Guitar-Bass software??

Haych

Bridgehouse said:

Funkfingers said:

Bridgehouse said:

Haych said:

The frustrating part is transferring what I hear in my head to a recording.

I think you will find many players are far more tolerant of your ideas/sketches than you are yourself.

Wiz awarded to Bridgehouse.

@Haych Chasing the music in your head is setting yourself an almost impossible goal. It invites disappointment.

If you know which notes you need and can transcribe them to manuscript paper, a proper sight-reading musician should be able to perform them in short order. If you need specific nuances in the performance, speak with the guest bassist before the recording begins.

If you do not know exactly what you want, provide a vague suggestion and give a "proper bassist" free reign to develop the sketch into something better. 

This latter approach is what I do for my musical collaborator. He doodles something in the low register - either on the two lowest strings of his guitar or triggering a DAW sound from his iPad. I listen to his ideas, work out why they do not quite hang right with the artificial intelligence guide drums then, lay down something better on a real bass guitar. He then either accepts my playing or vetoes it.

The joys of this approach are;

1. getting ideas that you never would have come up with yourself
2. getting recording projects finished more quickly and, hence, at lower cost.

Yep - exactly this. As a bassist, I'm not going to send you a message saying "WTF were you thinking with these ideas?!" 

I will instead probably be more concerned that you won't like what I've done!

Food for thought if nothing else. 

So, if I may ask, @Funkfingers @Bridgehouse, how do you make it work logistically? Do you meet with your musical collaborators in person or do you send files around the ether? If the latter how do the final ideas make it on to the recording - I mean what happens if you’re asked to record something on software you don’t have?

Please don’t mistake my queries for pedenticism, I am genuinely interested. I’m also guessing you’re both used to dealing with musicians that are a bit more professional than your home studio warriors?

TIA

Bridgehouse

@Haych - it depends on the individuals tbh.

Some may like to meet up, and usually this works by sending the track over, writing a bass line then meeting up to record it “live” - for others it’s a case of having a guide track sent over then recording the bass track as a separate track and sending back over in a standard format for mixing back in. Again, this can often be determined by the quality and standard required for the final finished track. 

Funkfingers

Haych said:
how do you make it work logistically?

Dropbox.

My collaborator and I live over three hundred miles apart. Face to face meetings are extremely infrequent, even assuming that annual leave can be synchronised. Fortunately, because we were at school together, we have sufficient understanding not to depend on face-to-face meetings for every slightest thing.

My collaborator can send me Garageband project song beginnings to develop in Logic. I can send him a stereo bouncedown in Garageband For iOS format to which he can overdub and, then, return just the overdubs stems to me.

In August, my collaborator treated himself to a new computer and Apple Logic X Pro software. He is currently acquainting himself with the full-on DAW. I suspect that, when he needs to record an initial demo idea quickly, he still trusts to Garageband. It is simple enough to transfer afterwards.

On a more detailed level, my collaborator rarely requests a specific bass guitar sound. He owns none. I'm not sure that he could tell the difference between the usual P, J, 'Ray and R suspects.