Useful software for bass players

[SlapbassSteve]

Amazed there's little or no mention of BestPractice yet- you can slow tracks down, transpose them however you like, save the tracks once they're in the right key/speed if you like, and best of all it's free...

[tauzero]

As well as BestPractice, there's a Winamp plugin called PaceMaker which does the same thing. Or, if you want to play music on an Android phone and change speed or pitch, there's the Maple MP3 player.

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='Thunderbird' timestamp='1386532873' post='2301185']
Hi mates now I am kinda not good at music software but is there anything that will let me play along to my music but drop the bass out so I can play bass along to the song? Cheers
[/quote]

My original post mentioned that the Amazing Slow Downer has an EQ section which allows you to drop out pretty much all of the bass.

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1388738449' post='2325359']
As well as BestPractice, there's a Winamp plugin called PaceMaker which does the same thing. Or, if you want to play music on an Android phone and change speed or pitch, there's the Maple MP3 player.
[/quote]

Links! We need links!

[url="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sqr5.android.audioplayer&hl=en"]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sqr5.android.audioplayer&hl=en[/url]

[cybertect]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1388739976' post='2325369']
My original post mentioned that the Amazing Slow Downer has an EQ section which allows you to drop out pretty much all of the bass.
[/quote]

On Macs, Capo, which was mentioned earlier, has the same facility, with presets for taking out male and female vocals and to isolate the bass (though you'd have to dial in removing the bass by hand).

It also has a handy frequency analyser which works out the chords and shows you which notes are being played on a keyboard scale - making it much easier to work out a bass line.

Edit: I've recently discovered that Capo allows you to make microtonal adjustments to the pitch of playback (to 1/100 of a semitone)

[quote name='BigBeatNut' timestamp='1301152326' post='1177315']Suprised no-one has mentioned 'Vox' (used to be 'Toolplayer') for the mac. It appears to be in the same ballpark as Best Practice and it's my go to rehearsal tool ... pitch changes (now calibrated in 10ths of a semitone ... good enough) tempo changes (plus a bunch of bizarre stuff you most likely wont need, but it's hidden and doesn't get in the way.[/quote]

Vox seems to have gone rapidly downhill with recent versions. Lots of complaints of instability, the awfulness of UI changes and an attempt to bring in a software rental pricing model.

Edited September 16, 2015 by cybertect

[paul_5]

[quote name='derrenleepoole' timestamp='1291215631' post='1043877']
If it hasn't been mentioned already, you can get a Realbook on the iPod, called iRealbook I think (imaginative I know . It's a very useful and handy little app to have in your pocket if all you need is a quick glance at the charts of jazz tunes etc. The app will also transcribe the charts to different keys too.

PS... I think it works on Android phones as well, not just iPod.
[/quote]

It runs on my macbook pro too. Happy days!

[stanton119]

For playing along on my macbook pro I made this little app to speed things up. Some other might find it useful as well:
http://www.richard-stanton.com/music/itab/

Whenever iTunes goes to the next song, it will find the tab for the new song automatically.

[funky8884]

Hi all , has anyone used this software ? https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/capo-3-slow-down-detect-chords/id696977615?mt=12

Capo 3 or its predecessors ?

[project_c]

Any chord detection software I've used in the past has not been great, but maybe that one is better, however for slowing stuff down, Audacity is free and will do the job well.

[jazzyvee]

I use this quite often to help me price up gigs so I don't lose money and it's free.
[url="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gig-fee-calculator-v1.00/id981262493?mt=8"]https://itunes.apple...d981262493?mt=8[/url]

Edited November 24, 2016 by jazzyvee

[shamrock198804]

Surprised no one mentioned Musescore. A great alternative for Sibelius, can do tab as well I think.

Edited October 12, 2017 by shamrock198804

[converse320]

My daughters guitar teacher uses Virtual DJ, so I've been using this.  Its free and you can slow tracks down, tweak pitch etc.  I've no idea if its the best option for this.'

[dannybuoy]

Good shout for Virtual DJ, I've seen it before but never thought to use it for bass practice.

I've been using Riffstation lately, as well as slowing down and looping sections it analyses the chords for you. Doesn't get them bang on, but is useful when you get sent an MP3 of original material to learn with no charts or tab! 

