w\o buying a bass…
Newbie here and thanks to everyone who has helped with the basic problems.
This question will most likely show I’m clueless - oh well.
My reason for buying my Tascam recorder was mostly for doing simple recordings of my songs - rhythm guitar and vocals - simply to listen back to a quality recording and make changes, edits, improvements, etc. But I can see that I may want to add in my Drum machine, a lead track, and a bass track in the future.
My question: Is there an effect in n-track where I can record a bass-line riff on my guitar, and then drop it an octave? Or is recording a bass only possible with a bass or a midi device?
If that’s a stupid question, then feel free to have a laugh on me.
Kernix 
Check out the N-track pitch shifter. I think it is exactly what you want.
Another way of doing the same thing that might give a different sound is to use “Time Stretch” (Track/Special/Time_Stretch) to transpose the track that you’re playing along with up an octive; play along with it on the guitar at the new double speed and then transpose back down an octive - assuming that you can play it at double speed.
Ta
John
If your going to record bass tracks (which is a neccesity for good songs) just go out and buy yourself a cheap squier bass or look on ebay, etc. You can probably get a decent sounding one for $100. I’d pass on the whole workaround theory. Are all nTrackers really THAT poor.
Its like baking a cake and you have no oil left so you just add another egg…and we all know it comes out flat and soggy. hmph!
I use a program called guitar pro wich is a midi based program, you can tell it you want a four string bass ,and insted of the piano roll you can type it in to tab. then i save it to midi inport it to n-track and use a bass soundfont. The result is great but takes a lot of time. I may even try the pitch shifter,dont know how that will sound.
Litmus
| Quote (Litmus @ Mar. 31 2005,14:24) |
| I may even try the pitch shifter,dont know how that will sound. |
You might be surprised
Experiment with different pickup choises on the guitar(s) when you try it out.
| Quote (silvermachina @ Mar. 31 2005,14:03) |
| If your going to record bass tracks (which is a neccesity for good songs) just go out and buy yourself a cheap squier bass or look on ebay, etc. You can probably get a decent sounding one for $100. I'd pass on the whole workaround theory. Are all nTrackers really THAT poor. Its like baking a cake and you have no oil left so you just add another egg...and we all know it comes out flat and soggy. hmph! |
Good point. I bought myself a cheap Mann bass (gibson sg style body) and it sounds decent, and does in a pinch when a bassist comes by to jam but cant get their gear over. It was less than $100 CAN (I'd make jokes about that being $0.50 USD but our dollar isn't that weak anymore). I also picked up a fender 100-B head for $100 with a crappy 1-15" cab and it works like a charm.. although now i'm getting some noise from it if I DI it
.I'm willing to bet even the cheapest bass guitar will sound better than an octavated guitar or an eggy cake.
YOu can open the piano roll feature and fill in the boxes with your mouse. There more to it than that but it will do what you need without buying anything. There is a piano keyboard to the left and you click on it with your mouse. You have to choose note values…I don’t use it and hopefully someone that does extensively will chime in here.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Like I said, I’m mainly laying down simple tracks to listen critically to my stuff. I just shelled out over $500 on my equipment, and may be dropping the same amount on a new pc with better specs.
In the future I will either find a bass player to work with, or buy a bass. But right now I’m looking for an acceptable alternative. Too many toys I want to buy, but not enough cash
Thanks again,
kernix
I seem to remember one of the members here playing a bass line on his Strat and then pitch shifting down an octave. It was one of those things that you wouldn’t notice until it was pointed out. Even so, it sounded very acceptable.
I think that was PowerPop. Sounded good !
I wish I remembered who posted this before, but this is a qoute from one of the guys a year or two ago…
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| Quote |
| Time to give back to the community: This is how I do "bass" 1. Record regular old guitar (a strat) clean with a bit of compression. I’ve tried all pickups, it’s surprising how much of the pickup “sound” is preserved. 2. Effect: n-Track’s pitch shift plug-in. Use the “1 Octave down” preset (obviously). The slider is impossible to move down to exactly 50.0% manually. I’ve been using these settings: Accuracy 6, fft 1024 but you should fool with them yourself. It’s a good idea to save it as a user preset. 3. It’s really cpu intensive so I always do "Edit=>apply track effect" 4. There could be some noise artifacts from the process so I just EQ them with a narrow notch. Tips: it takes the fft about 500 ms to settle down at the beginning of the track so it’s good to have some lead-in signal for it to lock onto before the “useful” part. |
HtH
Wihan
Dang, while I was posting this you guys posted the above two replies.
It might just be him …
Nice! I’m glad to see it can be done.
Thanks again,
kernix
Blue Ticket by Powerpop. One of my all-time faves!
Still, you’ll play different parts on guitar-playing-bass versus a real bass, so put one on your Christmas list. My son moved out and dangit he took his bass with him, so I need to find one myself! Meanwhile, have fun with the pitch transposer.
If you can set your system up for low-latency, you can run your guitar direct and use LIVE mode and hear the effect as you play. Not great sound, but good enough to monitor your playing. (Later, mixdown using much higher “accuracy” setting.) Remember to turn the treble control down a bit on your guitar.
To get low latency using a built-in soundcard, install Wuschell’s Asio4All. Works great!
…
Don’t fret Nergle (pardon the pun!!!)
If you are willing and able to invest in a little more software (like we all seem destined to do), check out the Jammer apps by Soundtrek. From what I understand, it’s much like Band-in-a-Box (which I haven’t used). You plug in the number of measures, the style of music and the chords and it will compose drums, bass and keyboard instruments. Now granted, it’s all in midi format, but you can export/import the files into n-Track and by using a soundfont player like SFZ (a freebie) and some free soundfonts, you can come up with a a decent sounding bass line.
Here’s a link to a song I wrote and the backing was composed with Jammer Pro 4 (unfortunately they don’t make soundfonts for singers!).
Demo song with Jammer Pro for bass, drums and keyboards