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How to play bass lines on guitar. for loopers. Depends on which guitar, and what you like. 1) Just play them on guitar. With a single coil neck p/u and sticking to the very lowest notes it does work quite well. Turn off any fx, clean sound is best. May need a bit of thought to get a good sounding line to play in your chosen key, probably not much fun in Eb. Then make sure there's nothing in the mix to destroy the illusion. e.g. Don't strum a load of big chords over it, maybe think about switching p/u for the other layers.2) Octave dividers. The best I've used is the Electro Harmonix Octave Multiplexer.
Gives you more controls to focus the sound and the dry signal part can be mixed in with a high quality signal. I'm currently using the EH Bass Microsynth instead, good enough with the right settings and produces other useful sounds too. 3) Harmonisers. Electro Harmonix, and I presume the other manufacturers who care about such things now make harmonisers which can pitch downwards with very little latency. They track sloppy playing better than an octave divider. Can't say I ever liked the sound much though. 4) Synth fx. Sometimes found on multi-fx units. I include these because I've used one on the Vox VDL-1 Dynamic Looper for simple bass lines and it seemed to really work ( the actual bass emulations on that pedal are truly awful). Maybe the Pigtronix Mothership would work as a bass line maker?? 5) Half Speed playback. Best sound, as long as the playing is twice as accurate as needed, and as long as guitar is bassy enough to start with. 6) Midi Guitar. Works for some. Hot tip is to actually play high notes and have them transposed down by the synth to avoid latency. 7) Those Roland guitar synths. ( I haven't tried ) More generally. It really helps to "think bass". (although these days not many bass guitarists do this) Concentrate on getting a deep tone, finger style if possible. Play cleanly. Be sure to end each note with clean damping to silence (the esoteric secret which used to be passed on from player to player) Stay in the low register. Play only the notes that really need to be there. It really helps to leave space for the bassline by not putting low notes in the other layers, the lowest 2 strings on a guitar will tend to interfere with it. Also those guitar chords that start with root and fifth can be avoided. Obviously an equivalent use of eq to remove low and low mid is just as good,. Out of all the methods, 2) Octave divider would be my favourite, the 'think bass' tips help the effect to track. andy On 11/12/2013 23:25, Marc wrote:
Hi, On some loops, it can be cool to have a bass part with the drum on the back, but switching from guitar to bass and return to guitar can be a little too long on stage. Did you have a solution to play a bass part with your guitar ? (I've tried with my HOG, and with Octavers/Harmonizers, it is far from a bass sound, even a synth bass sound...) Roland VG ? Sound to midi interface like http://www.sonuus.com/ G2M, connected in midi with a expander ? All your knowledge is welcome. Marc