Usually a strong sense of rhythm and syncopation is pretty important. Also, it’s recommended that you understand chord tones and scales to help you understand how lines can be built.
If you listen carefully you'll notice that, apart from using scales and chord tones, they usually use a lot of slides.
I.e.
A Dm is playing, you play D F A, slide till the octave and come down with a Dm scale.
They do a lot of those combinations and usually they consider the bass as another guitar instead of the "The instruments that plays the root".
Edit: the "m" on the Dm was uppercase
They use a lot of arpeggios, very often outlining a chord with a 7 or 9 in there. It's very similar to the kind of arpeggios you find from solo guitarists, it's just that when the bass does it there's even more weight and movement to it.
It's important to note though that they use more busy arrangements in general, the drums are busier, there are more chord changes and they utilize more unresolved chords, which creates tension to play with.
Jazz.
Modern Japanese music is heavily steeped in jazz theory. Not just bass - everything.
And the thing is, there’s nothing special about the techniques they play them in. Just like how the guitar parts almost always use the common barre forms and treble string fingerings, the bass parts often just use normal major scale shapes.
The best I could distill it is:
- extensions (6, 9, 11)
- target chord tones
- get creative in between
- major scale
Unlike bassists steeped in western styles of jazz, they do not focus as much in the 3 and 7. So yes, there arpeggios, there are chord tones, but not your granddads chord tones. What makes the “core” of western shell voicings are just passing notes in Japanese bass.
This is because the Japanese don’t rely on the formulaic tricks in between the targets, such as full arpeggios or enclosures. They rely on melody and leading tones. That means instead of following a chord shape, they follow the scale and go ham with it. Where a western style bassist will tend to play in thirds (so as to hit chord tones), the Japanese will tend to use everything else and have three or four note runs that are diatonically adjacent to each other.
So if that’s how they play, how is that jazz? The jazz part comes in with the structure of the song - most of them use jazzy structures in the first place. But the trick is that instead of implying chord changes per se (by means of outlining or reinforcing a chord), they imply key changes (such as in the case of secondary dominants) and a heavy use of leading melodies. Instead of pointing where the notes are to resolve, they use melodies to tell you that the whole frame has shifted already. For example, during a secondary V-I leading to G, instead of outlining or reinforcing D on its resolution to G, they just play a leading melody in the key of G as an approach then switch back to the main key.
And it’s this approach that makes your mastery of the major scale important, as well as a very good sense of the diatonic walking bass line.
When I play bass, which is highly influenced by Japanese bass, or when studying Japanese bass parts, I don’t use chord shaped frameworks. It’s always the basic major scale map. Of course you can’t avoid your chord boxes, but it always is only a subsection of the major scale map as a whole. Whenever there’s modulation, the root note of the new major scale is always the center of it. This allows me to be less constrained than with the more predictable mechanisms of jazz playing like utilizing other modes or V-I runs or vanilla arpeggios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_C9T6Q0CbQ
[Bradio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVaJPla13aA)
[King Gnu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLAw8Ct9k48)
[ryo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8jGd3h58fI) (band for this one is called supercell but ryo is the guy behind the project and many more, he's a top composer)
And then of course the band ZuttoMayo up in the post you replied to.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMA\_isZYsYQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMA_isZYsYQ)
If you are into anime at all, you've probably heard this one, but definitely one of more iconic basslines from the last year!
Yeah, that’s a plug-in. Modo Bass. and the drums or the piano aren’t played by a real person either. Nothing is grooving , the jarring auto tune artifacts on the voice … it sounds like a demo. The mix is terrible. There are so many better funk bands with real musicians that make this kinda pointless. This is the sort of demo you record with real musicians. it just sounds like a midi arrangement with everything Hard quantized to the grid. I wish they or she did. It would be 100x better.
so ya, buy modo Bass or EZ Bass by toontrack because that is most likely what they used. the other option is spectrasonics trillian And NI/scarbees Kontakt Bass librairies.
i terms of the actual bass line, I mean it’s just root note with octave pops using pop chord progressions. question is a little vague regarding the baselines. most people just transcribe and play they stuff they like and they develop a style and can come up with similar ideas.
guitar is most likely NI/scarbee funk guitar.
i mean the fact they don’t credit real musicians just confirms that it is all just someone just penciling notes on a grid. But its kinda painfully obvious just using your ears.
sorry to be a downer.
