Week 127: Random Bass Line Creator Ready to have some fun? Good! We’re going to create bass lines through fun random stuff...and yes, there’s an
audio example. As one drummer friend said, “What’s cool is that it’s something no one would play, but it sounds like something someone would play.” Fair enough.
Start off by surfing on over to
http://www.tencrazy.com/gadgets/mfx/, which has a whole bunch of cool MIDI FX from Markelford Friedman, then download his AcidSpew MIDI MFX zip file. Unzip it, drag
TcMfxAcidSpew64-Install.bat and
TcMfxAcidSpew64.dll into
C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared MIDI Plugins, then run the .bat file as Administrator. This should install the MFX, but if not, open the text file that comes in the original folder and try the “hard way” to install it. (By the way, check out some of the other MIDI FX while you’re there, quite a few are pretty darn cool.)
AcidSpew generates insane, random spews of acid-bass style 16
th notes—but we’ll tame it. You can change its default of generating in the key of C, but don’t change it yet for reasons that will become clear later.
Insert the SI-Bass, using either a Simple instrument track or what I prefer, a track folder with separate MIDI and audio tracks. Insert AcidSpew as a MIDI FX (if it doesn’t show up on the list of available MFX, restart SONAR so the program knows it’s there).
Our first task is to turn the random spews into MIDI data, so we need a clip. You could record one long note, but I start recording, move the mod wheel to start the clip, and move it again to end it. For now go a little past 8 measures, then stop recording. Trim the end of the clip so it’s exactly 8 measures.
Click on the clip, and then choose
Process > Apply Effect > MIDI Effects. Check the box that deletes the FX upon rendering—you don’t want it spewing along with the eventual bass line. The rendered clip will be in a different Take Lane, but you can just double-click on the parent clip to see the generated data in the PRV.
If you hit play, unless you want 16th note randomly pitched acid bass spews, you’ll think this is a stupid tip.
Patience! Select the MIDI data clip and choose
Process > Fit to Time. Decide what format you want for the time, make sure “Modify by Changing” has “Event Times” selected, and double the number of measures for New Thru. For example if using the MBT format, in this case you want to change 9:01:000 to go through 17:01:000. Or you can just choose the Time format and double it. Now hit playback, and the AcidSpew will be a less frenetic series of 8th notes that lasts 16 measures.
Now it’s time for another MIDI FX—insert Cakewalk FX Transpose. Check the "Constrain to Scale" box, and then you can subject the notes to various keys and modes.
How you do the next step can make the difference between a cool bass part and a not particularly useful one. Set the loop brackets to one or two measures, then slide the loop around to isolate a section that works well. You’ll probably want the loop to start on the tonic.
Frankly, I was surprised by how many patterns could actually be usable, even without tweaking. But if you decide to move a few notes around, you can really hone in on something very cool. In the audio example (which is untweaked), I took advantage of the SI-Bass’s mono mode because it allows for slides (the drums are from the loops included with SONAR, and the percussion is from my EDM Percussion Loops library).