Trying to clarify bass notes in song playback

[okieman]

I'm using some cool software called Transcribe! that lets me play a song at slower speed/same pitch and also add eq that suppresses the treble. For my first song to learn on bass I picked B.B. King's "The Thrill is Gone." Didn't take me long to find out the one tab I found was wrong. I'll have to learn it by ear, which brings up my question ... even with the eq cutting out most of the treble, some of the notes in this song are hard for me to nail the pitch. Is there some way I can clarify the bass?

[fdeck]

Well, if you can't tell, then the audience can't either.

But in general, once you get the important notes nailed down, e.g., the roots, and have taken a fair crack at the rest of the part, I'd advise filling in the remaining gaps with notes that make sense to the tune.

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by okieman

I'm using some cool software called Transcribe! that lets me play a song at slower speed/same pitch and also add eq that suppresses the treble. For my first song to learn on bass I picked B.B. King's "The Thrill is Gone." Didn't take me long to find out the one tab I found was wrong. I'll have to learn it by ear, which brings up my question ... even with the eq cutting out most of the treble, some of the notes in this song are hard for me to nail the pitch. Is there some way I can clarify the bass?

the tab for that appeared in a geetar rag a while back....try the tab forum.....the tab sites are hit and miss but the geetar rags are usually fairly close

[Intenzity]

Try the "stereo" settings.

Depending on how it was recorded and mixed, you may get lucky and the bass is panned hard right or left, a lot of older records (that werent mono anyways) have the bass panned. Then you can almost isolate it.

A lot of times bass is smack down the middle but you might get lucky. Then you can kill the other channel and just hear the bass.

Some Zeppelin records let you do that, a lot of jazz records do, and sometimes older soul, r/b stuff does.

But, lots of time bass is smack down the center with the kick so it is in there with everything else. But you might be able to get rid of some of the other instruments if they are panned by fooling with the stereo field.

I use transcribe also, it is awesome.

[iridiumrocks]

For practice, I use Winamp with 2 plug-ins.

"Pacemaker" lets you slow the song down without changing the pitch to work out fast complex parts. It will also let you shift the pitch if you need to compensate for dropped tuning without having to re-tune your bass.
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/search/pacemaker

"Loop Master" lets you set A-B points and loop a section of the song to practice with.
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/search/loop%20master

Both are very handy when trying to learn the bass line of a cover song. Winamp also has a built-in 10 band EQ so you can tweak it to emphasize the bass lines.

[Stumbo]

If you up the pitch an octave on a tuned that you've slowed down, sometimes the bass line is easier to hear(and figure out).

One of the best tips I've learned on TB.

[Ric5]

Originally Posted by okieman

I'm using some cool software called Transcribe! that lets me play a song at slower speed/same pitch and also add eq that suppresses the treble. For my first song to learn on bass I picked B.B. King's "The Thrill is Gone." Didn't take me long to find out the one tab I found was wrong. I'll have to learn it by ear, which brings up my question ... even with the eq cutting out most of the treble, some of the notes in this song are hard for me to nail the pitch. Is there some way I can clarify the bass?

Most tabs are wrong. A lot of fake / real books are wrong.

There is a lot of bogus music out there.

[okieman]

I really like Winamp but didn't know about those plug-ins. Are they freeware? The eq in Transcribe is 40 band, and there are a lot more features, but you have to pay $50. I lucked out and bought it back when it was much cheaper, and updates have been free.

Originally Posted by iridiumrocks

For practice, I use Winamp with 2 plug-ins.

"Pacemaker" lets you slow the song down without changing the pitch to work out fast complex parts. It will also let you shift the pitch if you need to compensate for dropped tuning without having to re-tune your bass.
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/search/pacemaker

"Loop Master" lets you set A-B points and loop a section of the song to practice with.
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/search/loop%20master

Both are very handy when trying to learn the bass line of a cover song. Winamp also has a built-in 10 band EQ so you can tweak it to emphasize the bass lines.

[Paul M]

I use Transcribe! too. I saved an EQ setting that has a narrow boost centred on the 100hz band. The sound is surprisingly subtle considering that 100hz is at maximum.

It helps me more than just rolling off the treble, which is what I do if I only have the basic EQ of a cheap mixing board.