Bass - The final frontier

[Davidinoz]

Kick? Whats a kick.....

It's the pedal the drummer uses to try to mess with your timing

[Tacman7]

Bass for me is a last minute, addition. As such it doesn't get enough attention.
So my tracks are somewhat lacking.

I have decent monitors but they are 6" monitors and I should get a sub.



Bass is all midi for me.

I can go through the whole song with step record on hitting single notes and creating whole notes. Just whole notes is better than nothing.

I can then apply an arpeggiator to that track and create some interesting parts.

Another thing I do is to copy the lowest notes of a midi part (like a piano) and paste them into a bass track.

That same method can be done with a drum track, just highlight the kick part and copy and paste it into the bass track, makes for tight bass and drums.

I used to play a bass part on the midi guitar setup, haven't been doing that lately.



Someone told me a long time ago that the bass should be an extension of the bass drum. I guess that works on a lot of things but bass Can be a lot more.
I rented a documentary on Motown that went into the importance of bass somewhat.

[Gerk]

Another question for the benefit of this thread, how do you address the bass & kick relationship?

For me I think of the Kick and the bass guitar to be 2 instruments playing a duet.  Depending on the type of music that can mean different things . . .

First, 2 instruments playing a duet shouldn't sound the same if you follow what I'm saying.  If the kick drum is really bottom heavy then maybe you want to compromise a little on the amount of botttom on the bass, there's only so much room for everything.  Same goes the other way around .. if you have a really snappy kick drum then I find that a really bitey bass maybe not be the best choice.  Those 2 instruments (barring some keyboard notes) carry all the subsonics of any tune for the most part and getting them in a good balance both tone and level wise is important.

Second is dynamics.  Lots of people admittedly (glances at Nick) have a tendancy to squash the hell out of a bass track.    Where possible I use just mild comp and a touch of limit on most bass tracks, just to keep them tamed, but I try to get the dynamics and tone right before that part of the recording .. i.e. play it consistantly and get a tone that sits well into the track without the need to squash it too heavily.  Same goes for kick drum.  Lots of people instatly brick wall limit and pump the hell out of a kick drum comp.  Sometimes this is what you need to do, other times you just need to smooth it a little.  Really squashed kick drums tend to sound like paper ... very large sounding and well eq'ed, but paper just the same.  Less squashed kick drums to me carry a lot more "thump" to them in the grand scheme of things.  You can also still get away with having all those nice fat low mids in kicks if you don't squash them too much, instead of the traditional scoop I see tons of people do instantly, between 200-400 or so.

Both of thse things are hard to do (!!!) but well worth it in the end if you can do it with the tracks you have to work with.  Luckily (or not so luckily) for me I play drums and bass, and record my instruments for both .. so if something is not the way I want it I can just keep going back and taking it again

HTH

Mark

[Studioplayer]

Interesting thread. I've never thought of the bass and the kick working together or being an extension of the kick drum. Maybe it's just naturally played to the kick? Then again all rules are made to be broken.    Every song calls for something different. Sometimes the bass needs to be running all over the place and very present while at other times it just needs to be in the pocket and enhancing the rhythm. I have heard some really nice tones from a few of the guys here. It's all about the tone. 

Dave

[BassPlayer]

I second the playing to the kick mentality. Notice he said playing to it not with or against it, which again is whats called for at the time and the bass players perrogative.

I tend to be a busy player because I grew up listening to people like Geddy, Rutherford, West, Entwsile and Squire. My attitude is to try and add something to the tune and not just lurk in the background. Do I pull it off? Sometimes.... Can I turn tracks around over night? Not often. Do people think it's worth the wait? Most of the time.

Also I was going to start a thread on why I hate recording but I'm lazy so I'll say it here. I hate recording to a prerecorded  drum line because there is no room for tweaking the groove to make both parts gell. Many times when recording live with a real drummer we've always been able to tweak our parts like "hey go early on the kick and that will let me do this part better". I'm so used to doing that live when I record it's really frustrating.
Yea I know I'm crazy but thats what I've found.

Also when recording to a prerecorded drum line that mixed low it's hard for me to hear some things because I have crappy ears. It makes me wonder how much I use visual cues when playing live.

So recording is a love hate relationship for me. =/

[Bassic_Soul]

Cool thread.

So here's how a backward Kansas boy does it and it's probably not the sound most of my peers are looking for. I use a 4 string Peavey Dyna bass straight into the front panel of my SoundBlaster live card. My soundman has broken me of using any of the on-board active electronics, so I record in the passive mode. Depending on the tone I need, I will use a pick for the punchy stuff and my fingers for a smooth round sound. Where I differ from most bassists is with my strings, they're between 10-15 years old, I never change them. The other way I may differ is that I don't punch in to clean up a track, I'd rather play the whole song over until I can do it clean.

I don't use any effects or compression and depending on the tune I may bump the 100HZ EQ just a touch.

My playing revolves around the kick drum, maybe a little in front of the beat to drive or a little behind it for a bluesy feel or dead on for a solid pocket.

Kick? Whats a kick.....

It's the pedal the drummer uses to try to mess with your timing

Now that's funny and I'll be using that.

[BassPlayer]

It's hard to do that with a drum machine or a loop. But I have struggled with this sort of thing before. The human touch. 

