Are you using a bass guitar or keyboard for bass notes?

Ricklh

Ricklh

New member
I've been eyeing some low-dollar bass guitars but I have used my old 80's Yamaha keyboard to supply some bass sounds on some of my demo's. What do you use for bass sounds? The real thing or some electronic form of bass? Isn't keyboard bass sufficient for basic backing purposes?
 
midi bass

Ricklh said:
I've been eyeing some low-dollar bass guitars but I have used my old 80's Yamaha keyboard to supply some bass sounds on some of my demo's. What do you use for bass sounds? The real thing or some electronic form of bass? Isn't keyboard bass sufficient for basic backing purposes?
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I use a midi (fingered) bass and I am a bass player. I get a great sound. I also use a keyboard kick-bass sound that is good. Having said that, there are some tunes where the bass part just calls for a good bass guitar. You can do things on a bass guitar that you can't on a keyboard.
 
I use my ESP B-205 five string bass. To me, keyboards are cool, but you just can't get the same feel as a real bass.

The guy who played keyboard in one the bands I was in played the bass lines on his other Roland keyboard, giving the band the Ray Manzeric (I didn't spell that right...) Doors sound. He was glad as hell that I joined. He said he could get close to the tone, but not the feel. To him the bass lines he played always felt a bit artificial....



Just my two cents...
 
I am a bass player and spend a lot of $ on bass gear. If my wife found out I used a keyboard for bass she would kill me. Just kidding, she wouldn't know the difference.
The truth of the matter is I suck at anything keyboard.
 
I tried it once. I was trying to do this song that I felt needed a really low, grumbling bass line. I used a keyboard to get everything an octave lower than even a 5-string bass could go. I played it for my friend, and the first words out of his mouth were "wtf is wrong with the bass? Is that a keyboard or something?"

I was busted!
 
bass

i use a bass but

here is a great trick i learned, play your bass part on your guitar, but dont play too fast or it wont be beleivable, won t sound like fat strings so no hot riffs

then import that into n track, use the pich shift effect, one octive lower, and boom you have a great bass , really sounds real,,add some compression

learned this from mac, a real recording enginer , hangs out at audiominds.com , so to give credit where it is due...
 
dave in toledo said:
i use a bass but

here is a great trick i learned, play your bass part on your guitar, but dont play too fast or it wont be beleivable, won t sound like fat strings so no hot riffs

then import that into n track, use the pich shift effect, one octive lower, and boom you have a great bass , really sounds real,,add some compression

learned this from mac, a real recording enginer , hangs out at audiominds.com , so to give credit where it is due...
Click to expand...

That's an interesting idea - now, I'll have to see if Guitar Tracks will do pitch- shifting.
 
I always hand entered bass lines into Cakewalk and played them using a Roland M-BD1, which has samples of studio bass players. Great sound, but very mechanical. I got a cheap bass and run it direct - makes an amazing difference.
 
I have a MB-4 bass guitar made by Fender's Squier, it sounds real and alive, something you just can't get with the keyboard, I used to play lines with my Casio keyboard.
 
I started out using the keyboard with passable results, but a year ago got a Boss DR-3 drum machine with built in bass sounds (including a convincing double bass) That works well, because the timing is dead-on. It's got a MIDI in, so I use my keyboard as a controller.

No matter how good the bass sound is, though, there are some things that it's hard to do on a keyboard....hammer-ons, holding the note out the exact right length, etc., so I bought a real bass.
 
I remember the frustrating days, before I had a bass and a drum machine, of using my mums Yamaha keyboard for both.

Sitting for 4 minutes playing the same beat manually is a very time consuming thing to do, especially when you mess up the last few bars at the end!!!!! AAAARGH!!!!! :)
 
dave in toledo said:
i use a bass but

here is a great trick i learned, play your bass part on your guitar, but dont play too fast or it wont be beleivable, won t sound like fat strings so no hot riffs

then import that into n track, use the pich shift effect, one octive lower, and boom you have a great bass , really sounds real,,add some compression

learned this from mac, a real recording enginer , hangs out at audiominds.com , so to give credit where it is due...
Click to expand...
Yeah, I use the pitch shift now. At the time I did the recording, I didn't have the software (didn't even know there was any, I was a newbie). I guess the only problem with that would be trying to reproduce it live, but they make good bass processors now that will do that. I can't afford one yet... :o
 
If you're recording rock-lineage music, the sound of a bass guitar cannot be easily replaced by synthesized sound.

Of course, if you're recording electronica, it's a different story.

As a guitarist who also plays keyboard, I never thought I'd own a bass. But once I started getting into recording, I realized I just couldn't do without that warm round electric bass sound. As soon as I bought my Fender Jazz bass, suddenly my music sounded more "real", if that makes any sense.

The same could be said about drums. Unfortunately, my space (and my wife) does not allow me to have one, so I have to make due with a drum machine and a single snare.
 
I change between using a bass guitar and a Korg MS2000 depending on the track. You can't match the sound of a real bass for some things. I never sequence bass on the Korg though and with basic velocity on the keys it can still sound 'human'. I've never had any luck sampling the bass guitar I've always got on better just playing it and correcting my mistakes in the DAW :-)
 
I use my keyboard for now, but I would definitely prefer to use a real bass. Getting a bass guitar is certainly on my to do list.
 
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