Any tips for recording bass (with guitar) on micro BR

[Red62]

Hi All,

After becoming disillusioned with a DAW on my laptop I have gone back to the simplicity of my micro BR.  Nice to be able to switch on and record without having to mess with HW/SW settings....

Question I have is on my old (now broken BR 600) there was a patch to enable a guitar to emulate a bass.. which for quick demo's worked fine....

What is the best way to do this on a micro BR?

My current thinking is to record a clean guitar on the Micro BR, then use say Audacity to drop it an octave - is there any better or easier way to do this?

Thanks

Loz.

[danieldesete]

Hi Red 62,
you can drop an octave in audacity, but the result is always a little muddy.

I know this is not the answer you were waiting for  but there is quite a consensus on this site saying the better thing to do bye a bass, even a cheap second hand one. That's what I finally did and I'll never regret it.

Cheers
daniel

[Geir]

I recommend using the neck pickup and rolling off some treble. A soft playing style seem to work better than a lot of punchy notes too.

[Red62]

buying a bass is a probably out of the question....

I am thinking of MIDI-ing the bass in my DAW and then importing the WAV of the bass into the MBR...

Does the BR 80 have a bass patch for guitar?

Cheers

L

[Geir]

Does the BR 80 have a bass patch for guitar?

It does. I've used it, .... on ......  this:
https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=20864.0

[Red62]

Nice bit of noodling... love it!

[Flash Harry]

Buy a bass. Even the cheapest and nastiest bass guitar sounds better than a pitch shifted guitar.

There are loads of cheap basses on EBay.

[Red62]

the problem with buying a bass isnt cost.. it's space!!!!  But I hear what your saying...

[Flash Harry]

Wall hooks. They're like sky hooks for walls.

(I have 5 bases in my room and one in the hallway downstairs, waiting to be gigged)

[64Guitars]

There's no denying that a real bass guitar is the best option. However, not everyone can justify buying a bass due to budgets or, as you pointed out, space considerations. The two options you mentioned (Audacity and MIDI) are good compromises. I find them better than the real-time pitch shifters such as you'll find in many of the BRs.

Which is best? There's no clear winner. MIDI has the advantage of a great choice of realistic bass samples and easy editing of mistakes. But, if you're not a keyboard player, it can be a very mechanical process, lacking the feel of playing a real guitar. Playing your bass lines on a guitar then dropping the pitch in Audacity has the advantage of feeling like a real guitar so you can put your heart and soul into your playing. But you don't have as much control over the final sound and editing is not as easy nor as accurate as MIDI. Plus, not being able to hear the intended pitch while playing is a bit of a disadvantage.

If space is your only consideration (ie; you've got some money to spend), then you might consider MIDI guitar and a suitable guitar synth such as the Roland GR-55 or GP-10. This gives you the best of both worlds since you're playing a regular guitar which you're already familiar with, yet you can choose any MIDI bass sample you like so you have a huge choice of bass sounds. It's not quite the same as playing a real bass because MIDI guitar requires a more accurate playing style. But it's the next best thing and, in some ways, better than a real bass because of the huge choice of sounds. But it's not cheap.

You can attach a MIDI pickup such as the Roland GK-3 to your existing guitar. Or you might want to consider the Fishman TriplePlay which is a wireless MIDI pickup. With the TriplePlay, you don't even need a hardware guitar synth. You can transmit MIDI wirelessly to your computer to trigger bass samples in your DAW. So, in terms of space considerations, that would be your best bet.