How Do You Play Synth Bass?

[brandondrury]

This may seam like a stupid question, but how do you play synth bass? I realize that a zillion hit songs have been done with keys playing bass, but I'm having trouble making it work for my current project. (country, pop, rock blend).

I guess I'm just locked into electric bass and switching to synth bass is VERY different. Here's my biggest problem. Let's take a song like.... I don't know..... "Livin' After Midnight" by Judas Priest with its signature drum beat.....

boom bo-boom
pop pop


Let's assume we have one note on the bass for the whole bar....let's just say "E". On an electric bass, the first note will be sustaining when the next beat is hit, but you will still hear the attack from the bass.

The only way I've managed to get this attack on the next beat is to lift my finger off the key, effective killing the sound for a second. This is NOT what we want.

I have two theories.
#1 - Maybe I need a sustain pedal for the keyboard
#2 - I'm approaching keyboard bass totally wrong.

Any thoughts?
(Maybe I need to be ordering a p bass sooner than I thought)

Brandon

[richiebee]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

This may seam like a stupid question, but how do you play synth bass?? I realize that a zillion hit songs have been done with keys playing bass, but I'm having trouble making it work for my current project.? (country, pop, rock blend).?

I guess I'm just locked into electric bass and switching to synth bass is VERY different.? Here's my biggest problem.? Let's take a song like.... I don't know..... "Livin' After Midnight" by Judas Priest with its signature drum beat.....

boom? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? bo-boom? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? pop? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? pop


Let's assume we have? one note on the bass for the whole bar....let's just say "E".? On an electric bass, the first note will be sustaining when the next beat is hit, but you will still hear the attack from the bass.

The only way I've managed to get this attack on the next beat is to lift my finger off the key, effective killing the sound for a second.? This is NOT what we want.?

I have two theories.
#1 - Maybe I need a sustain pedal for the keyboard
#2 - I'm approaching keyboard bass totally wrong.

Any thoughts?
(Maybe I need to be ordering a p bass sooner than I thought)

Brandon? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

There's a legato function in Cubase. That should butt the end of one note upto the next.

MIDI > FUNCTIONS > LEGATO

[dach]

BUY THE DAMN BASS AND GET OVER IT!

you can always trigger a sample track from the performance and massage that as necessary....

However IF you want to be difficult, you will need to either improve your keyboard chops, do something similar to what Richiebee suggested or edit the bass patch (hint: release, polyphany/etc...)....

However in some sort of shape or fashion... you WILL need to vary the ADSR envelope with controllers to mimic the "attack" and "sustain" of a real bass... once again, the controller is your friend, the mouse your enemy.....

[brandondrury]

Well shit! :P

BUY THE DAMN BASS AND GET OVER IT!

Yeah, that doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. I just have to figure out how to play the damn thing. No matter what, it sounds like I'm gonna need to be able to play.

I was hoping to "make" music....not "play" it.

Brandon