Ed Friedland has a reggae book that i hear is pretty good. I looked at it once and it went thru the different variants of reggae over the history of the style, with examples and tips. Might be worth checking out.
I have the Friedland book. Ed's written some stone classics, but frankly, this isn't one of them. This isn't "Building Reggae Bass Lines" (I'm referencing his essential "Building Walking Bass Lines" here). This is just a book of riffs. And they're wrong (deliberately, I assume). Each one says something like "in the style of
I Shot The Sheriff" and there are a few wrong (yet workable) notes. I assume this is for copyright reasons. While the book does give a basic overview of the history of the music, it's not terribly in-depth. What you're left with is a compendium of mis-transcribed song fragments. Not terribly useful, IMHO.
One thing that's cool about reggae is the bass is usually very forward in the mix, so it's easy to learn the lines. And the songs are usually structurally very simple, so there's only a little bit to learn and you're jamming the whole tune. For this reason, it's relatively easy to just put on Pandora's reggae station and play along.
The feel is hard to nail. Fortvideo has it right. I also find space to be crucial, and note length crucial to the creation of that space. So pay close attention to this when learning the lines. Another piece of advice I once got: there's an almost-swing to the feel that's tough for non-Jamaicans to get right. I was once told to think of it like the feeling that you get when you lean back just a little too far in your chair,
almost fall over, but catch yourself. That one breathless moment of near weightlessness is like the feel. I know that's abstract but it helped me some.
And myths aside, once you've learned some lines, you'll realize that most reggae bass lines
do play on the one.
