Phat basslines

Phonetik

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
How does everyone here create a bassline when composing a beat? After you make the drums or whatever, how do you make sure that the bassline is musically or melodically harmonizing or whatever with any other sounds (piano, strings etc.)? Also, has anyone ever sampled a bassline and how do yall get a good idea for one that sounds good and phat?
 
ill o.g.
I usually sample basslines. I find the longest bass hit and i just cut it smooth and loop it so i can hold a key down and it wont stop til i pick up the key. I usually listen to the main melody on my beat, and i just play the 1/4 notes then a couple of 1/8s when the melody switches around. Just pretty dont have a certain way top play the bassline, but it always compliments the main melody.
 

classic

I am proud to be southern
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 90
I play basslines. I think thats the only way u can really get it to fit the way you want

usually thats the last thing i do. I think that is one of the most important and overlooked part of beats today. I usally just fuck around with a bassline that harmoizes and then come up with the note pattern

99% if basslines should harminze with the beat and complement it. Basically it should come naturally and the listiner shouldent evern really notice it unless you higlight it. It plays a supporting cast to the rest of the beat

if u listen to some of my tracks and you will see that everysingle one has a bassline. most of the time I use the same sound in use it in differnt ways.

class...
 

RigorMortis

Army Of Darkness
ill o.g.
classic said:
I play basslines. I think thats the only way u can really get it to fit the way you want
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
that is like totally ignorant,,,
 
ill o.g.
classic said:
I play basslines. I think thats the only way u can really get it to fit the way you want
QUOTE]

I'm with classic i don't think thats an ignorant statement at all, sure its possible to get it the way u want by sampling a bassline but i think it would b hella hard to find a sampled bassline to go with a beat that is already complete except for the bass
 

RigorMortis

Army Of Darkness
ill o.g.
rather blame it on your digging, sampling, recognizing what is of use/bad ears..

to me it aint hella hard to find..
 

G-French

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Even when I sample a bass I still play it live on my MPC with the 16 levels. How do you do it RigorMortis?
 

RigorMortis

Army Of Darkness
ill o.g.
G-French said:
Even when I sample a bass I still play it live on my MPC with the 16 levels. How do you do it RigorMortis?
I preferably sample bass lines, they always seem to have more magic than all the other basslines from my point of view. Once sampled i could do different things with it, like you said chop it up and make your own pattern, leave it like that in fit it in to your track or a third option, combine option one and two, leave a bit of the original in it varied with some of your own handywork. After slicing you could chose to play or compose/program.

my point to classics remark
I play basslines. I think thats the only way u can really get it to fit the way you want
Is that aint the only way to fit it the only way you want, that is the way you feel comfortable with it.. There are great producers out there that dont play their basslines dont mock them, please.
And about playing basslines that is a good option but it need not necessarily be the best, keep an open mind up front that is the best way to learn.
 

classic

I am proud to be southern
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 90
Rig
I never ment to mock other peoples methods. I was just stating my opionion.

Ive never really tried sampling another bassline. To me It would seem hard to use a bassline that was ment for a differnt song. I like my basslines to fit witin my beats perfectly(personal preference). I would think that would be hard with sampling casue it was ment for another song. Espically when you start dealing with very funky or meldoic basslines.

clas.....
 

RigorMortis

Army Of Darkness
ill o.g.
oke sorry class i was just stating my opinion too. hehehe
yo man when you are sampling you are already stealing something from another song, be a good thief and also steal the bassline ya gonna use too, a dope beat is the pefect crime i would say..
WHOAH best put that in the punchline book of records ;) hahaha

And why could a sampled bassline not fit perfect, a good beatcreator learns to solve a lot of problems in his quest towards perfecting his craft that is one of them..

