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.