3/16_Bass Line/Full Songs

Basic

Last week we started to work on creating bass lines. Today we're going to practice some more so that we can have a really good understanding of what a bass line is doing in a song.

A bass line is the low sounding part of a song that works with the drums to create a rhythmic pulse.

Before people started using electronic instruments (like Reason) to make music, the bass line was usually played on a bass guitar:

It used to be that the bass line was just a supporting part of the song, not the main thing that people were listening to. But then in the 70's when music styles like soul, funk and reggae started becoming popular, the bass started to play a bigger role. Then by the time hip hop became really big in the 1980's, artists started putting a LOT of bass in their songs so that sometimes it was the main part of the music that people were listening to.

Let's listen to a couple of famous basslines:

• "Super Freak" by Rick James.
• "Rappers Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang

So, to get a better understanding of what bass lines do and how we can use them in our own music, we are going to remake the bass line from Too Short's single "Blow the Whistle" then recreate the drum beat. Too Short- Blow The Whistle (instrumental) uploaded by beanycastillo

1. Create a new Reason file.
2. Set Tempo to 100 bpm.
3. Create a Subtractor Analog Synthesizer.
   
4. Go into the Subtractor's Bass folder and find the sound called "Dodger Bass". (Reason Factory Sound Bank>Subtractor Patches> Bass>Dodger Bass.zyp).
5. Move your R Marker to Bar 3.
6. Turn on the Click Track and hit play. Get a feel for the tempo.
   
7. On your keyboard, press the Octave Down button once.
8. I'll show you how to play the bass line. You will be playing the following keys: C, Eb , C, and Gb.
9. After you feel like you have the part under your fingers, record it and quantize it.
   
10. Create a Redrum.
11. Listen again to the Instrumental of Blow the Whistle.
    
12. What drum sounds do they use? What boxes do you think they go on?
13. Recreate the drum beat from Blow the Whistle and put it into the Sequencer Window using Copy Pattern To Track.
14. Save as (your name)_Blow the Whistle and turn it in to the Dropoff folder.
    

Advanced

Today I want you to start working on a new, full song that includes all of the following elements:

1. Song structure:  Intro, 2 Verses, 2 Choruses, a Fade Out
2. Use of a chord and write down the name of the chord (see below for how I want you to put this down).
3. Basic mixing (volume and panning).
4. At least 6 instruments.

This will be due by the end of class Thursday (3/19). 

Save it as your name_song3-16 and turn it into the Dropoff folder.

To make notes in Reason, do the following:

1. In the File menu, click on Song Information. 
2. In the window that pops up, type the name of your chord (example: A Minor) where it says "Text In Window Title".