How to effectively simulate bass guitar with MIDI keyboard?

I got to know him through Homer Joy, a personal friend - the guy who wrote "Streets of Bakersfield" which was made famous by Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam

Great tune...and I always thought Buck Owens wrote it.
I'm a big Dwight Yoakam fan.
He's kinda the last of the true classic Country musicians. After his generation, all the Country Pop and Country R&B nonsense started to emerge to the forefront.
 
WTGR Alan that is a bit silly and misses the point. Jeff Goldblum and Hugh Laurie are stonkingly good jazz pianists. Are they as good as Ashkenazy on Chopin or Bach? I doubt it. Does that make them "not pianists"? Not in my world.
Dave.

I did not say that

Alan.
 
You can fake a bass, a guitar and even drums with a keyboard, but in all cases, someone who plays that instrument will most likely be able to tell it wasn't the real thing. As it's already been said, you have to think like a bass player, or a drummer or a guitar picker. And if you aren't one, that's the difficult part.

What you were describing with the multiple fast notes played on a keyboard, versus a bass is part of the VSTi. Plucking a note with a pick, the string keeps vibrating, so you have a more consistent tone. And, it's the real thing, so you it should sound real. Multiple notes played fast on a keyboard involves the cycle of the VSTi note. Each time you hit a key, it's starting the note cycle all over again, so you get that static sound. It's actually finishing the previous note and starting the next note, each time you press a key.

You could edit the midi note on/off to blur those notes some, maybe even adding some reverb to it afterwards, to simulate that string still vibrating. You don't say how much you are wanting those multiple notes to occur, so it could end up being rather involved to do this.

Altering the sound, after the fact in various ways could also be an option. If you prefer a pick attack sound, you could end up driving yourself crazy, because they never sound perfect and a keyboard pick attack will always be too perfect. It might be easier to simulate a finger pluck, if that will fit in with your intended result. Also remember that a keyboard simulating a bass will sound too perfect. That's part of what a real bass player will hear.

Some notes are played on different strings, and they can actually have a different tonal quality. A keyboard will be too perfect. I've sampled a bass guitar and then copy and pasted notes together. I've never done anything very intericate, though...just basic 4/4 bar chords. It worked, though.

I'd guess what you're attempting isn't impossible, but I think there will always be someone who can tell it wasn't a real bass playing. It's not impossible to tweak the midi to sound more like a real bass. You'll have to muddy up the perfect keyboard attack or, I guess you could sink it down into the mix so it's not so noticeable, except for the note itself.

I know...none of these suggestions are really that easy to do for anything but a few edits. So, I know you don't want to here this, but if you are going to do very much of this type of thing, I'd go with the suggestion of getting a real bass guitar.
 
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The big problem of course is people's ability to play a new instrument. I'm pretty lucky - I can get buy to 'getting paid' standard on quite a few instruments but when I was teaching I discovered that some people just didn't have the dexterity and musical competence to even play simple stuff. Really, really simple stuff. E-E-E-E-A-A-A-A-B-B-B and repeat could seriously challenge some people, and it would be a really terrible baseline anyway. Guitarist learners who cannot swap from C to G without a pause while they move their fingers. Playing is always best, but it could for some be quicker to edit MIDI than learn even the simplest baseline. To those who can play, this sounds silly, to those who can't it's an unclimbable mountain.
 
The big problem of course is people's ability to play a new instrument. I'm pretty lucky - I can get buy to 'getting paid' standard on quite a few instruments but when I was teaching I discovered that some people just didn't have the dexterity and musical competence to even play simple stuff. Really, really simple stuff. E-E-E-E-A-A-A-A-B-B-B and repeat could seriously challenge some people, and it would be a really terrible baseline anyway. Guitarist learners who cannot swap from C to G without a pause while they move their fingers. Playing is always best, but it could for some be quicker to edit MIDI than learn even the simplest baseline. To those who can play, this sounds silly, to those who can't it's an unclimbable mountain.

And here is the point where I will be kind of a dick and say that if you can't play an instrument such as bass guitar, you maybe shouldn't be making music in the first place.

I know that is a personal opinion and likely will sound very rude and mean to some, but this forum is about recording at home. Not programming at home.

There are forums for that type of music. I just don't see this the place for it. Maybe I am wrong...

If you can play a piano and can't grasp a bass guitar and sample the notes? Then quit because you suck at music.

Feel free to leave comments and neg rep me.

Merry Christmas. :)
 
And here is the point where I will be kind of a dick and say that if you can't play an instrument such as bass guitar, you maybe shouldn't be making music in the first place.

I know that is a personal opinion and likely will sound very rude and mean to some, but this forum is about recording at home. Not programming at home.

There are forums for that type of music. I just don't see this the place for it. Maybe I am wrong...

