Playing bass as if you were an 80s sequencer (?!)

[tedmanzie]

I was casually playing along to Aleem - Release Yourself last night, and I found myself really getting into the details of trying to play exactly like an 80s sequencer -  trying to get 'machine like' timing, exact note length, dynamics etc. No fills, no little extra bits chucked in! I really enjoyed playing like that, especially the lack of fills and 'decoration'. I can't say I sounded much like a sequencer tbh but nevermind.  I think it might be the future for me. I Am A Robot. 🤖

Anyone else enjoy like playing like this?!  Sorry if this a daft question.

 

[sammybee]

I'd play it on a keyboard  Great song choice though!

[Hobbayne]

Not a sequencer, but Nigel Harrison puts in a lovely little fill at 3:26.

If that were me I would probably overdo it and spoil the the song.

Just goes to show that to many fills or little bits chucked in can be a bit too much.

 

[Guest subaudio]

I think it's very useful to study playing like this. As someone who played through the eighties its something I worked on a lot. 

Start slow, always to a click/metronome/drum machine, focus on consistency, timing and tone and the timing of gaps, also record yourself and study what you recorded to find good and bad things you do. 

I strongly believe that learning to play with feel and groove must begin with a mastery of time, playing precisely and consistently on, in front and behind the beat, so working on sequencer style playing will also develop your groove, once you master on the beat and move onto behind/in front. 

[lowdown]

Back in the 80's and early 90's, just about every hotel/function band would be playing this. 

Back pup on your Wal, and then it was detached, tight, staccato city. Certainly a great work out to nail the feel.

 

 

[musicbassman]

Never Gonna Give You Up really does have an excellent synth bass line that I don't think can be learnt in 5 minutes.

Or, you can do as this guy - just ignore the original line and play it your own way !  😀

 

 

[tedmanzie]

Crikey 😬

For anyone that wants to luxuriate in the finer details of the bassline and drums without Mr Astley, then here is the actual mastertape, just  drum and bass tracks - nice!:

 

Edited April 14, 2019 by tedmanzie

[silverfoxnik]

17 hours ago, subaudio said:

I think it's very useful to study playing like this. As someone who played through the eighties its something I worked on a lot. 

Start slow, always to a click/metronome/drum machine, focus on consistency, timing and tone and the timing of gaps, also record yourself and study what you recorded to find good and bad things you do. 

I strongly believe that learning to play with feel and groove must begin with a mastery of time, playing precisely and consistently on, in front and behind the beat, so working on sequencer style playing will also develop your groove, once you master on the beat and move onto behind/in front. 

^^

Totally agree with this..

I can remember going through a similar phase in the 80s too..

In fact, drummers had the same challenge - if not more so - when drum machines became such a dominant factor  in writing, producing and performing music during the same era. 

[Barking Spiders]

Not a daft question at all. I actually listen to more electronically  generated basslines for inspiration that bass players, in particular 90s psy trance, a fave genre of mine. Playing staccato 16ths on just one or a few notes for several minutes is a tough one

[Guest]

Make life easy for yourselves. Plug in a synth bass pedal and a nice compressor, connect it up to a loop pedal, play the sequence once and go get a beer from the bar. Happy days!

Wont quite work with NGGYU, however.

[ChunkyMunky]

Ah, what a great question. 😎

 

So, when I went to learn this kind of stuff, I found that it takes a different mindset and approach to it. The bass isn't going to be the only thing quantized to the track. The drums/percussion and even other bits within the track will be quantized. Essentially, the tracks are divided.  (for the techie geeks, engineers and nerds amongst us - I wonder if how we refer to subdivisions of bars in sheet music perfectly correlates to binary, hexidecimal etc? 1-2-4-8-16-32 being the denominator to a note subdivision?). 

 

In your mind, how do you think a digitally expressed music motif would be played? Under the constraints of the technology of the time, I'd think of these;

- Dynamics. They usually stay relatively the same throughout.

- Do they drag, push or play dead on in the pocket? Dead on. 

