Music Theory - Make Effective Basslines - Warbeats Tutorial

from http://www.warbeats.com : To me basslines are the glue that connects the drums to the instruments. I don't know why I think that way but whatever. Making an effective bassline is probably easier than you think.

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what's up everybody and effects here
with another tutorial this tutorial I'm
going to talk about baselines i'm going
to talk about how to make a simple but
effective baseline i'm not going to talk
about how to make a baseline in any
specific genre or style
they're just too many styles out there
you know rules of for the styles are so
diverse that I don't really feel that I
can competently describe them all to you
and what I mean by the different styles
for example you have jazz bass lines you
have blues you have rock you have funk
you have you know all these for every
style of music there's usually a style
of base that goes with it you know
reggae whatever so i'm not going to talk
about those specifically because really
those are our our styles that you can
listen to songs from there and kind of
here
what's going on with them but what I
want to talk about is the importance of
a baseline and kind of what role it
it occupies engaging in music
the first thing I want to do is talk
about what a baseline the importance of
a baseline from the musical perspective
and that role that it plays is to occupy
a lower register when i'm talking about
a register i'm talking about kind of a
frequency range on the screen you see a
parametric equalizer and each one of
these bands represents a place in the
frequency scale and it goes from low on
this end too high on this end low
instruments like the base occur down
here and there are very few instruments
that occurred down here there are
some orchestral type instruments that
that happened down here
cellos kind of down in this area I think
there's actually a bass instrument in an
orchestra that occurs down here but you
know your choices for lower register
instruments are pretty slim and so
that's why base is very important
because it occupies this area down here
and your guitars and your vocals might
be here maybe hear your flutes and
button your butt your higher violins and
and stuff are going to occur and these
upper areas and any good song is
probably going to have some things all
across the spectrum because if you had a
song where everything was low or
everything was middle or everything was
high
it wouldn't sound too good so you
generally want to try to to have a
mixture of the various frequency range
is represented in a song and that's the
role of the baseline is to fulfill the
lower part of that register now in a in
a drum pattern that's not even talking
about drums so if we look at the drums
in the drums is kind of the same way
you've got your lower end handle by the
kick your middle handled by the snare
and your higher and handled by the
hi-hat so again it's like a good drum
pattern also will fill across the the
registers now the the base has a really
important role because it also helps to
glue the drum part with the musical part
and the reason it does that is because
it's often played along with the kick
drum so it's played in a in a rhythmic
way or uh it's played in a way that it's
within the groove so it helps to
establish that link between music and
percussion in in a song so to me the way
i see it like in my brain is kind of
like a a glue
it just it just takes two part and
without that part in the middle to hold
everything together it wouldn't it
wouldn't sound as nice and again that's
just my term in my opinion on that
sometimes a baseline is the song it's
it's I wouldn't say it's rare but it's
not really that common but if we think
of a song like super freak for example
you know goes dun dun dun dun dun dun
dun dun
you know that is the baseline that is
the song without that part in it you
wouldn't have quite the same thing
alright so let's talk about what a
baseline needs to do to be effective and
its really simple
there's really two things the baseline
needs to do to be effective it needs to
follow the chord progression or the skit
needs to be in the scale that you're
playing some songs don't have a chord
progression you know that's just the way
it goes and bye-bye progression I mean
it plays it in in a scale but there's no
movement to the courts it's just the
same chord over and over again in this
particular song that i have on the
screen i do have a chord progression but
chord progressions are always not i hate
to say always but generally they're
always done within a specific scale so
if you were like playing in this case
I'm i have my song in the a minor scale
all of my cords are built off notes
within the a minor scale because your
cords are built up all the notes on the
scale they sound consistent and usually
can sound a lot better than if they were
just going all over the place if you
don't know your scales and your chord
progressions you should probably want to
learn that I do have a tutorial on
scales out right now on my site
I don't have one on cords or chord
progressions yet but i do plan to do
those so by the time you're listening to
this they might be done already and you
might want to check it out but the
easiest thing to do for baseline is to
follow your chord progression in this
particular song like i said i do have a
chord progression going on it's going to
hear we're going to take a look at it
and we can see the the cords
this is the guitar part here and it's
just basically playing a an a minor I
think it's an E minor and then it and
then a couple of d minor chords in it
but if I wanted to let me just play this
patterns you can hear what it sounds
like
ok so that's the basic progression
that's going on now if I without the up
the absolute simplest way of making a
baseline is to make your your baseline
follow the root note of your court in
this case I know this is an a so I just
draw a in my baseline and then this one
happens to be a knee and the these two
are DS so I'm just going to draw those
in now let's just listen to what it
sounds like with these bass notes
hitting
ok doesn't sound you know too bad
because everything still in tune and in
case you're wondering why did I put the
note here instead of down here this cord
is an inverted cord which again go go
look it up if you don't know what i'm
talking about or look for my tutorial on
chords when it comes out but i can tell
you this is definitely an a minor so
that's why i put a here because that's
the root of my cord so anyway so now you
can hear i've got this basic for note
bass line playing along with my my chord
progression now from here this is it
this is this is the most simple way of
making a baseline and it and it does
bring a lot to the table just by doing
something that simple because it does
fulfill its role but you might want to
make it a little bit
jazzy or do do something with it and in
that case you can you know you might
want to pick a different note that's in
the it's in the scale like I might want
to go this way
so instead of doing the root note on the
second part i'll put in this G and then
let it play and it's you know you you'll
hear that it's going to still sound like
it belongs
ok let's just recap stay within your
scale and follow your chord progressions
and that's the simplest rule i can tell
you to making a baseline now you might
want to make a baseline more interesting
and in that case yeah do that and one of
the ways you can do that is to follow
your kick now I have this one it's