If you can play a piano and can't grasp a bass guitar and sample the notes? Then quit because you suck at music.

Feel free to leave comments and neg rep me.

Merry Christmas. :)

This is basically my view as well. Very, very few really good musicians are "one trick ponies". Most classical singers are decent pianists, as are many in the pop world. Freddie, Macca. My son's first instrument is electric guitar but he did his school test piece on my old plywood Precision clone (£60). "Variations" adapted from the cello piece. He can play keys well enough to do basic accompianment if called upon. He got pretty bloody good on clarinet...

If you are in the least "musical" some basic bass G runs should not be beyond you.

Dave.
 
The point has been well made about learning to think as a bassist. This presents a crossroads before you as I see it: Do you have the time to study/practice bass guitar that indeed, as a peer pointed out, requires technical proficiency all its own (despite, I would add, the limited abilities of bassists in local bands or even in some major bands that creates the appearance the bass is a simple instrument useful to sonically fill in the bottom as well as help keep time), or do you learn how proficient bassists approach playing within the genre(s) of your interest, thereby, allowing you to cultivated a genre-specific vibe within bass parts via MIDI keyboard creation?

Reasonably, you may find the latter seems most practical in meeting your goals. If so, there is a person who introduces himself as a “producer, composer, audio engineer, and music theorist [indeed, he holds extensive musical knowledge],” Rick Beato, who has over a half-million subscribers on YouTube. Unknown, who of those behind the scenes are readily known? If you search his site for segments called What Makes This Song Great, he uses special equipment to examine the individual tracks of commercially recorded songs, discussing how the parts were used in construction of songs—though sometimes technical, points can be well gleaned with a basic theory knowledge based. He intentionally explores a wide variety of genres; your general interests should be found on that list. If you go to YouTube , you’ll reach his introductory video. From there you can search the list of What Makes This Song Great.

Regardless of your genre interests, I suggest you begin with a song that shows how a bass part supports the construction of a song, such as Every Little Thing, from The Police . . . Sting, a well regarded bassist, begins the song with very simplistic play continued for some length, allowing other parts to initially establish the melodic theme; then the bass work becomes a bit more complex (completing chord construction of other instrumental parts, for example, as well as melodic movement of thematical variance), but nothing mystifying or dazzling . . . everything Sting does supports conveyance of the theme of the story told in song—songs are typically not stories told per se, but each song does have a theme as do stories.

Another reason I suggest first Every Little Thing is because The Police were an abnormality genre-wise, drawing from many influences. For example, listening to Rick’s examining this song, which I didn’t previously appreciate technically, I never caught the reggae rhythm guitar work that is infused at one point with the classical keyboard melodic theme as well as a swelling synth (that likewise with the bass conveys the tension found in the lyrics, as the story being told is ultimately unresolved, lyrically and accordingly musically as well). That lyrical theme is captured musically—a wonderful example of why music exists to support the thematic intent of a song, story or not, lyrics or not.

As an alternative approach if MIDI if in fact limited in how keyboards can reproduce stringed fretted instruments, I recollect a new guitar device from Fishman that is used to trigger MIDI via plug into keyboard--perhaps direct to computer. I found this manufacturer’s link: MIDI Guitar Controller | Fishman . I know nothing of MIDI, but there should be YouTube videos on this device though I believe it is rather new, so maybe not so many videos.

—JeffF.
 
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if ur using vst, i would recommend you to use the "MODO BASS" plugin from ikmedia :D it has lots of organic functions like fretboard, strings customization and many more. Try it out!
 
I like this new turn - but I'm left thinking that over the years, there's been a huge increase in home recording by non-musical people. Pattern based technologists, that are often mega creative but score bugger all on the musically competent scale. I've been playing bass instruments since I was 8 and have been amazed by those people who simply cannot play a bass, or guitar. These people usually got told to play bass because it's easier, which frankly I've always thought was a joke. Equally I've recorded a guy with a diploma in clarinet, who could open his music and sight read the most amazingly hard stuff - yet this guy when I asked him for a bit for level couldn't play anything as he'd left his music in the car. My mouth dropped. Play anything, doesn't matter what! No - he had to the car and get music to just give me 30 seconds so I could set the gain.

What about the bedroom DJs? Are Technics 1200s musical instruments, if so DJs are musicians. if turntables are not musical instruments, they're not DJs - but an awful lot of them seem to make music successfully.

Finally, on this Christmas morning, "home recording" is this audio waveforms only? VSTi and synth/sampling isn't home recording? Is the end product - the recording only valid if it was played by real people? If somebody spends hours programming a bass part that sounds as good or better than a real bass - that's not recording?
 