[Quatschmacher]

I can heartily recommend Metronomics as hands-down the best metronome app I’ve come across. It was recommended to me by a Leeds College of music teacher. It’s by Jon Nastos. He’s also made a great tuner app and harmony/pitch training app. He’s really approachable and incorporated a few improvement suggestions I had.

[Quatschmacher]

On 01/12/2010 at 10:33, Happy Jack said:

It's a perennial topic, but we don't seem to have a place for pointing each other in the direction of software we have found particularly useful.

Just to see if others find this useful, here's a brief heads-up on

THE AMAZING SLOW DOWNER

You can download ASD from the InterNet ( http://www.ronimusic.com/ ) as a free demo, which will give you (IIRC) full functionality but only let you play the first 30 seconds of each track. For about $50 you can buy the product.

I consider it one of the better $50 purchases I've made.

I use it to:

* slow down tracks, or bits of tracks, where I can't work out what the bassist is playing at full speed.

* loop tricky bits of tracks so that I can play them again & again.

* change the pitch of tracks which have either been Vari-speeded or which are in awkward keys (e.g. Eb to E).

* change the key of tracks which I want to sing but which are outside my range in their original key.

* minimise the low frequencies on the track so that I can play along without being distracted by the original bassline.

All these changes can be made 'on the fly' and in real time. There's no need to "re-process" the file after each change.

Once you have the settings you want for a track, you can save it (separately from the original, of course) with those settings and come back to it later.

Just about the only gripe I have with ASD is that it won't save files in mp3 format, only as WAV.

If Roni Music could somehow combine this with an mp3 editor, they'd have an absolute killer product on their hands.

Despite being priced in $ the product is actually Scandinavian (Danish, I think). Despite the low price, on both occasions when I've needed support I've had immediate and very helpful responses.

Highly recommended.

I’ve tried out a bunch of iOS apps for this functionality and the best one I’ve found (and bought for £9.99) is AudioStretch:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/audiostretch/id571863178?mt=8

I particularly wanted to find one that was close to the PC software “Transcribe!” which has a playable piano keyboard and mapped spectral analysis. I can’t stress too much how useful this feature is.

The scrolling is smooth. Speed goes right down to 0.01 times. Another useful thing is the ability to play it by swiping the waveform so it’ll go as slow as your finger movement and only over the portion you want to hear. 

I wish I’d found this earlier in the week as I’ve been using a different app to transcribe a fiendishly tricky Chris Potter tenor solo and this would’ve saved me a few hours.

This is better than the iOS version of Amazing Slow Downer (though it doesn’t have the ability to place a pause between loops and set it to speed up incrementally). 

Edited April 22, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[Quatschmacher]

Midi Pad 2 is great for changing presets on the Source Audio Hub and is capable of much more too (note triggering, CC, Program change). Any “pad” can have multiple parameters assigned to it. A very powerful tool. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/midipad-2/id896879399?mt=8

Knob Lab is great too. I’m setting it up to control all the parameters on my Manta directly. Again, you can create a one-knob layout that controls many parameters simultaneously.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/knob-lab-midi-controller-by-sonic-logic/id727466234?mt=8

 

 

[JPJ]

Any tips for AmpliTube? I’m using an early iRig interface (the round one) with AmpliTube and their SVT Classic amp sim and struggling to match the AmpliTube volume with Spotify for playing along and learning. Is there a better amp sim (I’m a lover of clean tones) or is there a way to increase the output without raising the noise floor (the Ampeg sim is a bit hissy)?

[Woodinblack]

The original iRig interface is very hissy, so most amps will seem a bit bad. I have one of those, but also have one of the stealth pedals, and the noise difference is huge (ie, there is next to no noise on the stealth pedal).

Amplitube itself has a master volume - if you use a non tube amp model they tend to be less noisy.

[JPJ]

On 15/06/2018 at 01:40, Woodinblack said:

The original iRig interface is very hissy, so most amps will seem a bit bad. I have one of those, but also have one of the stealth pedals, and the noise difference is huge (ie, there is next to no noise on the stealth pedal).

Amplitube itself has a master volume - if you use a non tube amp model they tend to be less noisy.

Thanks for the advice. I’ve upgraded to the iRig HD2 and problems solved, loads of volume and no hiss😎