Bass Emulation - Musical Creativity 23

Alan — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:19:55 +0000

Try to emulate a bass guitar using another instrument

Which Type?

There are several types of bass. First of all, decide which type you want to emulate: acoustic, semi-acoustic, electric bass or acoustic double-bass.

One at a Time

I used to think of the bass as being a monophonic or one-note-at-a-time instrument. Often it is, but it depends on the genre, and the bassist. Even those that feature one note at any one time will often have another note on another string hanging as the bassist makes the transition between strings.

Use a Keyboard

Pianologist has some very good hints on emulating bass using a keyboard.

One of the things to decide is whether you want it to sound like a bass guitar or not. Synths have a lot of bass patches and depending on the style of music, some are more suitable than others. I'm not saying anything revolutionary here, just as always, decide if it's meant to emulate, replace, hint at a bass guitar.

Use a Guitar

I've used a guitar to roughly emulate an electric bass. I liked the result, but it didn't really sound much like a real bass. I don't suppose I expected it to. Fortunately the softer sound that was produced worked better than expected. I tried replacing it with a bass later on. I'd recorded the guitar direct as I may do for a bass. I'd added a tube emulator (Silverspike's Ruby Tube worked well for this sound), added some subharmonics (can't remember the effect I used) and applied eq for a more bottom-heavy sound. I wasn't going to try and emulate the clack of the strings being plucked. I also added a mild speaker emulator for some extra depth, the speaker sound is not as important for a bass recording as for a guitar. I also processed it through a mild chorus, again for some extra depth. To finish, I passed it through a gate, then compressor so that I could achieve a sound that had a slow attack and release. This gave the result I was looking for of a nice bass sound with a medium attack. It still had some of the characteristics of a guitar, but didn't have the boominess or artifacts that result from pitch manipulation.

Bassists play differently

This is an important point to remember, especially for guitarists. Bassists are not just guitarist who only play 4 strings, one at a time. A bassist will strike notes in different places to a guitarist. It's generally quite easy to spot a guitarist who's just picked up a bass to fill in for a missing bassist. They'll usually play on the beat and choose the root notes. A bassist will adapt their playing around the beat to either relax the music or add more excitement. The choice of notes from an experienced bassist will be well beyond the guitarist who's playing bass. This above any other characteristic will set good bassists apart from guittarists. Watch the ghost notes and passing notes, especially as they skip from supporting one chord to another or as they progress a rhythm change.

I think that there's only two things you can do to cover that gap:

1) listen and analyse some of the great players - understand what they do to make their sound. No matter how much a budding guitarist may concentrate on their tone, with the bassist, it's more about style of playing. There are a lot of sites, either owned by or dedicated to famous players. You can learn a lot from them.

2) practice over and over again

Each bass is different

In a way, if you're aiming to emulate the perfect bass sound, then you're trying to aim for a moving target. For any given song, the perfect sound would be different. And ask several people, get several answers as to what's perfect. Have a think about what's included in a bass, such as the woods, strings, amplifier, style of playing and focus on one particular type.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.