Changed from VST to real Bassguitar

[RizzakBeats]

Hey illiens,

My Samplers don't sound as good as a bassguitar I'm used to hear on soul, jazz and rock recordings. Also I have a musician-friend who is in a metal band and he owns one although he is a guitarist. Everytime I had some smooth beats I had to ask him if he has the time to play it for me. He told me that those guitars are not too expensive. So yesterday I was at my local musicstore and went to buy one. It's an Ibanez and I tried it on some of my beats. I don't know if it is like a placebo effect because I spent around 300€ for everything (guitar, cable, belt, safety locks) and I'm thinking like "this HAS to sound better because I spent money for it" haha, but it gives my beats a way thicker and way warmer sound.
I love the organic feeling to it because I'm about to get sick of all quantized plastic sounding presets of my logic. (But still using "Retro Synth" with my own synthesized Basssound)

Does anyone of you have a bassguitar and uses it for making beats? If yes, do you feel like it improved your sound and why? Do you have some tips & tricks on the sound or the mix? If you don't own one, what kind of synthi or instrument do you use for your baseline?

(shoutout to the musicstore seller who got me some €'s off the total amount :up2::up2::up2

 

[Fade]

Congrats on adding a bass guitar to your setup! It's something I've considered as well. I always thought it would be great even just to pluck a string here and there and then sample that, then chop it up. Let us know how it goes as you continue to use it.

What I usually use is bass samples or sometimes a bass VST that I'll play on the pads when I'm mixing.

 

[RizzakBeats]

Thanks, for my last Beat I made, the We Got Love flip, I also used my bassguitar and then recorded a little loop and sampled it. It works very good in my opinion, but I'm curious about how it will be when I want to record a longer sequence. I'll let you know.

 

[crosstevsky]

I don't have a bass guitar in my set up, but I plan to invite my friend to record some basslines for me, and see what will come out. Also we are planning to come up with some sort of a live hip hop act...

 

[RizzakBeats]

You have to tell me after your record session what you think about the sound of the bass guitar. I guess some live hiphop act could be actually pretty dope :up2:

 

[OGBama]

@RizzakBeats main investment if you bought a bass guitar is some lessons and from there decide how much time you want to commit as that is the key to greatness.

 

[JAY UNO]

Man I've been wanting a bass guitar. I find myself fattening up basslines constantly, and I'm not fully satisfied with my current setup. Congrats. Keep producing.

 

[JAY UNO]

@RizzakBeats main investment if you bought a bass guitar is some lessons and from there decide how much time you want to commit as that is the key to greatness.

Dropping jewels as always. Ogbama!

 

[RizzakBeats]

@OGBama Yeah, nothing is better than lessons to learn it the right way
@JAY UNO if you have a friend of yours who owns a bass guitar, hit him up and work together on at least one song so you can see if and how it does improve your sound. for me, I'm totally satisfied :up2:

 

[*D*]

I picked up the bass back in 2004 and I'm still learning more and more. I'm old school so I had to learn from books and people teaching me. Taking lessons is a great way to start off. The amount of practice you put into it will be paid back in full with your skills. Basic theory and technique is the secret to your practice. Let me know if you need any tips.

 

[Bugsy]

Man, I've been wanting one as well, Its definitely better to process raw sound coming from actual instruments and the reason it sounds better is that of that low end which sometimes lacking from Vst's as they have already been processed to a specific degree.

One of the instruments I played in High School was the bass guitar for Ska and Punk Rock bands. I've always played them by ear.
A tip I can give you is to try learning the Major and Minor scales. Major is the easiest and most noticeable in music. when you're comfortable with that, everything else will be easy.

Also, now that you're using it for your beats, collect free amps that you can add to your channel strip to get some variety.
There are different types of Bass guitars, but I won't get into that.

 

[RizzakBeats]

Thanks to all for replying to my post!

Quite nice that there are people were /are also playing the bass guitar. After a while I'm not using it for every beat, but for those who fit the best, I'm definitely using it. Also I'm trying to quantize as less as possible, so I have to record some loops over and over again because that quantizing makes beats to clean in my opinion.

Have a nice weekend!