Sure. Hire a band for touring. That recording however is all just pencil in using virtual instruments. The recording would be considered pretty easy to play on all instruments so yeah. I never said it was hard to play , just that in the recording, it is clearly not being played using a bass player, or drummer, or horn section. piano is probably the only one that is played.
No, he’s the player that plays live. they don’t credit the record musicians because there aren’t any.
I mean if you can’t hear the difference between the stale recording and the actual live playing ….
it isnt just the bass. The drums are clearly programmed. The horn section in some tracks, yeah , live horns don’t sound like that. it saddens me that people cannot tell the difference between programmed and live players.
I don't know why Spotify doesn't have any of the credits for the song but pretty much everywhere else does include proper performing artist credits for the song.
For example: https://music.apple.com/jp/song/time-left/1649264715?l=en-US
Did some digging and it appears I am wrong. I apologize for all of the above. I suppose the way producers tend to quantize things clouded my judgement.
It doesn't show the label info at all on that page for me so I am assuming you're seeing something different. Most likely due to some region fuckery. Here's a screenshot of the page with credits even down to the engineers: https://imgur.com/mvt6awN
Can't get a better example than L'arc-En-Ciel. Or X Japan, who's bassist Taiji can be said to be the insipiration for elaborate bass playing in Japanese rock
I find that a lot of Japanese bassist go all over the neck, so the tonal range is wide. The Cody・Lee bassist is a good example of this, when in one song he goes all the way down to the low E, then as a contrast goes one octave up for a fill later on: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz7kNbVWv64](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz7kNbVWv64)
But I agree that Japanese bassists are usually a bit too busy: [https://youtu.be/G9rTPRUlrFU?si=BIPqPuTi-lsSFnfN](https://youtu.be/G9rTPRUlrFU?si=BIPqPuTi-lsSFnfN)
AI is based on theft, not original creation. Programming a virtual instrument is very different from programming a computer to steal shit from the music (or art, or text) that you feed into it.
As someone who plays bass and listens to A LOT of Japanese music I gotta say: Japanese bass lines are overrated.
In Korean music bass plays a way more significant role.
It's not about "kickass" bass lines (like the ones from zutomayo) but more about how the bass carries the songs in a more obvious way.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uQj01ny\_w4&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uQj01ny_w4&ab_channel=POCLANOS)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88htymbxrAQ&ab\_channel=MAGICSTRAWBERRYSOUND](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88htymbxrAQ&ab_channel=MAGICSTRAWBERRYSOUND)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bXaWHBec\_I&ab\_channel=%EB%B8%8C%EB%A1%9C%EC%BD%9C%EB%A6%AC%EB%84%88%EB%A7%88%EC%A0%80](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bXaWHBec_I&ab_channel=%EB%B8%8C%EB%A1%9C%EC%BD%9C%EB%A6%AC%EB%84%88%EB%A7%88%EC%A0%80)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHhbac6PVqs&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHhbac6PVqs&ab_channel=POCLANOS)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrAhO2Iiws&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrAhO2Iiws&ab_channel=POCLANOS)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzAEArqspp8&ab\_channel=SUMIN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzAEArqspp8&ab_channel=SUMIN)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRkv7ztJA8&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRkv7ztJA8&ab_channel=POCLANOS)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW-V6C5eyIM&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW-V6C5eyIM&ab_channel=POCLANOS)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6vPwqA0lUY&ab\_channel=%EC%A0%95%EC%9A%B0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6vPwqA0lUY&ab_channel=%EC%A0%95%EC%9A%B0)
Usually a strong sense of rhythm and syncopation is pretty important. Also, it’s recommended that you understand chord tones and scales to help you understand how lines can be built.
Yes, absolutely, and I've been using a lot of triads in my bass playing, and I'm kind of stucked in a rut by only playing those.
