

Personally I tend to work on the basis of letting machines keep perfect time and letting humans emote, react, ebb and flow - and I'll celebrate both of these aspects in my productions.

--------------------
An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

I usually end up quantising stuff, but only with a strength of 80% or something; tightening it up but not nailing it down. As Elf says, it depends on the genre and performance. Most DAWs also offer "groove extraction" methods for transferring the rhythmic feel of one part to another, though that's not something I've experimented with.

I've always found that the main trick to emulating any other instrument on a keyboard is to avoid playing anything that would sound unlikely, out of place or plain impossible on the 'real' instrument. Think about how reachable notes sit under a bass player's fingers rather than just choosing the next note.

There are various examples applicable to other instruments, too. For instance, it's actually impossible to play chords on a guitar using a plectrum. No, I mean that! What rock guitarists think of as 'chords' are actually really fast arpeggios, which is why they sound different played with an upstroke than a downstroke - true chords would entail plucking several strings at once with individual fingers, as with classical guitar. Play two handfuls of guitar notes on a keyboard all at once and you just get six individual notes picked simultaneously; it may be a chord, but it won't sound like a guitar. I know a good jazz pianist who occasionally switches to a vibraphone patch on his stage piano, but then just carries on playing a piano part - you can only play chords of four notes on a vibraphone - or at least, I've yet to see anyone holding more than two mallets in each hand.

i'd say for neo soul it is definitely possible to emulate the bass - of course unless you have a great bass player who will do it. just leave lots of space but play a great rhythm and in sync with the bass drum.

Quote zingerzingz:

---

Hello and Happy Easter to everyone

Over the past few weeks I have been unhappy with my bass tracks. I use Trilogy it sounds great but I don't feel im creating a good groove with my drum tracks. So my question is, to what extent do you think a midi keyboard can emulate a real bass ? and if you can, give some practical advice on how to play realistic bass lines on a midi keyboard

Thanks
zingerzingz

---

One of the primary shortcomings, IMHO, of the Trilogy was the inability to easily trigger different FX samples, as for example on the Scarbee basses.
This would allow one to groove on a single note, like a real bass player, as one would combine sustained and muted notes.

The Trilogy (if I remember correctly) forced one to load different basses and combine them in way to emulate real fingering effects. The newer Trilian is much much better designed, in that it achieves this in a single instrument.

http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/trilian.php

Check out the video tutorials... amazing stuff

--------------------
C.LYDE
http://soundcloud.com/c-lyde

Quote Zaxx:

---

I've always found that the main trick to emulating any other instrument on a keyboard is to avoid playing anything that would sound unlikely, out of place or plain impossible on the 'real' instrument. Think about how reachable notes sit under a bass player's fingers rather than just choosing the next note.

---

very ... very ..true..

--------------------
C.LYDE
http://soundcloud.com/c-lyde

Quote Zaxx:

---

I've always found that the main trick to emulating any other instrument on a keyboard is to avoid playing anything that would sound unlikely, out of place or plain impossible on the 'real' instrument. Think about how reachable notes sit under a bass player's fingers rather than just choosing the next note.

There are various examples applicable to other instruments, too. For instance, it's actually impossible to play chords on a guitar using a plectrum. No, I mean that! What rock guitarists think of as 'chords' are actually really fast arpeggios, which is why they sound different played with an upstroke than a downstroke - true chords would entail plucking several strings at once with individual fingers, as with classical guitar. Play two handfuls of guitar notes on a keyboard all at once and you just get six individual notes picked simultaneously; it may be a chord, but it won't sound like a guitar. I know a good jazz pianist who occasionally switches to a vibraphone patch on his stage piano, but then just carries on playing a piano part - you can only play chords of four notes on a vibraphone - or at least, I've yet to see anyone holding more than two mallets in each hand.

---

There are a few vibraphone 'three stickers' out there (Gary Burton, iirc), but not many. It's doubtless restricted to some pretty accomplished players.

Good advice on emulating technique as well as sound if you are trying to closely emulate the instrument.