As others have said, nothing beats a real bass.   Like Voda La Void I also spent countless hours to perfect this process with a guitar.   Even taking the sound quality out of the equation, a guitar just doesn't play like a bass.    
 
Best investment I have made in recent years was a $200 bass on Craigslist.   Occasionally will use Trillian but usually go for the real bass.    

i play a mikro.

I'd read this thread before and had nothing to add.

Tonight though I was working on a piece and decided to try just recording myself playing on my regular electric guitar the bass parts.

After playing /recording the bass line with my electric I added Waves Soundshifter and transposed it down an octave. For my bass amp via Amplitube 4 I tried out some of the Ampeg SVX 2 amps I had recently picked up.

It sounds really pretty nice in the mix. I was surprised how well it sounded. I'll be investigating this further.

Although I'm pretty motivated to try using MODO bass via the keyboard. It sure was easy to play it on the electric guitar though. No new skills involved.

P.S. The technique only worked for me on play back. Soundshifter introduces latency when tracking/recording, but none on playback.

sharke
For a real sounding bass part, I generally play it on my guitar, convert to MIDI with Melodyne, transpose down an octave and then fire up Trilian. So many amazing basses in there and if you get your head around the keyswitches you can make it sound very real. 

As I read this thread, I was thinking this too.  A great idea.

Mesh

sharke
For a real sounding bass part, I generally play it on my guitar, convert to MIDI with Melodyne, transpose down an octave and then fire up Trilian. So many amazing basses in there and if you get your head around the keyswitches you can make it sound very real. 

Is it the version of Melodyne that came with Sonar or an ungraded version?   

I've done this myself at times ......Melodyne Essentials ( what comes w SONAR ) does this very well
 
Kenny

I agree with Jeff that when you try to play a bass part on guitar, it has the tendency to come out like a guitar riff if you're not careful. Especially when you're trying to feel out or jam a bass part from scratch. There's something about having that guitar in your hand that makes you think like a guitarist (amazingly enough!). It works better if you can pretty much hear the bass part in your head first, then it's a matter of translating it to guitar. 
 
However, another Melodyne method that might work better for you is to hum the part into a mic and then have Melodyne convert that to MIDI. It's probably somewhat easier to get into that bass player "mindspace" when you're making bass noises with your mouth as opposed to trying to play a bass part on guitar. 
 
I have a crappy Logitech USB mic set up for quick and easy humming into Melodyne. You don't need high fidelity.  

michaelhanson
Exactly!  A simple example would be that bass players often slide into notes because the distance between the frets are far greater than their hands can reach. 
 
I've played guitar for around 40 years, but bass only for the last 15 yrs.  It took a long while for me to learn to play like a bass player and not like a guitar player, playing the bass.

+1
 
A good example is one that drove me nuts trying to transcribe pre-Melodyne...the first 2 bass notes of Too Rich For My Blood by Patricia Barber (the YT below). Once I got Melodyne and got a look at the intro (and then going, duh, double basses are fretless), I saw that the first note was 50 cents sharp and the second note was 25 cents sharp, and then everything after dropped into the key of F. And if it's not played that way, it just doesn't work. Couldn't make that sound right with a bend on a guitar. Or a fretted bass, for that matter. Hard to do a slide out of a half tone bend into a quarter tone bend (me, anyway). But I've got it working now with OTS' CoreBass Pear!
 

I guess I don't understand the point of the Mikro.  Why the need for a shorter scale?  You guys got little Trump hands or somethin'?  
 
 
 
 

Anderton
In terms of playing style, the main point to remember about bass is that it's part of the *rhythm* section.

Don't tell us. Tell the three out of four bass players who think they are the main event. 

tlw

Voda La Void
I guess I don't understand the point of the Mikro.  Why the need for a shorter scale?  You guys got little Trump hands or somethin'?  
 

If you’re very used to a guitar’s scale length, which is generally 25.5” or less, playing a long-scale bass fluidly requires a different “muscle memory” because the frets are far enough apart that the frets just aren’t where guitar-based practice and experience says they should be, if you see what I mean. That’s on top of the mental re-mapping needed to deal with the top two strings being “missing” and the different fret-hand fingerings required to accomodate the bigger gap between the frets.

A short scale bass can help with all of that. Though some guitarists find it an effort to switch between Gibson and Fender guitar scale lengths which only differ by 3/4”.

And yes, some people have smaller hands than others.

What appealed to me about a short scale bass is that it's about the same size as guitar (which I imagine would be comfortable to play). As long as the mikro is decent in tone and playability, that would work for me.
 
I'll also be using some amp sims to sculpture the sound. Possibly in time, I might want more than what a mikro has to offer.....IDK.

Just curious Michael, wouldn't that be more of a mental thing......to be able to stay within the confines of the bass line? (no matter what size the bass is)
 

Mesh
Just curious Michael, wouldn't that be more of a mental thing......to be able to stay within the confines of the bass line? (no matter what size the bass is)
 

Probably. I could also probably play a guitar simulating a Bass much more like a Bass as well, now that I have been forced to think like a Bass Player.

Which is kind of the same answer I would have with Tal, she is a Bass Player.