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FamiTracker
Yeah that's my question. What do you need to keep in mind to accompany a melody with a bassline in a way so that it doesn't sound like shit?
Do you really need to do much else other than staying in the same key as the melody? In my recent tracks I did nothing but that and it didn't seem to bother anyone.
I'm just really confused you know and you guys here are much better at explaining things like this than some random website on the internet that expects me to have learned music for years.
One approach is to write a chord progression which fits the melody, then extract notes from that for the bassline. Then, if you wanna flesh out the bassline a little more, just experiment with subtle variations, not modulation (because modulation was already established in the progression, hopefully).
Personally, I'm a chord progression guy, so the bass either comes first or at the same time as the melody.
That's not what it means at all. What it means is now you have the necessary tools to [i]improve[/i] on what you've been doing over the past year and a half.
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I write a melody. I add a bassline to that which suits the chord progression, adds to the melody and most importantly serves as rhythm to the rest of the music (drums/percussion aren't the only instrument that do this - bass is extremely important rhythm wise). Pretty much anything goes regarding bass - you can just have single notes that follow the chord progression for all I care, as long as it suits the music.
Alrigth, so I tried to create a short loop to see if I understand this.
If this is how you do it, then I'll just need to figure out how to stop sticking to the same root for the chords that the melody is currently playing
That's not a bad example. It sounds like the 7th is being accented a bit too much though, which can overpower the melody. I guess be careful about which intervals get the most attention. I switched a couple notes in the first half to demonstrate.
Also I made a shortloop to show the potential of writing a progression before anything else.
The point here is that we all have our styles & ways of doing things. As before, cak & DalekSam start with the lead melody & work their way to the bass, while I do the reverse.
But notice what you've started with & noticed how cak modified it in two different ways; the bass still carries the same rhythm, but the notes are slightly different &, therefore, the combined files can form a tune that carries more syncopation. All it takes is a slight change in a pattern.
And, since you're also pretty good with volume control in your music, don't be afraid to use discord in your music (in moderation, of course). Again, if you have a slight amount of discord in your music with proper volume control, it adds to the syncopation (this is normally true in horror-based themes).
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I think I could manage both, but what I do all the time is to write bass first, but not without having a base melody already. I haven't showed any original stuff so far because I suck at making good melodies, since I tend to repeat everything over and over again, or I stick to one note, which screws it up.
SLIGHT EDIT: Another thing I tend to do, I noticed now, is that I always have problems with rhythm and note times when doing both bass and lead. Accompany is different, I do it at the very end, and since it sticks to the general melody, it isn't hard.
ENORMOUS EDIT: [color=#00ff00]Here's Mr_Master's first original showoff!... Not really, heheh. Look at my example. I wrote that a few weeks ago, but I screwed the lead at the end. I didn't know what to insert, I did that and never bothered to fix the lead, or the general melody. I have put two FTMs, one with the original melody and one which has VRC6 Pulse 2 emptied in the two final frames.
PS: I'm sorry if it sounds too kid-ish, but I was happy at the moment. The name stands for a one-frame loop I had originally done. It is marked with zeroes in the pattern editor.
PS2: What I did first was Bass and percussion, and lead at the end, along with accompany.
LITTLE EDIT: The lead wasn't supposed to take that way at the end of the song. That's why it's screwed up.
Oh my God...I can't believe that I get this. So I just have to keep in mind how harmomization works on a scale right? And I get to choose the order in the progression completely right?
Anways, did another attempt.
EDIT: If I want to fix up songs that do actually have a consistent scale, I just need to write a chord progression on that key, and take notes from it for the bassline?
[quote=za909]Oh my God...I can't believe that I get this. So I just have to keep in mind how harmomization works on a scale right? And I get to choose the order in the progression completely right?
Anways, did another attempt.
EDIT: If I want to fix up songs that do actually have a consistent scale, I just need to write a chord progression on that key, and take notes from it for the bassline?
[/quote]
I changed the bassline in pattern 00 for triangle a bit - this would play every other frame probably in a real song but I was too lazy to make it do that
I figure if you want to diversify bass, and your bass is keeping a rhythm for the song, make it do "fills" in a sense, like you change it up after the first / third repeats depending on the time in the song.
With bass ... I wouldn't recommend doing it first or after the melody because when writing music you come up with what you come up with, whether that's a great melody or bass. It can help to write the bass separately, like does this sound interesting with just the drums? I also avoid using thirds and such in my basslines because it can sound muddier than normal with the triangle. It really depends on the type of song though, some require that, others don't.
I can't think of a lot of good examples of great bass with melody from my stuff, if I make a really strong bassline it usually is carrying the song a lot (exam slam, our way, the WIP I'll link below are examples of that).
Edit: actually I guess in swing it's doing two basslines at once in 07, I just came up with two neat sounding basslines and glued them. :P
Nice tune. The harmonies are alright, but you must be careful of not getting stuck with one note, as usually happens to me.
What you can do next is applying more scales to your song, but always having some kind of "compatibility". I can't explain that in a good way, but maybe someone else can do it.
You have to build your song out of harmonizations and consistency, obviously having space for an improvisation or to get out of the scale a little, but the way of writing it, being it bass first, or lead first, mostly depends on your style of composing. What suits you better is what you should do.
Correct. [url=https://dl.dropbox.com/u/34026765/I-V-vi-IV.ftm]This FTM has a I-V-vi-IV progression, despite not containing a single chord.
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