Any good programs to bring out the bass line in a song?

[AndrewT]

I really want to learn AFI's God called in Sick Today, but I REALLY can't hear the bass line in some parts, therefore I can't figure it out. Even with my really good headphones (Sennheiser HD575), I can't make it out. Are there any good programs that can edit out the rest of the stuff and just hear the bass line? Thanks.

[lowtones]

Trained ears

[bailstric]

trained ears

ditto that

[melvin]

Yes trained ears, maybe if have a bass boost thing on your stereo you could hear it better. The sub woofer on my comp can boost the bass a sickly amount.

[purple_haze]

Screw around with your stereo's EQ settings until you find it.

I think some of Korg's multi-effects boxes can defeat everything but bass, although I'm not too sure there...

But you'd probably be best off listening really hard for it. Trained ears are the best.

[bassbedlamite]

when the 375 watt subwoofer in my stereo isn't enough to bring it out, i just crank the bass on my trace elliot amp and run it into that with an adapter via the headphone jack of the stereo. the amp doesn't allow for much treble at all, letting you really feel and learn the bass parts. it's quite effective, and if your stereo has a 1/8" headphone jack, just go to radio shack and buy the 1/8" 1/4" adapter. very effective. good luck.

[the-lizard-king]

Has anybody tried listening to the song through only a sub-woofer? My stereo has seperate inputs for the normal speaker and the sub, so if I need to only hear the bass, I just unplug the speakers and listen to the sub, all you hear is the bass, nothing else.
Jim

[playerdelabass]

I sometimes turn up the volume, and go in the other room, works pretty well

[mcaputi]

I use software called Slowgold. You can check out a free demo at http://www.slowgold.com/

I used the demo for one hour and my ears were convinced.

The program can slow down or speed up any music from a CD or .wav file Without changing the pitch.

Or it can change the pitch up or down as much as a full octave without changing the tempo.

Or it can do both at the same time.

For bass transcriptions, this is what I do:

I have Slowgold record a portion of a track from a CD. Then I have Slowgold slow it down to about 70% of the original tempo and raise the pitch one full octave. This way I can hear the bass parts more clearly as they stand out better at the higher pitch. Also, the low bass sounds are really at the low end of the spectrum of human hearing. By raising the pitch a full octave, your ears are now more sensitive to the raised bass frequencies and you can discern them much better.

I also use two separate dual-15 band EQs. I chain the left and right channels of one EQ together to get 24 dB attenuation instead of only 12 dB. You really need more attenuation than than to remove drums and vocals and guitar, but 24 dB works fairly well. Sometimes I have ALL the sliders down and just turn one up at wherever the raised octave bass notes sound the clearest.

I've transcribed seven songs for bass lines this way and it really works very well.

The software is cheap, $50 list price, but some internet sites have it for $40. I bought it for $50 and it's the BEST thing I've done in order to transcribe.

Check it out. Let me know if you want more info.

Ciao,
Mauro

[AndrewT]

Thanks a lot! I did buy the program, its freakin awesome. Thanks!!

[mcaputi]

Great. Glad to hear that the program is helping.

When you're done learning AFI's God called in Sick Today,
let us know how it went using SlowGold, especially the difficult to hear parts. I'm always interested in learning more about transcribing techniques, what works and what doesn't work, etc.

Ciao,
Mauro

[JMX]

There's lots of programs that can do timestretching:

Slowgold

Musician's CDPlayer

most advanced audio editors like Wavelab, Soundforge, etc.

Prosoniq TimeFactory


Timefactory gives the best result, but is pretty expensive, since it's a professional application.