already done
it's basically using the same notes you
just saw the only difference is I've
shifted them over in the previous
version
this note was over here and these notes
were over here so lets just hear what it
what it sounds like with with the music
doesn't sound bad at all
now let me shift this over and even
though it seems like I'm just shifting
these guys over i happen to know because
I wrote the song that there are kicks
that hit at these locations as well and
when you when your bass notes hit with a
kick note they tend to have a stronger
and tighter feel to the song so now I've
shifted these guys over and let's take a
listen
so just by shifting these over it makes
it a little bit different and different
enough to where the ear is expecting it
to be early and it plays a little bit
later so it gives it a different groove
to the to the song and that's kind of
what I was going for now when i wrote
this baseline i played it i didn't i
didn't think of it in terms of OG let me
just pause and play a little bit late
I didn't think of it that way i just
played at how I felt it
that's one reason why I think it's
important for for those of you who don't
have a midi keyboard to get one
and start learning some of this because
a lot of times you're going to get a lot
better results when you can just kind of
play what you're feeling as opposed to
having to overthink what you're supposed
to do so anyway so there's my basic
baseline now goes along with the song
just fine but you might want to do a
little bit more to it you might want to
add some variation or some accents or
something else to it to to spice it up a
little bit
one thing that is kind of a very common
thing to do is in a baseline is to take
your root note let's say in this case is
this a and go two steps down 12 which
happens to be a G and then using that g
lead back into the a so if I was playing
this this pattern i might put a GNote
here to two lead back in now let's
listen to how this sounds so you can
hear that that coming back around into
the a fits so it's pretty common thing
that's done in baselines is when you're
about to come back to the to the
beginning go two steps down from your
note and you're rooting on this case
hey I go one two and then I can use that
so i can be like then I can go to get me
back to the a-bomb and I'm there
you don't need to do that but it's it's
done it's done quite quite often and
another thing you might want to do is
use gross note now honest and if i put
these back to kind of their standard
locations i'll show you what i mean by
ghosts know you can put a short note in
here and lower the velocity little bit
and what you're going to get is
something that plays more along the
lines of something like this
like that because this little ghost hit
is going to kind of remind you what
Kieran before it switches down to that G
and then here we're going to put another
one there and then here we might put
another one there and then let's just
take a listen you can see these little
ghost notes help to kind of just keep
the groove moving in this song I didn't
feel I needed them because i had some
other things happening that didn't
require time to move these back to their
original locations the ghost notes
wouldn't fit necessarily in the way I
hadn't before because the timing is
different i just want to let you know
about those ghost note the other thing
you might want to do is make a Phil to
accentuate the end of a four-bar phrase
for example and here I here's what
you're you're you're actually looking at
a film by go route back real quick you
can see that these notes aren't going to
change but these notes over here i'm
going to change them up and make
something that looks pretty radically
different and what that is is just
that's just playing basically a a run or
fill to make it more interesting before
the pattern repeats and if I play this
but this just this pattern by itself
you'll you'll hear how it sounds
okay and making films is really easy if
you remember again a couple of rules one
make sure you're in your scale if you're
not in your scale it's not going to
sound good
that's number one number two probably
the easiest way to make a phil is just
to walk up and maybe down the the scale
itself so here you know I know I was in
in my D chord my D minor chord so I just
started building up from there and I
just went up notes in the scale now when
I got to a certain point I came down so
that my last note would be just before
my a coming back down you know wouldn't
sound quite the same if if this was an a
so i just paid it right there and then
when it leads back into the a it kind of
sounds like it's naturally looping back
into a note that belongs in that
particular run or fill so that's an easy
way of doing it but you can do a lot of
things you can do octave jumps like you
might have let's say this is a here and
I might jump up an octave up here and
then maybe back down so might sound like
this okay and if you laid actually
faster might actually sound a little bit
better
let's let's just take a listen
yes so there that's just like an octave
jump that's just jumping up an octave
and back down again that's kind of a
common trick that's done with base I
don't say it's a trick it's a technique
let's just say that so they are showing
your ghost notes octave jumps I've shown
you how to do a fill and now let's kind
of just take a listen to see how the
base fits in with the song all together
as kind of just a final reminder of what
a baseline can do for your song
so there you have it
obviously this was not a very
complicated baseline the film may have
sounded a little bit complicated but I
told you the basic rules there and you
could see that it wasn't difficult
hopefully it wasn't difficult to for you
to understand what I was talking about
but let me just recap the baseline is
kind of the glue that holds a song
together without a baseline to me a song
oftentimes sounds empty if you have a
busy baseline try not to have a busy
melody going on elsewhere in the song
while bass lines tend to be simple they
can establish the whole song Allah
superfreak baselines important role is
to fill fulfill that lower register and
glue the drums to the rest of us into
the musical part of the song and the
most important thing about baselines
probably is no your scale number-one
know what scale you and so you know what
notes are going to sound good number to
follow your chord progression if you
have one if you give you if you do those
two things you're going to have a pretty
effective baseline then from there you
can add to it you can really get fancy
you can add you know the octave bumps
you can have you can do the phils you
can do ghost notes you can do a lot of
other things to make the base more
interesting if you think it needs it and
that's really up to you a lot of times
what will happen if you start off with a
very basic baseline to follows your song
you can be grooving along to song in
your brain your your hearing
Oh down there I could've just did this
with the base i could have just added an
extra note there I could have done to
fill here I could have dropped it
out right there you know you kind of
start to hear things in your head once
you get things establishing and moving
in in a song so hopefully you'll be able
to not think that bass lines are some
mysterious thing there's no magic to it
it's really easy and you know you start
with what i've shown you here and the
world is yours because you can you can
grow off of that as far as you want to
go so until the next tutorial this is an
effect signing out