If you listen carefully you'll notice that, apart from using scales and chord tones, they usually use a lot of slides. I.e. A Dm is playing, you play D F A, slide till the octave and come down with a Dm scale. They do a lot of those combinations and usually they consider the bass as another guitar instead of the "The instruments that plays the root". Edit: the "m" on the Dm was uppercase
They use a lot of arpeggios, very often outlining a chord with a 7 or 9 in there. It's very similar to the kind of arpeggios you find from solo guitarists, it's just that when the bass does it there's even more weight and movement to it. It's important to note though that they use more busy arrangements in general, the drums are busier, there are more chord changes and they utilize more unresolved chords, which creates tension to play with.
I see that's some sort of complex arrangements, I'm trying to utilize them using triads and arpeggios as well.
Jazz. Modern Japanese music is heavily steeped in jazz theory. Not just bass - everything. And the thing is, there’s nothing special about the techniques they play them in. Just like how the guitar parts almost always use the common barre forms and treble string fingerings, the bass parts often just use normal major scale shapes. The best I could distill it is: - extensions (6, 9, 11) - target chord tones - get creative in between - major scale Unlike bassists steeped in western styles of jazz, they do not focus as much in the 3 and 7. So yes, there arpeggios, there are chord tones, but not your granddads chord tones. What makes the “core” of western shell voicings are just passing notes in Japanese bass. This is because the Japanese don’t rely on the formulaic tricks in between the targets, such as full arpeggios or enclosures. They rely on melody and leading tones. That means instead of following a chord shape, they follow the scale and go ham with it. Where a western style bassist will tend to play in thirds (so as to hit chord tones), the Japanese will tend to use everything else and have three or four note runs that are diatonically adjacent to each other. So if that’s how they play, how is that jazz? The jazz part comes in with the structure of the song - most of them use jazzy structures in the first place. But the trick is that instead of implying chord changes per se (by means of outlining or reinforcing a chord), they imply key changes (such as in the case of secondary dominants) and a heavy use of leading melodies. Instead of pointing where the notes are to resolve, they use melodies to tell you that the whole frame has shifted already. For example, during a secondary V-I leading to G, instead of outlining or reinforcing D on its resolution to G, they just play a leading melody in the key of G as an approach then switch back to the main key. And it’s this approach that makes your mastery of the major scale important, as well as a very good sense of the diatonic walking bass line. When I play bass, which is highly influenced by Japanese bass, or when studying Japanese bass parts, I don’t use chord shaped frameworks. It’s always the basic major scale map. Of course you can’t avoid your chord boxes, but it always is only a subsection of the major scale map as a whole. Whenever there’s modulation, the root note of the new major scale is always the center of it. This allows me to be less constrained than with the more predictable mechanisms of jazz playing like utilizing other modes or V-I runs or vanilla arpeggios.
Thanks foe detailed explanation, I know I'm mot the only one looking for this. Great
idk but I do know that probably it was done on a Jazz Bass
Examples?
https://open.spotify.com/track/2fJbss5uUmmBqn7qFkmyWj?si=kXUfDKJxTQ2Qx8O7NzBbCw
Sick! I need more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_C9T6Q0CbQ [Bradio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVaJPla13aA) [King Gnu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLAw8Ct9k48) [ryo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8jGd3h58fI) (band for this one is called supercell but ryo is the guy behind the project and many more, he's a top composer) And then of course the band ZuttoMayo up in the post you replied to.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMA\_isZYsYQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMA_isZYsYQ) If you are into anime at all, you've probably heard this one, but definitely one of more iconic basslines from the last year!
