Help recording and composing music if I only play the bass guitar..

[Music_for_life]

Well I know drummers have it toughter, but I envy my keaboard player, who can in an instant turn his ideas into music and show his songs.
As a bass player I love to play it and to support a group, but how can I compose a transmit a full band song if I have the ideas and the teory, but I can´t find how to put all together. The bass is limiting me, I need somee programs or effects?? I need a way to tell the other msuicians what to play, and give them an idea, of what I am aiming.
What do you recomend me fellow bass players.

[Martin89]

A 6-string jk.

Use the higher register of your fretboard, If you go an octave up you can get atleast 4 parts of a particular chord(I usually pluck all of them at once using thumb and 1st 3 fingers) and you can usually play a lead guitar part up there as well.

[Joe Nerve]

I recommend getting some sort of drum program or machine, learning to program beats, and then finding a guitar or keyboard player you can work with on the recordings. You can do some pretty interesting guitar like things with with a little fuzz in the upper registers on a bass, also.

[TheBasicBassist]

Become competent on a second, third, fourth, ect.. instrument.
It can only help you with both bass playing and writing, even just being able
to plunk out chords.

[DubSound]

I was in a similar situation, and i just started learning the basics of every instrument i could get a hold of, as well as teaching myself theory and composition. I saved up and put together a home recording studio, and just started putting some time into making songs, one track at a time. I bought a Midi controller keyboard and use Garageband for a ton of instruments; keys, horns, even drum kits. I had a little bit of a background with guitar, so i usually arrange the songs with an acoustic, then just start laying tracks down.

Hope that helps

[ShredderMaximus]

Originally Posted by TheBasicBassist

Become competent on a second, third, fourth, ect.. instrument.
It can only help you with both bass playing and writing, even just being able
to plunk out chords.

This^, you can pick up a cheap squire guitar I'm sure for cheap, and it is a valuable tool, even if just laying down chords to write your bass on top of, and give other players a chance to hear what you were thinking. This is a problem that I always had, the style of bass I wanted to play wouldn't always portray the rhythm or melody of a song I wanted to play, since I've always like the idea of all instruments kinda doing their own thing and creating one big colorful kinda feel, but with only one instrument, this idea was easily lost to others ears. But when I found a guitar awhile ago, it has really helped me piece all those ideas into a more understandable form.

I'd definitely recommend looking into a guitar though, bass on bass on bass can give a big muddy mess when you try to listen back on it, unless you have really nice recording gear.

[ShredderMaximus]

Or another thing I did for awhile was actually write out all the parts on guitar pro/powertab, which made it really nice for teaching the other members of my ex-band when I could just give them the file.

[tangentmusic]

Originally Posted by TheBasicBassist

Become competent on a second, third, fourth, ect.. instrument.
It can only help you with both bass playing and writing, even just being able
to plunk out chords.

Yes again to this.
I have had the same problem. Learning even just a little keyboards and/or guitar goes a long way in getting the ideas in your head across to others.

Or you can just la la la them vocally to them, but it's not as cool

[pnut166]

Originally Posted by ShredderMaximus

This^, you can pick up a cheap squire guitar I'm sure for cheap, and it is a valuable tool, even if just laying down chords to write your bass on top of, and give other players a chance to hear what you were thinking. .

+1. Pick up a cheap Squier guitar. Learn how to program beats and play basic chords. Get some decent VST plugins for the guitar. I went this route and it worked pretty good. It was a little overwhelming when I started since the guitar, sequencing, and recording were all new to me. I learned / practiced by sort of reverse - engineering covers. That helped me learn the DAW software, plugins, MIDI, mixing, drum sequencing, and guitar all at the same time. I learned enough this way to construct idea outlines / demos.