Another hopefully not so dumb question

[LordBid]

so I was wondering how long do you usually write a bassline? do most people usually do 4 bar loops? or do you do 4 bars and then some variations on it? sometimes i jsut cant tell between all the crazy noises if its the same melody or not. I want to keep my tunes coherant,and I really want to make a song that sounds good and not all repetitive and shitty.

[Pistonsbeneath]

just do whatever works for you man

[LordBid]

well i suppose thats why im asking is shit aint workin

[dynamat]

creativity, although u cant tell someone to be creative...well u can...but its not much help

be creative

[antics]

Normally I work in 4/8 bar loops, which is just a 1/2 bar loop tweaked slightly each time, I feel if i use the same bar over and over again that the tune gets too obvious, and making any more requires creativty that im still searching for

[Basic A]

I usually write 16s... whole verse b-lines... But Im including all my bass incidentals in as part of that, if I take them away, typically, its a 4 in disguise... usually change up the last note on the 8s to give it a pick-em up, sometimes Ill write two that are just cut-and-change-order versions of the first, so that although they come in a new order/pattern/groove, the same basic notes are at play still, just ogtta bear theory in mind so the root doesnt change to something conflicting if whatever your writing is real melodic or w/e...

Most of the variance is gonna come from modulation with brostep, and if whatever your writing particularly deep, you probably wont need much more then a sub with some micro-sensitive lfoing to give it a LITTLE bit of movement...

In brostep, dont overestimate the power of the LFO rate, and dont underestimate the power of the simple change of modulation...

Listen to alot of cookie monsta or even more in depths lke stench, and youll here that alot of the time, those guys use 4-8-16 bar loops with a different effects set everytime it comes around...

Get creative.

[tripwire22]

write 4 bars
copy paste edit the pasted
copy that so u have 16

alter them

copy past again u have 32 alter more?
copy again u have 64 alter w.e u want

drop do it all again lol

[kaiori breathe]

Simplest way to write a bass line is to look at your chord progression (if you have one) and just play the lowest note of each chord for as long as the chord lasts.

If you're moving from C Major, to D minor, to E minor, to D minor it'll look kind of like this
------------------------------- ____________
___________------------------------------------------------

Then you can start altering it a little, if we assume each of the lines in the diagram above lasts 4 beats (i.e. 1 bar) then the best place to add a new note would be on the final beat of each bar.

SO instead of a boring bass that just goes C (for 4 beats) D (for 4 beats) E (for 4 beats) then D again (for four beats) we could spice it up a little. And have a bass line that goes:

C (3 beats) G (1 beat) - D (3 beats) A (1 beat) - E (3 beats) B (1 beat) - D (3 beats) A (1 beat)

This is just a really simple example of some simple phrasing. You could try reversing it too. So instead of a pattern that goes 3 beats, 1 beat, 3 beats, 1 beat...etc you could flip it the other way, and go 1 beat, 3 beats, 1 beat, 3 beats... Or you could go wild and have each note last 2 beats. It's up to you really, just don't do something silly like this:

C (2 beats) G (3 beats) D (5 beat) A (1 beat) E (1 beats) B (2 beats) D (1 beat) A (1 beats) - There's no consistency in the length of each beat, there's no over all pattern. This makes for a shitty bass line and is to be avoided.

You might even want to try highlighting your entire bass line and moving the whole thing half a beat to the right to give it an offbeat feel.

When you have the basic phrasing down you could work on your rhythm. A really typical bassline would alternate between slow and fast wobbles. So for example, you'd set your LFO's speed (if it was synced to move in time) to the following settings.

C (3 beats) G (1 beat) - D (3 beats) A (1 beat) - E (3 beats) B (1 beat) - D (3 beats) A (1 beat)
1/4 1/8 1/4 1/8 1/4 1/8 1/4 1/8

Then again you could make things a little more complex, and have the A note at the very end set to wobble in triplets, i.e., 1/8T

(I use reason so I'm not sure if other programs use the same system for syncing the Lfo, but I'm sure they use something similar. 1/4 basically means it will wobble once per beat, 1/8 is twice per beat, 1/8T is 3 times per beat.

Making a bass line doesn't just happen instantly, you've got to start out simple and slowly build it up in terms of its complexity.

There are some things to remember with writing a bass line:

1., Have a direction, don't just go up and down randomly at a whim. Gradually go up, or gradually go down. (You could go up then down, or down then up, or hell, up then down then up a bit more then down a bit less and up some more if you really want, but the important thing is to have an overall direction. You bass line should look something like this:
----------------------------------______
--------------_____----______
____--------

I'm just using that as an example of what an ascending bassline might look like, you can see some notes actually go down, but as a general rule everything is moving up. For an example of what a descending bass line might look like, just sit upside down and look at the screen again.