- If you can read music, look at the sheet as if it's a grid divided into 16th notes (32nds if you're playing the likes of Michael Jackson's 'Speed Demon' 🤣). Whilst it's also a great groove exercise, it's also helpful to see where the bass synchronises with the other instruments on the track. If a track is all digitally composed, they will be exactly on. I can't imagine the tolerance (or 'humanising' as Logic Pro would tell you) to be very much, if at all, in terms of 'pocket'.

- On the topic of eliminating 'humanising' in your basslines, I'd recommend some exercises that'll not only help your playing in this realm but they will make your playing so much cleaner in general. If you set your metronome to below 15bpm, leave it running and see if you can hit your notes as accurately as possible to that click. Don't be tempted to embellish or go astray from it. The signs of agitation and frustration are symptomatic of significant improvement. Notice how different your playing is afterwards and be prepared to grin like Cheshire Cat, my low end friend. I call this 'Anti-microflamming'. 

- If the bass line goes below a standard low 'E', can your 5 string handle it without going 'floppy'? Your ye olde Casios and Yamaha DX-7s never have/had this issue. 

- A bass mute (I know, Motown, right?) is surprisingly helpful. Pop some foam under the strings and right by the bridge for an experiment. Play along with the tracks you so wish to and see if it helps your playing.

 

I do hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions. If not, my apologies for over indulging here.

 

[BigRedX]

I spend most of the 80s playing synths and programming sequencers.

[acidbass]

I obsess over note length and attack in most genres of music, this definitely comes from my love of synth and keyboard bass.  I don't think I'll ever be perfect but I love trying

[musicbassman]

OK, let's consider the bassline on Go West's  'We Close Our Eyes'  (1985).  It sounds just like a very well written sequenced bassline now, but at the time it seemed to tear up the bass rulebook in terms of phrasing.

Around 1986, Richard Drummie was a guest musician as part of a bass and drums workshop in Brighton which I attended, and he explained that the bass line for this was originally the vocal line from another song he had written with Peter Cox - " we fiddled around with it and it seemed to work"   - God, if only I was that clever!  But maybe it does help explain why it sounded so fresh.

Here's two bass players covering this - contrast and compare - 

Mattivenn goes for a very staccato approach, but Doc 40 Khz is very slightly more legato.  ( By the way, doesn't that Yamaha sound the biz ?)

 

[tubbybloke68]

Glen frey ‘ the heat is on ‘ and Phil Collins ‘sussudio’ are great bass lines of this type to emulate 

[EMG456]

Ah... We Close Our Eyes. Played that song at the time- fantastic line. Only minor issue was that I was singing it too- brain explosion!

Anyone who was playing at that time really had to come to terms with the accuracy of machine timing quickly or get left behind. It was a drummer’s nightmare though and some of the old guard I knew couldn’t cope.

Don't make the assumption  that the timings involved were always strict eights, sixteens etc. As soon as drum machines evolved past the TR 808, micro timings and groove templates became available and on all the main sequencers too. Guys at the high end of the production chain were definitely using these tools to refine things to give a less machine like feel but of course still with complete acuaracy and repeatability.

The second bass guy (with the Yammy) nailed it better for me.

[Guest subaudio]

Love this thread!

Mmmm note values

My favourite extension of the sequenced idea is the bass line to Still Too Young To Remember by It Bites, pretty much anything by Richard Nolan really, he, to me, took the synth sequence idea and did awesome stuff with it.

Edited April 17, 2019 by subaudio

[tedmanzie]

On 16/04/2019 at 21:09, musicbassman said:

OK, let's consider the bassline on Go West's  'We Close Our Eyes'  (1985).  It sounds just like a very well written sequenced bassline now, but at the time it seemed to tear up the bass rulebook in terms of phrasing.

Around 1986, Richard Drummie was a guest musician as part of a bass and drums workshop in Brighton which I attended, and he explained that the bass line for this was originally the vocal line from another song he had written with Peter Cox - " we fiddled around with it and it seemed to work"   - God, if only I was that clever!  But maybe it does help explain why it sounded so fresh.

Here's two bass players covering this - contrast and compare - 

Mattivenn goes for a very staccato approach, but Doc 40 Khz is very slightly more legato.  ( By the way, doesn't that Yamaha sound the biz ?)

 

Yamaha version is tasty! (both v good)

 

Edited April 17, 2019 by tedmanzie