Well said Rob and Good Will to...an all that swaddlin'.
The "point" of music is surely communication? If the listener feels something because of it IMO it is "art"? My wife, along with many people cannot make head nor tail of most jazz and Bach inventions bore her rigid. She loves Madame Butterfly and some other opera. Elvis, Freddie M.

On this Christmas morn I heard an hour ago Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. A beautiful piece of music but a very simple tune. And I KNOW it is simple because I used to be able to play it on guitar!

Staying with Bach. What about the rips? Procul Harem. Is Whiter Shade not valid music because it is shameless plaigarism?

What about Music Concrete and the BBC Radiopohonics workshop? Is the Dr Who theme NOT music?

Dave.
 
There is definitely something to saying "think like a bass player". It's the same when playing a VST of strings or any other instrument on a keyboard. You have to think like a string section or like someone playing trombone, etc. Just because you can cut loose and play other notes doesn't mean you should.

I once knew a very good guitar player...and because bass is just the four lower keys of a guitar, he would often enjoy switching with a bass player. We all enjoyed jamming and when he was on bass, he had no problems with the instrument. But, he would get involved and the guitar player in him would kind of take over and before long, he was playing bass like he would play guitar. I guess you could say there was no dead air, when he played bass.

There were times that he got so "into it" that I'd have to remind him, "Think bass, man, think bass!"
 
And here is the point where I will be kind of a dick and say that if you can't play an instrument such as bass guitar, you maybe shouldn't be making music in the first place.

I know that is a personal opinion and likely will sound very rude and mean to some, but this forum is about recording at home. Not programming at home.

There are forums for that type of music. I just don't see this the place for it. Maybe I am wrong...

If you can play a piano and can't grasp a bass guitar and sample the notes? Then quit because you suck at music.

Feel free to leave comments and neg rep me.

Merry Christmas. :)

I find the idea that a guitarist can't be a bass player to be an elistist snobbish attitude.

If it has strings, if one has a concept of rhythm , melody, time.....it can be played. Just takes a bit of practice. (Like anything)
Maybe one will never be an Entwistle orJaco, but basics can be learned and with the magic of modern daw editing, great (or at least acceptable) bass parts can be laid down. And it will sound real. Because it is.
:D
 
ah - in my head there are two kinds of bass players. The solid engine room types who sync with the drummer and keep the songs moving, adding the support at the bottom. These ones need the keys player to go light with the left hand and leave that bottom octave and a bit to the bass - as two bass lines confuses and makes a mess, however, the other type of bass player needs the keyboard left hand to be solid because they've buggered off and are at the top end playing tunes and chords. Twiddly merchants like this just annoy me. Bass is not meant to play melodies, not meant to play chords and not meant to forget their place in the band. The great bass players who also sing, rarely show off on the bass, even if they can!
 
ah - in my head there are two kinds of bass players. The solid engine room types who sync with the drummer and keep the songs moving, adding the support at the bottom. These ones need the keys player to go light with the left hand and leave that bottom octave and a bit to the bass - as two bass lines confuses and makes a mess, however, the other type of bass player needs the keyboard left hand to be solid because they've buggered off and are at the top end playing tunes and chords. Twiddly merchants like this just annoy me. Bass is not meant to play melodies, not meant to play chords and not meant to forget their place in the band. The great bass players who also sing, rarely show off on the bass, even if they can!

The old jazzers had an answer to this! Jazz quartets (P,B,D,G) would have the main "tune" on the Jo' but let each instrumentalist have a little turn at showing off. Then there is the fact that the bull fiddle does NOT sound like a kick drum so not likley to mask each other. The bastard, cobbled up device that is bass guitar often just "thuds". Jazz drummers were of course generally happy with jus a snare, a kick, a hihat and maybe some skulls? They also used BRUSHES quite a lot. Can you still buy those? (I jest)

Dave.
 
For ecc83, others,

I recently saw an Ed Sullivan rerun that featured a "gimmick" group of about a dozen Jazz brass, piano, string, instrumentalists. The gimmick was to only play a prolonged sequence of showy solos.

As I reflected upon what I saw, I thought how different that was compared to a Jazz quartet when a featured singer out front is conveying the emotional content found in the lyrics--everything done by the musicians is supporting the emotional mood of the song.

Your comment about brushes brought to mind particular images when a quartet drummer with brushes watches the singer in following the emotional content of a song (as would all the musicians)--an intersection of visual and sung emotional conveyance of song.

Of note, I've yet to acquire an appetite for Jazz when a singer is not featured; In giving this thought why, I suppose I find what musicians are doing in supporting the song more interesting than their soloing, unless the latter indeed supports the song.

Just sharing a unique musical experience (seen on Sullivan) and what it brought to mind, musically, of greater appreciation--JeffF.
 
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