Yea jamstix was the best investment I've ever made. It's made practicing fun again because it plays off of you. When I don't have a drummer around I opt for the jamstix. 

Bassic,
I dig on your playing and toine, I would of never known your tone was from old strings through a sound blaster.

So as backup data to my point about the prerecorded drums. I'm doing a track for Hinterman andi it's got these long sections of goove where the kick is real straight on the 1st two bars and then has this triplet feel on the 2nd two. He orignally did a more drone type of bass line. Me being a busy player, I had the idea of playing a more Ralphe Armstrong (John Luc Ponty) type of groove to the triplet feel and Hinterman liked what I was doing but it was a bitch recording it because I had to ignore the kick on the 1st two bars. Had there been a real drummer, I know they would of adjusted
 and things would of been fine. 

On another note,  Why is it I can hear very cool bass lines in my head but not articulate them well enough?

[BassPlayer]

I think it's simpler than that. I need to practice more =/

[dogbizkits]

Very interesting thread.

Getting the "right" sonic relationship between the kick and bass depends fundamentally on the timbre of the instruments to begin with. Having said that, while the "ideal" sonic co-existance between the kick and bass guitar may be perfect for one musical genre, that same sound may often not work on other genres. This is just a fact we have to accept. I tend to work more or less in the same way as Mark (Gerk) and try not to destroy the dynamics through heavy compression or brickwall limiting. I find this restrictive. Particularly in live sound, the foundation and "drive" of any song tends to come to life when the kick sits inside the pocket of the open E on a bass guitar. If you can clearly hear the punch from the kick while the bass guitar is thumping an open E (for example), then you're pretty much "there". In that respect I tend to think the kick is an extension of the bottom end of the bass guitar.

Rab 

[Bassic_Soul]

I'm doing a track for Hinterman and it's got these long sections of groove where the kick is real straight on the 1st two bars and then has this triplet feel on the 2nd two.

I can relate BP, unless I'm well rehearsed, (and there is a difference between rehearsal and practice, the former being with the group and the latter being solo without the time constraints,) Triplets give me fits unless I know where they're coming and how the players around me will interpret them.

The foundation and "drive" of any song tends to come to life when the kick sits inside the pocket of the open E on a bass guitar. If you can clearly hear the punch from the kick while the bass guitar is thumping an open E (for example), then you're pretty much "there". In that respect I tend to think the kick is an extension of the bottom end of the bass guitar.
Rab 

Rab, I agree (and disagree) depending on the tune.
I believe that the bass guitar can change the "feel" of a song by the subtle task of playing just in front or just behind the drummer. Let me explain, if you take a quality drum machine and set up a basic beat that is quantized to perfection, (exactly on the beat).  You have the control to move any "part" of that beat forward or backward.

If you take a good drum machine and set up a simple 4/4 rock beat and move only the snare drum forward in that pattern by  5/100 of a beat, you will hear the snare drum "pushing" the tempo of the song without changing the actual tempo of the song.
 Inversely, if you slow the snare by the same amount from the original beat, you will hear the snare drum "lag" behind by a smidge giving the song a blues feel.

The same effect can be accomplished with the bass guitar when the drummer is right on the beat. You spoke of the bass guitar doing what I would call "droning" one note. If that's the line you're going to play, (and there's nothing wrong with that), then I agree that it should be right in the rhyme pocket.

 

[dogbizkits]

What a fantastic response, Preston. I know where you're coming from and couldn't agree more. Yup, it's all about "feel". The example I used where the kick can be heard distinctly over the open E demonstrates how both sounds compliment each other and their respective sonics do create that "drive" - but you're right that it all depends on the tune. 

Rab 

[Gerk]

Agreed!  Each song calls for it's own thing, and pushing or pulling the beat on the bass can make a huge difference.

Bass is just not as simple as a lot of guitar players think it is LOL.  Many guitarists have a tendancy to just play the root notes below their guitar part without a lot of consideration for tone, attack, placement (ahead or behind the beat), etc.  It really is an art .. a very subtle one .. to get the bass parts "just right".

This is a great thread!  Hope us bassists are not giving away too many of our secrets here LOL

Mark

[luisma1972]

Bass is just not as simple as a lot of guitar players think it is LOL.  Many guitarists have a tendancy to just play the root notes below their guitar part without a lot of consideration for tone, attack, placement (ahead or behind the beat), etc.  It really is an art .. a very subtle one .. to get the bass parts "just right".

Mark

I consider myself guitar and bass player, just hope to be out of that batch................

[youtube]

Mark (Gerk) said

Agreed!  Each song calls for it's own thing, and pushing or pulling the beat on the bass can make a huge difference.

Bass is just not as simple as a lot of guitar players think it is LOL.  Many guitarists have a tendancy to just play the root notes below their guitar part without a lot of consideration for tone, attack, placement (ahead or behind the beat), etc.  It really is an art .. a very subtle one .. to get the bass parts "just right".

This is a great thread!  Hope us bassists are not giving away too many of our secrets here LOL Cheesy

Mark

Listen folks.. I posted a lot of crap here. It gone. 

Mark concluded very well.

I hate to be Mr. Know it all and that's why I deleted this crap. 

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