Learning how to lock with the drums...

[Bass Ameg]

(ironic Jedi master mode on)
Groove, don't measure. Play real music, don't practice. Feel, don't analyse. That's my way. Music is math, but only AFTER the act of making it. If you play right, the math will rise from it. (ironic Jedi master mode off)

 

[Jens Telemark]

You’re unlikely to lock with a drummer or anyone else until you develop your own solid independent sense of time. People feel time differently so this can definitely cause friction but people who feel time differently meeting each other where they are is kinda what locking means. Leaning on the drummer and mimicking their time is not locking. A conversation where one person does all the thinking isn’t very interesting.

Practice with a metronome to develop good meter. Good meter is not good time but it’s an essential component. Music sometimes speeds up and slows down but you need to hear it and be in control of it.

Listen to great bass/drummer combos like Duck Dunn/Al Jackson Jr. or Chuck Rainey/Bernard Purdie or Nathan East/Steve Gadd to hear how they interact and then sweat blood to figure out why it works. Often they’re leaving more space for each other than it sounds like at first. I played Midnight Hour for years before realizing Duck Dunn's bass part had fewer notes, that the kick drum part was making me hear what wasn't actually being played.

 

[buldog5151bass]

There is no set formula. Assuming you are playing rock, listen first to the kick drum, then the snare. Work out from there.

 

[Gino t]

if you have garage band/Logic or a drum machine, try different drum tracks from simple to somewhat complex.

GB makes it easy, pick a drummer, move around XY pad, but most drum machines and DAWs have decent drum presets these days. and like the other users said, space/knowing when to lay out is mmost important

I think it helps to watch drummers also, like YT vids on drumeo channel

 

[mpdd]

i'll use the korg beat boy or youtube drum beats if I'm coming up with riffs and not sure if they are constructed exactly the way they should be