how do you guys program basslines

[cartel00]

do you guys use a midi keyboard for bass or do you guys map them out on the piano role. just curious. Or are there other ways you guys make your basslines... is there a certain standard for bass rhythms that makes it easier to make good ones or is it just by ear

[arm]

I use an Akai 2000mpc to record everything before going into Ableton. This should not be a great deal different tho. I set quantize to off, so sounds not so "fixed"

[ethios4]

That depends on the style of music...for psytrance I program by hand, tweaking each note's placement, velocity, duration, and filter. More organic styles may allow for playing the bassline in with a keyboard, but for precise machine basslines it's gotta be done by hand, IMO.

[arm]

I listened to a web page from Affiliation Sound in Montreal and alyj I enjoyed listening, the general appearnce of the "sound" was more a blend between technological savy and musical interface. I just wonder how much "music" is there from an old school traditional value system. I went to a 4 year degree school and got a music degree. Learned very hard about voice leading, four part harmony, compositional techniques. Studied with John Cage, Terry Riley, Aaron Copeland,Laurie Anderson, so we did alot of "new music" as well. What I am questioning, is how much music is there without all the technology that is available. Is melody still important. Chord construction, voice leading, leys, modulation, etc. Or is all this reduced to pressing buttons and making loops and calling it house or some label. It seems that someone who does not know much about "music" at all, can make technology work for them and develop a product and be satisfied.

I know it sounds like I am making value judgements, but I am older and have played music live on stage in bands for my whole life, and intentionally stayed away from the recording industry. What I do like is that major labels are no longer able to dictate and control music output- as the Monkeys and Millie Vanille etc.

[mikemc]

What I am questioning, is how much music is there without all the technology that is available. .

From what you mentioned, there is the matter of originality, a matter of satisfaction with a product, and a matter of techniques, and a matter of the time spent doing. I'm also thinking you are meaning the matter of expression when you ask 'where's the music'.

A virtuoso violinist who has spent years training can make beautifully expressive music playing someone else's notes that were written centuries ago. But where's the originality in that?

In terms of satisfaction, if you can spend a bit of time to set some electronic things in motion that you think will produce interesting musical sounds, and then sounds are generated and a product results that is interesting and has some quality of delight, then why shouldn't one have some satifaction?

Regarding the techniques, I think it has a lot to do with novelty. When Laurie Anderson ran the tape with the verse across the pickup on the violin, that was way cool, not just as a technique but as a juxtoposition of elements in the performance: here she is producing this dreamlike story statement using a familiar musical mechanism wholly unrelated to story telling.

So I think maybe it's more a matter of how much guessing/experimenting is going on, versus how much actual informed selection of notes, and how much the individual 'experiencer of the product' is willing to put up with either.

I think melody is always important.

[edit] it can be fun to use an arp to do basslines, record the midi, and then modfity note lengths and remove to add some funk. You can also use the midi out from drum patterns to generate some fun rhythmic bass, and apply transpose and scales to inject some melodic structure.

[DeadlyKungFu]

In a band the main role of a bass is to hit the root note of the chord on the '1'. I know that sounds boring but that's where it starts. From there the bass works with the drums to give the song a groove by playing in the pocket. Generally bass lines are less about what notes you play but more about when you play (or don't).

Going back to hitting the root note on the '1' (this just means playing the main note that sounds good), when the bass plays the root note that allows other instruments to move away from the root note. A guitar/piano player can leave out the root note because the bass is holding it down, he can use different chord shapes and solo.

Then there's sidechain compression interaction between the kick drum and the bass line so they don't muddy each other out.


In short, keep it simple, keep it funky.

IMO

[noisetonepause]

In a band the main role of a bass is to hit the root note of the chord on the '1'.

Depends on the type of band!

[njh]

im just winging it when making a bass line..
some times it sounds ok.

[datapopstar]

A virtuoso violinist who has spent years training can make beautifully expressive music playing someone else's notes that were written centuries ago. But where's the originality in that?

the originality in that is in the interpretation of the notes, for example the dynamic..
notesheets are note like midifiles, if velocity is programmed with 64, it is 64 till the end of the time.
notesheets are not exact in the same way.

[Gyro]

In a band the main role of a bass is to hit the root note of the chord on the '1'. I know that sounds boring but that's where it starts. From there the bass works with the drums to give the song a groove by playing in the pocket. Generally bass lines are less about what notes you play but more about when you play (or don't).

Going back to hitting the root note on the '1' (this just means playing the main note that sounds good), when the bass plays the root note that allows other instruments to move away from the root note. A guitar/piano player can leave out the root note because the bass is holding it down, he can use different chord shapes and solo.

Then there's sidechain compression interaction between the kick drum and the bass line so they don't muddy each other out.


In short, keep it simple, keep it funky.

IMO

Great explanation

[mikemc]

A virtuoso violinist who has spent years training can make beautifully expressive music playing someone else's notes that were written centuries ago. But where's the originality in that?

the originality in that is in the interpretation of the notes, for example the dynamic..
notesheets are note like midifiles, if velocity is programmed with 64, it is 64 till the end of the time.
notesheets are not exact in the same way.

That's right-- it was a rhetorical question, but the right answer also illustrates that it's a matter of degrees: when improvising a 'wholly original' phrase of notes, you apply all of that, plus the choice of the note value and length. Many people feel that classical music is 'more music' than jazz or electronic improvisation, there is no right or wrong to that perception.

