good advice on baselines

[CatasBeats]

yo i cant play basslines either but i dont know notes or none of that, i tried reading up on music theory myself but add gets in the way of that lol.

i just filter the bass from the sample yo like lay out all my chops how i want the song arranged, throw some drums on it to make sure its gonna work how i chopped and how ill want the drums in the end, then i just mute the drums, and throw all the chops in a single mixer track and filterit to where its just the bassline, i mean youll get bumps from the kicks and snares in the tracks so you gotta compress to get it even, and i also run miscelleneos bass plugins and shit to bring the boom out of it but even if you chop crazy if your arranging right the bass will be smooth, i mean but if you get real intricate with the chops and shit is all choppy like the bass tho it dont work.

but thats why im downloading trilogy now and coppin a midi controller next week and gonna try and learn some basic notes like what goes with what etc

[Rafferty]

Originally Posted by CatasBeats

i just filter the bass from the sample yo like lay out all my chops how i want the song arranged, throw some drums on it to make sure its gonna work how i chopped and how ill want the drums in the end, then i just mute the drums, and throw all the chops in a single mixer track and filterit to where its just the bassline, i mean youll get bumps from the kicks and snares in the tracks so you gotta compress to get it even, and i also run miscelleneos bass plugins and shit to bring the boom out of it but even if you chop crazy if your arranging right the bass will be smooth, i mean but if you get real intricate with the chops and shit is all choppy like the bass tho it dont work.

hey man, if your ADD will allow it could you go through this once more, a little bit slower and more clearly, and maybe separate it into like four or five different sentences? I think maybe I have a bit of ADD too, which makes it hard for me to understand long one-sentence paragraphs like that, but it seemed cool. If you don't mind

[mrfloyd]

Raff-
What Catasbeats is saying (I think) is:
-Once you have your sample in a track (lets call this Track 1), copy it to another track (lets call this track 2).
-Mute all of the tracks except for track 2.
-Remove all of the high frequencies from track 2, leaving just the low & mids.
-Play around with the EQs on track 2 trying to emphasize or create MORE bass sounds.
-How about we throw a compressor on track 2 too!
-Maybe some distortion on track 2?? Really create a BASS heavy track out of a sample that originally consisted of a good range of frequencies.
-Now unmute the rest of the tracks....play around with the EQ on track 2 a bit more to calm the bass heavy animal we created.
-BAM!!!!!
-Now we got a bass track that is without a doubt going to be in tune with the original sample!!!

I caught on to this from listening to some of Madlibs stuff. He seems to be a BIG fan of this.

This is kinda like cheating and doesnt work well on every project, but sometimes it really works well!

[Rafferty]

I hear what you're saying... the Low End Theory, right?

So track 1 (the original track), PLUS track 2 (original track minus everything but the bass frequencies) EQUALS boomin bass... right?

My question is, how is the result fundamentally different from if you just take track 1 and increase the bass frequencies?

[mrfloyd]

Originally Posted by Rafferty

I hear what you're saying... the Low End Theory, right?

So track 1 (the original track), PLUS track 2 (original track minus everything but the bass frequencies) EQUALS boomin bass... right?

My question is, how is the result fundamentally different from if you just take track 1 and increase the bass frequencies?

If you just increase the bass frequencies on track 1, you are increasing the gain on the low frequency while keeping the mids & highs in place. Basically just EMPHASING the bass that already exists.This works in some cases but is different from CREATING a bass using track 2.
By adding distortion and compression you can actually CREATE a bass sound out of ALL of the frequencies in the track. By adding these effects you are not just EMPHASIZING the lows of the track, you are creating a LOW that keeps the melody of the original track (track 1).
This works really well on abstract, Madlib type shit. But if you are looking for good separation of frequencies....this is obviously not the way to go.
But its the 1st thing I try when working with a beat. I give a shot to see if works....cause its the easiest way. If it works on that specific project, great! If it doesn't???? Time to learn that music theory shit, and bang on some keys!

[Rafferty]

okay, I see what you're saying. Cool. You do all this in Reason?

And the other thing I'm a bit confused on: CatasBeat was talking about chops, too. Do you chop up the result? Do you do your chops in parallel (same chops on track 2 as on track 1)?

[mrfloyd]

Originally Posted by Rafferty

okay, I see what you're saying. Cool. You do all this in Reason?

And the other thing I'm a bit confused on: CatasBeat was talking about chops, too. Do you chop up the result? Do you do your chops in parallel (same chops on track 2 as on track 1)?

Reason is a great tool for this approach, because of the simplicity of the SCREAM Distortion module. But Reason is all MIDI.....so actually tracking the Audio like we have been talking about isn't exactly possible but its the same theory.
I have always used Reason for this approach because it's the only program I kind of got a grip on. I am kind of comfortable with manipulating the FX. But, it's just kind of playing it by ear. So Ableton will work great too. Just gotta play around to create that bass.

I can't speak for CatasBeat....But, what I described is what I THINK he was talking about. If it is....Then track 1 would match track 2. Except for those instances in the sequence where you would choose to drop the bass....or keep the bass only.... then you would simply delete that section from either track 1 or track 2, keeping the sound you want to hear on the other track.

It really just tricking out the bass on track 2. Distorting it to carry more weight....with all the fx and shit (at least in Reason) I usually end up turning the volume down on track 2 to mellow it out a tad. If you were manipulating the bass using only 1 track (track 1 only...track 2 doesnt exist) you end up loosing all the other freqs.

[Rafferty]

gotcha. Thanks mang, I'll try this out soon

[[grimeshine]]

Originally Posted by CatasBeats

i you gotta compress to get it even, and i also run miscelleneos bass plugins and shit to bring the boom out of it

Im not understanding how that will take the boom out. Perhaps your talking about a gate or a normalizer?

Also, im not really a fan of just putting a lowpass filter on it. Sometimes, ill put a low pass filter on one chop, and put that chop on 16 levels and play it the way i play all my other bass samples

[CatasBeats]

word everyone has their own techniques. i was just tryna explain how i do my basses.

i was pretty stoned last night and was explaining all fast sorry if i lost you guys but its hard to explain shit id just have to show you in a vid or something.

i use fruity loops. i bring all my chops into fruityloops i doint chop in fruity loops. i time stretch and arrange my chops using the step sequencer and the playlist. i put drums to it. i havent messed with the sample at all yet except timestretching and arranging. once my drums are set how i want them i put the in there individual mixer tracks and mute them all for now. i then put all the chops from the sample in one single mixer track and use the fl filter to get just the bass. low end theory or whatever. so now when i hit play in the playlist where i already arranged the chops and put my drums(the drums are muted)all you hear is the original sample bass, i compress and eq and sometimes bassboost a frequency to make it full the low lows like in the 20's is where its usually lacking. then i export the entire beat, but since the drums are muted all that exports is the original bass in the sample. i then drag and drop it in the playlist so the whole basswav is there.

then i take the filters compressors eq's and stuff off of the chops that are in there single file, so the chops are back to normal, i run the usual shit on the chops like eq's to bring out the mids and highs, and i take the lows down since i already have the bass loaded in a different file. i unmute the drums and from there im good to go

everything is arranged the drums bass and original highs and mids, and the newly exported bass. since the bass is in the playlist i can slice and cut pieces for drops fade all that right there. hit export and voila