If you are compelled to know what a bass line that ascends then descends might look like get a mirror and slap it to the right of my shitty diagram.

Here's what a bad bass line will look like:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



---------------____________-----------------________---------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_________________


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see it has no overall direction and it jumps between small steps and massive leaps between notes.

As for structure, some people write 4 bar bass lines, some write 8, some people are mental fuckers who write 32. I would say that the bass line is usually the last thing I write, I usually start with chords then a melody, or vice versa. This makes writing a bass line much easier as all I have to do is copy the bottom line of the chord sequence and vary it. So as a general rule, I will have 4 chords played over 4 bars and my basslines will be 4 bars long, then I'll just copy and paste that and alter it rythmically and very very slightly melodically in a way that makes sense.

I usually play the 4 bar bass line as is, then play the same 4 bars with slight rhythmic variation, then the original 4 bars, then the same rhythmically varied 4 bars as before with something a little melodically different. Usually the melodic alteration will occur in the final bar.

2., Don't start on a C then go to the D above it, then down to a G then up to a G#, either move in small motions or move in big ones, don't try to do both (there are exceptions to this, but as a general rule this will keep you fairly well grounded). The odd leap in a bass line moving in small degrees is sometimes acceptable, but try to keep it to a minimum.

3., Don't over do octave jumps. For instance going from C3 to C4 then D3 to D4 then E3 to E4 then D3 to D4, instead try saving your octave jump for the end of the bass line's phrase.

4., Have a look at the notes within some of the weirder chords. Sometimes you can have fun building bass lines out of them. I'm really loving the sound of an inverted minor 7th at the minute. Translated into a moving bass line it can sound quite nice, try playing the notes C4,B3, G3, D3 in that order, it's quite melodic and there's a lot you can do with it. Playing around with the notes in a Major 9 without the 7th can also yield some nice results. If you're into darker sounding bass lines try looking at the notes in minor 6th chords, and Diminished chords.

5., Take the time to ignore all advice I've put up here. Sometimes breaking the rules is just as rewarding as following them.

I hope everything here has made some sort of sense and I haven't confused you to death. If I have feel free to ask me about it or alternatively really take point number 5 to heart.

Hopefully the diagrams came out ok, they seemed fine in preview mode...

EDIT: Apologies if this is too in depth or just loads of stuff you already know. But I figured better to post a ton of useless stuff that might have one useful or relevant piece of info than to post nothing and leave you hanging.

[jsills]

minimum 8's but usually 16's an 32's make it

[kaiori breathe]

Also, in terms of stopping your bass line from sounding repetitive try using more than one bass line, perhaps have the first 3 beats played by something thick and warm then have the last beat played by something tinny and cold and metallic.

[mickledan]

@ kaiori breathe

Thanks for taking the time

[LordBid]

kaiori breathe

wow that was one of the best posts i have ever read thank you my man!

[kaiori breathe]

kaiori breathe

wow that was one of the best posts i have ever read thank you my man!

You're welcome, I wasn't sure if anything I'd said would be of use so I'm glad it's somewhat helpful.

[yamaz]

Thx kaori, I've been learning about chords and chord progressions lately and this all fit well and gives me more to think about and experiment with bass lines!

This is all good shit, feel free to add more

[kaiori breathe]

Thx kaori, I've been learning about chords and chord progressions lately and this all fit well and gives me more to think about and experiment with bass lines!

This is all good shit, feel free to add more

I can't really say much more on the subject, other than that if you really want to take a look at how to make great bass lines try looking outside of dubstep. Here are some good places to start:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcanWkRbnwQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJCVwMqpfVU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrITESgntMQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgKVkTV ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N3_odXX ... re=channel

/\ Watch what these guys are doing with regards to bass lines, there's a lot of movement and it's all in relation to the chords they play, all their bass lines add to the texture of the chords they're playing.

These guys also have fantastic phrasing and you'll probably hear a lot of off-beat bass lines. So you might be able to pick up on some fun phrasing ideas.

I also recommend looking at how jazz musicians would write their bass lines and listening to some Joe Satriani or Steve Vai, they both have fairly exciting bass lines that are quite easily transferable to dub-step in terms of writing style (although they might not appear it at first). Funk musicians write some fucking great bass lines too, so get into some funk.

Just open your ears really. Listen to other genres.