Help Me Get This Rock Bass Sound

[mcalldp]

It seems more people are using Ableton to do club beats/dance music/DJ stuff but I am trying to do a rock band using computer sounds as part of the production. For an example, listen to my song http://www.mcallister-productions.com/m ... oidmen.mp3

All the android voices, drums etc... are on computer and I play live guitar and vocals. My question is, how do I get the bass covered using Ableton? None of the ones I have found sound like real bass. For an example, think of the sisters of Mercy, plonking along with Akai Samplers etc but what would get me the bass sounds in Ableton? Here is an example of what I am looking for in the bass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuezNswtRfo

[UKRuss]

Cant see/hear your links at work, but I have used many of the bass instrument racks that come with Live. The key is they rarely sound right on their own but once you sit them in the mix, they work like a charm. My personal fav is '80s Bass' it really sits nice in the mix with live guitars once their bottom end is rolled off. ymmv of course, but dont write them off is what I'm saying.

[mcalldp]

That's actually very encouraging to hear, I want the stock sounds to work! I tried the 80's bass and I tried a couple others but I guess, "Sit in the mix" is different for everyone. When you get a chance, listen to that second link with the sisters of mercy sound, the bass is really out front in the mix, very tight.

The parts are easy mostly being 8 or 16 beats a measure on bass so the midi is easy to write but the actual sound....not so much. I'm trying to stay away from adding VST and other effects as it's fine for recording but I am trying to keep the lightest load possible on CPU during live performance.

Again, thanks for the thoughts and if you have a chance to listen to that link later and have any suggestions please let me know. I'll play around with that 80's bass some more, it's the closest so far but still pretty far off from what I want.

[leedsquietman]

If you have Live Suite, try using some of the sounds in Tension, or layer some of these sounds up.

I used the P-Bass sounds in the first EIC quite a bit (in instrument racks) when I was using Live 6 (before I got my bass)

But given that I own a bass and am a player, I mostly use this on my alt/rock recordings and only use synth bass on my electronic projects these days.

[contakt321]

Sounds like a P-Bass (Precision Bass) played with a pick. Look for sounds like P-Bass, Precision, or Picked bass.

Generally rock bass like that is played on straight notes, and look at how the notes are laid out on a fretboard to get an idea of what notes the bassplayer would play. Generally, rock bassists play the root notes of the chord, and play other notes either in one position across several strings, or "slide" up and down the neck on one or two strings.

[mcalldp]

I do have suit but have JUST gotten it so am still becoming familiar with it. I will load Tension and try playing with that this evening.

So far I've just been taking live backing tracks recorded in Cubase, loading them up and kicking them off with a midi controller on my guitar effects board, basically using Live as a robust sampler. However, due to the scheduling limitations of live players I am trying to now do everything except guitar and vocals in Live, making it my "band"

I combine rock and computer generated sounds, think NIN meets Floyd (or that's my goal) The bass is an important part I need to get down and will put a priority on learning Tension ASAP.

Do you find it better to keep everything in the sample mode or work from the recorded wav screen (I know my terminology is off here) in a live situation?

[mcalldp]

Sounds like a P-Bass (Precision Bass) played with a pick. Look for sounds like P-Bass, Precision, or Picked bass.

Generally rock bass like that is played on straight notes, and look at how the notes are laid out on a fretboard to get an idea of what notes the bass-player would play. Generally, rock bassists play the root notes of the chord, and play other notes either in one position across several strings, or "slide" up and down the neck on one or two strings.

Thanks, I am familiar with putting the lines together once I have a working sound sample, that's the part alluding me at the moment, everything sounds like some dance-club-bass. I have a midi line written and I am randomly trying different instruments on the same loop. So far, 80's bass is closest but nowhere near the sound I'm after.

Looks like the Tension model and other areas I have not toyed with yet may be a better path compared to the pre-made sample instruments I've been trying thus far, can't wait to see the features of Tension....

[Saxer]

best sampled basses come from spectrasonics trilian and from scarbee. they really sound awesome!

[leedsquietman]

Sure. But there's plenty to be done with the sounds in the EIC/Instrument Racks and Tension. Live's own devices tend to be a bit more CPU efficient too, unless you add on a lot of FX, or rack things up.

If you have the money for Trilian (quite expensive) or a scarbee pack with Kontakt Player (one type of bass, such as P-Bass or Musicman Stingray etc. is reasonable value, but get 2 or 3 types and it adds up) then it is a good investment but you should explore the capabilities of what you already have first and if that's not enough, then look at alternatives...

[UKRuss]

You can get all pro with your acoustically recorded bass too and layer them up with gated subbass synths and parallel processing but like i say i really have had some very acceptable results with standard Live instrument racks. I realise they're not for everyone but its' all about whats happening in your mix really,if they work they work, if they dont they dont.

i enjoy the fiddling about.

[3dot...]

a rock band bass sound is more 'metalic' ..typically played with a pick or close to the bridge..
that said ...Spectrasonics Trilogy has the best sounding "real" bass samples I've heard...
it offers control of the 'picking' sounds in addition to the low-end

[leedsquietman]

Spectrasonics Trilian is the follow up to the now discontinued Trilogy and is supposed to be even better.

The Scarbee packs offer quite a bit of control too. Rock bass can be picked or fingerstyle - for example, even in fast genres like metal, Metallica's original bassist Cliff Burton and Steve Harris of Iron Maiden are very much finger players, while Lemmy and Burton's replacement Jason Newstead are pick players.

The difference is Scarbee's packs concentrate solely on one specific bass, which cost $79 or $99 per pack, whereas Trilian has dozens of basses and also acoustic and electronic basses.

Then again, I'm with Russ - you can do a lot with the tools in Live and Live Suite. But if you can't get what you need after a reasonable amount of time auditioning and tweaking, then look elsewhere.

[djsynchro]

FUCK samples you need to get a real bass.

[Vibrations]

++ Spectrasonics Trilian

[Angstrom]

FUCK samples you need to get a real bass.

yep, for sure.
If you are aiming to get a slightly more 'rock' sound you want to try and get your hands on actual instruments. Even really shit cheap instruments that you cant play very well can be brought to life with a bit of contructive editing.

With the "more rock" sound you need to have "more life" in the thing, and that's easier done by just whacking away on a bass and editing up a few good bits.
Rough and ready can often be more potent to a listener than "racked, stacked, sub-bassed, meta-compressed, fractally reaozmalized with P-Crew flarjibator 9.1a "

tldr;
go to pawn shop, obtain semi-shit bass, get new strings, whack upon it into Live. Use plectrum.