Ensuring continuity of culture/art, where past practices are enshrined and continued intact is a noble pursuit, but it's also kind of a monopoly.

The other side of the spectrum are sounds you hear all the time that are more or less randomly/environmentally generated that seem like music, but they do not "intend" to be music, and for a brief moment they exist and then disappear, never to be heard again.

[Sartori]

I play em on a 4 or 6 string bass, then either notate directly onto piano roll, or play on midi keyboard. Works fairly well if you want a realistic bass-guitar style line...

[Angstrom]

It seems that someone who does not know much about "music" at all, can make technology work for them and develop a product and be satisfied.
.

the general public are very bad listeners, I blame them!


If some kid took chunks out of "Apocalypse now", "2001" and "Terminator" ... edited them togather and said - look - I made a film , it is just as valid as any other movie. The argument wouldn't stand up - except with a few conceptual art appreciators (IE wankers).

The resulting 'film' wouldn't commercially stand up next to a more usual film because the audience knows to expect certain things from a movie : story progression, character arc, tension, etc. It would be a rare skill to fashion these elements from disparate chunks without alerting the audience to the disparity.

You can say that modern commercial cinema is as crass as pop music made by chimps , but still ... a re-edited film made from chunks of 'samples' would not be accepted unless it was done with the skill of a great editor.

In the music world - it is not necessary to have that great skill in editing to get a release or even a moderate commercial success . Simply cutting an old record agains another old record, without even a sense of key, can succeed with the public. "Nice beats" and a woman going "woo-hoo", will suffice.
Mainly because the public are idiots with ears of cloth and brains of curdled cheese. I wish they would get the hell off my planet.

back on topic :
good basslines, play a bass for anything that requires it, then possibly re-create parts of it with synthesis. Otherwise if it is simple enough - just play what's in your head via a keyboard and take a look at the timing later if it really needs it.

[quandry]

I play em on a 4 or 6 string bass, then either notate directly onto piano roll, or play on midi keyboard. Works fairly well if you want a realistic bass-guitar style line...

upright, 6 string fretted and fretless here, straight audio, no midi. But I do sometimes come up with and play parts on a midi keyboard. If you can play keys a bit I'd recommend trying to play the parts rather than just program them--feel 'em out by jamming them, then quantize or clean up the midi if need be. Also, I find that even on songs I compose on bass and lay the bass down first, I often redo the bass as the last thing I record, interacting with the drums, guitars, synths, etc.

What DeadlyKungFu said is a good departure point--the most simple and basic bass concept is to play the root note of the chord on the one. Of course, this is no rule, and many great styles don't do this every time if at all (reggae bass utilizes the "one drop" often, where you don't play on the "one"). Beyond the one, the bass often plays the 3 and the 5 of a chord--like when you play a c major chord--those notes are the 1, 3, and 5 of the c major scale, and often a bassline will utilized the 1,3,5, and 7 of the chord your are playing under in the song.

Chromatic walkdowns/walkups are great way to move between chords.
Octave licks can be fun (think disco!)
1-3-5 arpeggios can be fun (think calypso)
cool use of rests (silence) can be very effective (think reggae--familyman, robbie shakespeare)
melodic hooks and propulsive rythyms can be fun (think motown--james jamerson)
straight eight notes can be boring (think hair metal)
root/five is heavily used in many styles (bluegrass, bossa nova, country)

some things to try. and, with everything, just listen to the music you like the most, try to play along with the basslines, critically analize what the basslines are doing and why they sound good to you, the use this analysis to help inform the parts you compose.

[djadonis206]

Basslines are coo'

My friend Roman plays them via keyboard - I draw them in because that's how my brain works - check out the basslines on some of my tracks

www.soundclick.com/djadonis206

www.myspace.com/teknolife

My good friend Mike posted a cool tutorial on Basslines in Reason

www.myspace.com/mikebalance

BASSLINES
Unless you are an advanced keyboard player, basslines can be the most difficult part of your project. The trick is to know when to keep it simple and when to get tricky with it. At first, pick simple notes that go with your sample or whatever element you want compliment it with (you don't even have to pick a huge range of notes, some of the simplest bassline can be the most powerful). Then just experiment... try different rhythms and syncopations (Copy and Paste goes a long way here) and don't be afraid to use a combo of your keyboard and your sequencer's step editor. A lot of the time you can move several notes up or down an odd number of keys (3, 5 or 7) to get them to work together better.




BASSLINES IN REASON
A lot of you who use Reason always say you just can't get a good bass sound out of it. The trick is to combine just the right path of things to get the most out of Reason's synths... here's an example: For big, nasty, electro type basslines, combine a Malstrom with an MClass Compressor, crank up the Ratio and the Input and top it off by adding a Scream for a touch of distortion (Tube works good) and a Vocoder switched to Equalizer and experiment with the settings. For juicy, bouncy, rich sounding, funky basslines: Use a Subtractor with a mono bass synth (play with the cutoff frequency a bit too) combined a little bit with the Comp-1 compressor. Then add a Scream with a little bit of Tape distortion then run it all through a Vocoder set to 4 Band Equalizer. To maximize any Reason synth, try using a Combinator to combine several synths together that are playing the same midi track... you'll be amazed by how big it can sound and how much more control you'll have... just remember not to go overboard!