![]() ![]() sometimes it's worth to grab a 5.1 mix of a song, chances are the bass would be in center channel with vocals only, or something like that, but these are rare isolated bass tracks from the original song sessions have also became available, they mostly come from games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band many popular songs are already transcribed and exist on youtube in forms of people playing covers, sometimes providing the tabs/notation ![]() Mostly the ones that can alter speed and/or pitch and have looped playback. With some experience you will start to find out the main notes or patterns in the song, but if you want to find out every fill and how the bass line is exactly, you will have to use some tools and spend more time anyway. (Also, for what it's worth, we didn't use any special equipment or software for the transcription class, just piano, paper, and pencil.)Ĭlick to expand.Even with good speakers/headphones, sometimes it's really hard to clearly discern what is actually being played, especially if it's in 40-80 Hz range, the bass mixed low and not that 'cutting' through the mix, it can be obscured by the kick drum (which is around 50Hz), etc.Įven in the days of LPs people would play a 33 RPM at 45 RPM speed, sure this increases the speed, but it also increases the pitch, which helps to hear the bass line more clearly. The teacher (a pianist) had specialized experience teaching transcription to thousands of students, and was able to get through to me when I was stuck trying to learn it on my own. For me it was an adult education night class at my local music school. Show us what you've done so far! 2) Get a good teacher! Doesn't need to be a bass teacher, just any musician who specializes in ear training. If you're accurate with the pitches, but struggling with the rhythm, then that's different advice than if you were good with the rhythm but struggling with the pitches (for example). Well, maybe if you upload your work so far, we can double-check your progress, and give you tips for the specific part where you are stuck. Or if that is still too tricky for your current ability level, why not transcribe some even easier songs, like the melody to "Mary Had a Little Lamb" or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"? You'll feel good about yourself, and build confidence for transcribing more difficult songs.Ībove all else, I will leave you with these two important suggestions: 1) Don't be afraid to show your work! You said you figured out the first few bars and then got lost. Why not start with an even easier Bob Marley song, like "Stir It Up"? "Is This Love" isn't the world's most complicated song, but it has some syncopated rhythms that can be a little tricky to transcribe. My advice with transcription is to choose the easiest possible songs at first, so that you can get a few "base hits" and feel good about your progress. The only thing it can't do is mix down to audio (*.mp3/*.wav etc) at the end. MuseScore is freeware, and the trial version of Mixcraft can do all of this without limit. All the time I have the bass in hand so I am validating and learning the part as I capture it.Īs for tools, I use Mixcraft Pro Studio and MuseScore, which are both Windows based applications. ![]() The advantage of the DAW, for very difficult to hear sections, is being able to loop very short section at any tempo, and move the MIDI notes around until I am confident of the pitch. With easoer stuff I just go straight to notation with bass in hand then do the export just to cross-check for accuracy. The final steps are to 1/ export from the notation program as MIDI, then import that back into the DAW to confirm that the written score sounds OK, and 2/ print the score and play along from it to make any final annotations. I then export the MIDI data and transfer it to a notation program, where I can then verify and make tweaks. I then add a virtual instrument track, mapped to a bass or piano, to recreate what I hear as MIDI data. I match the tempo, including drifts and changes. I use a DAW to play the audio file, which allows looping of sections. This was before 'slowdown without pitch change' technology really existed. In the old days I would learn to play the part by ear then write down what I played on paper with a pencil. ![]()
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