So I still disagree on the matter but hey cant win them all.
 

bigdmakintrax

BeatKreatoR
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 123
IF you go back to just about any of the 90's hip hop hits done without the advantage of a custom played bassline....this technique and filtering of basslines was about the only way to compose a nice "REALISTIC" bassline.....Pete Rock was great at Filtering Basslines and using some of the early SP1200 filters.......using equ you can filter out certain elements of a bassline that may have some hats or drums or other instruments in the same way as you would filtering drums.......then recomposing using your pitch/time stretching and 16 levels on the mpc along with your ear to sync everything......or you can assign it to a scale on a lot of new keyboard/workstations.........I have used both of these methods......but Imma have to say that if I don't have a good sampled bass I usually opt for either one of my keyboard (Triton or Motif) basses......and as Class says...but he's right about the distortion or tuning....but that's where your experience in developing the technique to avoid this comes in........... but also if this doesn't work I replay it......I recall that even a lot of those producers like on some of the old Biggie work.....done by Chucky Thompson, were sometimes interpolations and even had only pieces of the original bassline sampled and he would play the parts with a real bass, combine them to change the riff completely.........Dr. Dre and others have also applied this technique and actually its very common in hip hop production from what I know.....
 

Ash Holmz

The Bed-Stuy Fly Guy
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 207
i usually sampled my basslines .. there only like a couple songs i made wiith a completely original bassline ... i find it hard to get a thick, natural sound out off my reason sythns ... if i had a good keyboard or module then maybe i would play it more but the sythn bassses i use sounds real weak compared to a thick ass sampled bassline
 

Phonetik

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Thanks for all the input fellas. Sounds like there are a few tecniques. Does anyone know if it is possible to filter out a bassline or any other sound at that on an asr-x? I know it is a rare machine, but Iam guessing it has the same capabilities as an mpc.
Also, On another note Iam looking to buy a midi keyboar with a sampler on it. Any suggestions for under $350? Or is that an unrealistic price. Thanks yalls, One
 

RigorMortis

Army Of Darkness
ill o.g.
classic said:
ohh np rig I knew u dident mean it in that way.

Acutally im kinda intersted in the teqniue your talking about. So your saying you will filter a bassline from a sample and then use it in another song. Wont it be distorted once you filter and tune it????

Do you have any examples i can listen to

class..

That is one of the options, it depends on the sample and your skill and where you want to go with it. I am not saying i am skilled or something, i am still in my learning process and i will always be..

So if you got a sample and want to retrieve the bass from it you should fuck around with your wave editor, or whatever you use with it, learn some frequencies about bass, and fuck around till ya satisfied.
If you got some old music, you should listen well cause they tend to pan the track.. like melody on the left drums and so on on the right,,
Besides that there a lot of samples with bass solos or with minimum of other sounds go for them..
Keep in mind if you filter a bass it will always sound different than the original, but different need not be bad and if you do it correctly it wont sound distorted, you created something different and that is always good, keep on going till ya satisfied.
 

RigorMortis

Army Of Darkness
ill o.g.
Phonetik said:
Thanks for all the input fellas. Sounds like there are a few tecniques. Does anyone know if it is possible to filter out a bassline or any other sound at that on an asr-x? I know it is a rare machine, but Iam guessing it has the same capabilities as an mpc.
Also, On another note Iam looking to buy a midi keyboar with a sampler on it. Any suggestions for under $350? Or is that an unrealistic price. Thanks yalls, One

Yo phonetik i got no knowledge about the asr-x... but i googled and found this for ya:
http://www.geocities.com/asrxcite/asrx/tt_xc_asrx_filters.htm

i searched on ''asr-x filter bass", good luck and dont be scared to look for more on google, it is great!
 

bigdmakintrax

BeatKreatoR
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 123
Your best bet might be to get a soft sampler/editor like soundforge or cooledit....that way you can get the loop or sample correct and there are filters in that software that will help you out........then just load the sample to the gear (ASR X or whatever) and then compose....
 

Phonetik

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
YO! thanks alot for the help. It is a difficult machine to get to know sometimes. all the advice helped out though. Let me know if you guys have any more info. Thanks
 

MarkN

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 55
rigor do you mean you sample the bass sound as in you sample a section of the bass and then play your own tune with it or you literally cut a say 4 beat bassline out and loop that ?
if you mean the first then yea thats a good way of doing it but if you mean the second id never really thought of doing that ?
the way i do it is to just play sumthing that ive made from scratch im not that up on my music knowledge so i play wot sounds right i know from ear whats in tune and whats not !
 

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