working with active bass lines

J

jdavidb

New member
Working with active bass lines sure does make it hard to add the rest of the instruments to a song.

I've done hundreds of experiments with synthesizers, and I really never end up loving the tune because the synth always ends up taking over the whole defining attitude of the song when I am intending for bass to be the defining attitude. That same thing happens when I try a variety of Eddie Van Halen types of guitar parts (without synth). And that goes for pretty much all distorted guitar parts.

I know funk guitar, and have a large variety of influence to pull from for adding funk guitar to these bass lines, but I'm not liking it. I don't want disco guitar. I don't want Primus guitar. I don't want Yes chords that ring out until the chord change. I don't want Dancin' in the Streets (the VH cover) types of effects. I don't want acoustic guitar 8th note strumming or even any kind of Dave Mathews Band type stuff going on.

Here are some clips. They are all very small & short downloads:





Any ideas of what I could look into for actually turning this kind of bass stuff into entire songs someday?
 
Well the onefiveandtwozeros seemed pretty much like funk, and I liked it, the first two more rocky and harder, it's not just the bass line but the phrasing of it that to me makes it difficult (esp. the second track). And yeah, synth and distorted guitar take up a lot of spectrum :(

The songs in my signature link have quite busy bass lines, our approach is a very minimalist mix and little rhythm guitar, there may (but probably won't!) be something there to give you a thought.

Cheers

Garry
 
As ridiculously lame as this sounds, my only idea for making sure you don't have disco, Primus, DMB, Yes, or VH guitar, is to just put jdavidb style guitar work on it (it sounds like you're a guitarist). Kinda sad, but "be yourself" is the best advice I can give.

Is there a particular group whose approach you like? If yes, you may want to learn a few of the their tracks for inspiration.
 
Last edited:
This might sound werid but somtimes when Im stuck on a song I'll play it backwards(if on tape)and for some reason it gives me new ideals
Good luck!
 
bardo said:
This might sound werid but somtimes when Im stuck on a song I'll play it backwards(if on tape)and for some reason it gives me new ideals
Good luck!
Click to expand...

Your right. That does sound weird.
 
Thanks for the replies.

At the moment, I've got "access denied, bandwidth exceeded" from that host, which I thought would not happen. They'll be available again soon.

The bass playing is by me, so bass is what I knew starting out recording two years ago. I knew acoustic guitar and hard rock & heavy metal guitar, but that wasn't doing it for this kind of bass stuff, so I learned funk guitar and more.

I do think guitar eventually turns out to be my favorite companion for those bass lines. It just takes a whole lot of trial & error to come up with guitar parts that I like. They almost always become two or more tracks of layered guitars and a wah pedal in there somewhere.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top