Listening to bassline of songs

[addicted]

Hi guys,

I am a beginner in bass and I want to listen to bassline of songs. I feel it's pretty hard for me right now since bassline in songs are usually not as pronounced as drum, guitar, or vocals. Moreover bass has pretty low frequency and it's hard to differentiate them.

Is there anyway we can enhance the clarity of basslines in songs? Using software and such? I have tried using bass booster equalizer in iTunes. It helps but not much.

 

[cheesedaele]

What speakers or headphones are you using? If you aren't using a decent setup, this should be your first step. Get a 2.1 speaker system that includes a subwoofer, or get a pair of in-ears that have good sound isolation and make sure you get the right fit, tight seal.

 

[Stan_Kumar]

I'd go with that cheese said. Ultimate Ears has good and reasonably priced in ear pieces. Can find them at Sim Lim lvl 1 in that large area.

http://ultimateears.com/en-us/products/universal

 

[jemmies]

one of the ways i learned to hear the bassline, is actually to hear the chords first and then once i know what the chords are, i know the notes (minor or major), and it becomes easier for me to hear how the bassline goes.

don't have to be perfect pitch, just as long as you know how the chords sound like... that is, in whatever key (key is irrelevant), the first major chord will always have the same feel when played in a song. i suppose in this case, relative pitch is pretty important.

 

[addicted]

About the listening instrument, I am using grado MS1 so I can listen to the bass quite okay but still if there's any software to enhance the clarity of the bassline, it would be great. Some quick-many-notes bassline is hard to hear because altogether the low-frequency sound seems blend together thus it's hard to differentiate the notes.

@jemmies
All the while that's how I am doing the bassline. I can follow the chords and anyhow create a bassline in between each chord but I cannot follow exactly the bassline's notes of the song. I want to follow exactly to get more idea of bassline variation.

Any more tips and inputs are greatly appreciated.

 

[cheesedaele]

Use a headphone amp with an eq, turn down the highs and raise the low-mids. Could try to lose some extreme lows (40-60Hz and below) if it's too muddy.

But sometimes it's just like that. Better headphones, headphone amps, all the technology in the world, they only enhance what is there. If the sound is poor in the recording, no amount of technology is going to make it magically appear out of nowhere. Try to get higher bitrate, better quality recordings. If you want to go to extremes, look for .flac files. They're huge but all the sound information is packed in there.

 

[igoh002]

A wise old muso once told me: If you can sing it, you can play it..

Singing helps you reconstruct the notes in your head.. and you can then use your hands to find and play. Try it!

p.s. if the notes are too low, try singing them an octave higher.. and you should find you can bring it back down an octave later..

 

[addicted]

I think bassline is a little bit different from normal guitar or piano lines. Bassline tends to harmonize the main melody of guitar or piano. I want to know more of this harmonizing line which is why I want to listen to some basslines of songs to get the more idea.

Sometimes singing it tends to make me follow the main melody

 

[cheesedaele]

When you can't make out the precise low notes, listening to the melody or lead line is actually one way to determine the harmony and root of a chord. When you sing the bassline or other harmonising parts, and they don't sound like they fit, you know it's probably the wrong pitch.

Furthermore, hearing the chord changes are also a good way to map the inbetween passing notes. It's just a little bit of theory to understand the root (the 'foundation' note) of a chord and then picking it out. It really helps in being a good bassist to know your scales and harmonies too.

It's not surprising if you find you keep reverting to the melody, it's one of those things that just takes practice. You have to keep at it and train your ears.

 

[Morlock]

a Good set of Head phones +EQ works quite well for me, but has its limitations.

from blues, pop, funk, reggae, jazz standards its still quite ok, but if your gonna dive into some Jazz Fusion types where bassist do quite a lot of solos on top of the melodies then it will be quite difficult to make out what the bassist is doing. in these, learning about music theory helps a lot. coz once you know theory, then you don't really need to hear all the bassist's notes to figure out what he is doing.

and also sometimes its practice. just keep learning as much songs as possible, then when you get back to the stuff you can't figure out before, you will learn that its easier to learn now than before. that is because our brains starts to fill in the gap. the more songs you learn, the more your brain starts to pick up on all these patterns and somehow helps you learn faster and better in the future.

 

[centralcatchment]

You got to know your music theory. First, you harmonise the song and figure out what the underlying chord is. The bass note at any given time is one of the notes in the chord. Most of the time it will be the root note. But occasionally it could be an inversion, in which case it could be the 3 or the 5 or even the 7. If the note is a passing note, it will not have any relation to the bass note.

And no need for expensive equipment. Just turn the bass up.

If you don't have a natural feel for what a bassline should be, maybe you are trying to learn the wrong instrument.

If the song that you are listening to is "When Doves Cry", give up. That song has no bass.