Bass Tutorial: Exploring Bass with DJ Lil Skank
Can you describe bass?
Bass is the low frequency sound,
these are the growls and thumps in a song.
Back when cassette tape players were all the rage,
some of them had a Bass Boost switch.
The end result was to give a song more oomph,
the headphones would bring in some heavier punching sounds.
You have no doubt heard of Bass Guitars,
and correctly assume that low drums make Bass as well.
We should really split them up,
so that they can grow in their own ways.
If we let drums be drums,
and let bass guitars be guitars.
They won't step onto each others toes as much,
and we will be able to layer bass on top of drums.
If we have multiple drum arrangements,
and multiple bass arrangements,
We will be able to mix them up together,
to easily bring in new freshness to a song.
Let us create three drum arrangements,
and three bass melodies, and see what we get when we play all the permutations.
We begin with a drum,
and I hope you are in a car, cars have really good speakers.
The worst speakers I ever encountered are laptop speakers,
and then popular $50 over the ear headphones are the second best after the car.
If you don't like over the ear,
then sub $10 ear-buds with good reviews will do.
If you are getting into music composition,
consider doing it in a car with good speakers.
Let's lay down some drum beat here,
I got three variations for you.
* DRUM KIT PLAYS *
Low lets make some bass,
making bass melodies is very cool, it is similar to making a tiny piano melody.
One interesting thing worth mentioning is that when you make a bass melody for one bass guitar,
it will sound good on kind of bass guitars with different configurations.
Here are three variations,
each variations repeats the melody three times.
* PURE BASS MELODIES *
Now here are the permutations,
look what great impact bass guitar or synthesis has on drums.
The drums come to life,
in a way that is not possible with a drum kit alone.
If you ever encounter bass related noise, cracking, or distortion,
that is a very common occurrence with a very easy fix.
Cracking occurs when two base instruments are playing one over the other,
to repair this use an equalizer, remove some of the low frequencies from the bass guitar.
Here are the permutations:
* PERMUTATIONS PLAY*
I feel like I should add, that, voice with a low pitch,
even if lowered artificially goes really well with drums and guitar.
You don't have to sing or growl,
personally I love it when I can make a song out of random things that sound funny/
The song you are about to hear does not really try to create a narrative,
I kind of see my voice recordings as an instrument.
Whatever meaning a listener gets out of the mostly random gibberish,
is bound to be funny, or perplexing, and that is a huge bonus in my opinion.
When I try to come up with these strange lyrics,
I think of school, or what is the first thing I said to a stranger in America, just random stuff like that.
It just happens to be Groundhog Day in a couple of hours,
so I threw in a dialogue about the creature as well.
Don't try to create a funny song,
just have fun while making a song, and it will come our funny.
Here is the final product,
enjoy:
* GROUNDHOG SONG PLAYS *