Ableton Forum

hi
im having alot of problems creating bass-lines and making them more interesting??does somebody got any tips to how i can do this??my style is a mix of dance/trance/psy/electronica.

thx

Nexus-6,Nexus-6-project
and
retrodelica
(herar mymusic here(www.mymusic.dk(Nexus-6-project)
www.acidplanet.com(Nexus-6-project)

i know a lot of people have trouble with this, rightly so: the bass in dance is one of the most crucial elements .. because it covers two extremely impt functions:

your groove .... and the foundation for your harmonies and progression (if there is any)

i focus on the bass - and bottom end, including kick - more than anything else when im working on a new track. i'll take as long as necessary to get it right before i go too far, cause it can make or break a track

if you are starting out with a loop or combination of elements that start feeling like a good groove to ya, try placing single bass notes in a 4 or even 2 bar clip. dont worry about moving the notes up or down in a progression yet:

just find the note that fits your loop/groove harmonically. usually the root note of the key your song is in. then place these single notes in the clip, in places that lock in with your groove. you will "feel" whether or not this is making your loop rock, or not ... or you should.

once you have a few notes that are pumping the groove along, try making small changes as the loop plays. move a note forward or back .. listen .. make a note sustain longer .. shorten others.

once you do this for a while something will start to lock for you and then you can start moving notes up and down to work together with your other elements. if you can determine what key your song is in, this will give you the possible range of notes you have to work with.
.

A trick I sometime use is to make a copy of the midi sequence playing the bass part and transpose it up an octave. Then I delay or advance this sequence forward or backward by one 16th or one 8th or one 1/4 note.

When you have both sequences triggering the same bass sound, it can be a good source of inspiration, especially if the bass sound is monophonic with legato.

...works well for general "trancey" lead lines as well.

once you have a few notes that are pumping the groove along, try making
small changes as the loop plays. move a note forward or back .. listen ..
make a note sustain longer .. shorten others.

When playing bass guitar I'm kinda from a funk background......

I'll groove out with something simple for 20mins or more.... Until I fall into
a alpha-state hole.... The mind falls away and u start just really grooving
it.... It's then that u make very,very,very subtle changes and these
changes make a WORLD of difference.

You can play something groovy within 30 seconds..... but it's the suble
changes that require u really getting into the groove that make it really
thump.

With bass guitar it's pretty difficult to describe exactly what you're doing.
You'll be playing the same notes in pretty much the same rhythm but it will
be completely different just from the way u'r using your fingers, muting, etc.

-Ben

One idea - not sure how big you are into sampling but

Go grab a disco / new wave record and cut a loop out with out any vocals but with a bass line

time stretch it to your desired tempo them export to a wave / aiff file

load it up into Recycle and cut the beat on the 1 the 2 the 3 and 4 or however you choose - export the slices into your favorite sampler

then rearrange the slices and you get some pretty interesting bass lines - I usually put a heavy low pass filter and compressor over that and it sounds nice

but that's only if your into sampling -


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