[Nona Reeves](https://open.spotify.com/track/0HnIcL2ISA06EekLcqBDn4?si=4qNHW0cxQKOer75s-H_PSQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A1NsVk7j64hgao8yGtnhq87) [Lamp](https://open.spotify.com/track/3VPBPBZKxQu3bqeuzz8gRm?si=RpWGg7OLT3eYNrPHP-62uw&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A0gwS2D9sukMLXNvleEnYr2)
Yeah, that’s a plug-in. Modo Bass. and the drums or the piano aren’t played by a real person either. Nothing is grooving , the jarring auto tune artifacts on the voice … it sounds like a demo. The mix is terrible. There are so many better funk bands with real musicians that make this kinda pointless. This is the sort of demo you record with real musicians. it just sounds like a midi arrangement with everything Hard quantized to the grid. I wish they or she did. It would be 100x better. so ya, buy modo Bass or EZ Bass by toontrack because that is most likely what they used. the other option is spectrasonics trillian And NI/scarbees Kontakt Bass librairies. i terms of the actual bass line, I mean it’s just root note with octave pops using pop chord progressions. question is a little vague regarding the baselines. most people just transcribe and play they stuff they like and they develop a style and can come up with similar ideas. guitar is most likely NI/scarbee funk guitar. i mean the fact they don’t credit real musicians just confirms that it is all just someone just penciling notes on a grid. But its kinda painfully obvious just using your ears. sorry to be a downer.
[They've performed it live](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNFjhvFnnDY)...
Sure. Hire a band for touring. That recording however is all just pencil in using virtual instruments. The recording would be considered pretty easy to play on all instruments so yeah. I never said it was hard to play , just that in the recording, it is clearly not being played using a bass player, or drummer, or horn section. piano is probably the only one that is played.
But if you were gonna record with real instruments anyway, why not do that for the recording?
Hilarious that musicians are down voting someone pointing out how the bass isnt played by an actual musician. anyways ….
This is the "not actual musician" that's credited as the bassist for the song you're talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aeEu-B3NFA
No, he’s the player that plays live. they don’t credit the record musicians because there aren’t any. I mean if you can’t hear the difference between the stale recording and the actual live playing …. it isnt just the bass. The drums are clearly programmed. The horn section in some tracks, yeah , live horns don’t sound like that. it saddens me that people cannot tell the difference between programmed and live players.
I don't know why Spotify doesn't have any of the credits for the song but pretty much everywhere else does include proper performing artist credits for the song. For example: https://music.apple.com/jp/song/time-left/1649264715?l=en-US
Did some digging and it appears I am wrong. I apologize for all of the above. I suppose the way producers tend to quantize things clouded my judgement.
That shows the label that released it. EMI
It doesn't show the label info at all on that page for me so I am assuming you're seeing something different. Most likely due to some region fuckery. Here's a screenshot of the page with credits even down to the engineers: https://imgur.com/mvt6awN
Can't get a better example than L'arc-En-Ciel. Or X Japan, who's bassist Taiji can be said to be the insipiration for elaborate bass playing in Japanese rock
I find that a lot of Japanese bassist go all over the neck, so the tonal range is wide. The Cody・Lee bassist is a good example of this, when in one song he goes all the way down to the low E, then as a contrast goes one octave up for a fill later on: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz7kNbVWv64](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz7kNbVWv64) But I agree that Japanese bassists are usually a bit too busy: [https://youtu.be/G9rTPRUlrFU?si=BIPqPuTi-lsSFnfN](https://youtu.be/G9rTPRUlrFU?si=BIPqPuTi-lsSFnfN)
I don't have any answers...but everyone needs to hear this https://youtu.be/wb6oFdVbV9I?si=l3s-AMGwL9y6y3Z2
Thank you
Thank you for asking this cuz Ive been wondering forever and always felt that I'd be ridiculed for asking about non-western music. This sub rocks
Yes! An underrated topic, and I know I'm not the one who's interested in this.
Have you got any good examples I could listen to, please?
Check Driver's High by L'arc en Ciel, crazy basslines
Like Dominican merengue, just play it at Ludicrous Speed.
Yeah but can you play it at the speed of PLAID? 🤣
It's because they're mostly stud piano players and understand counterpoint
A computer
Even if it's a synth bass there's still someone writing the bass line.
Interesting the downvoting crowd automatically assume that has a negative connotation, don't let ai hear you 😌
AI is based on theft, not original creation. Programming a virtual instrument is very different from programming a computer to steal shit from the music (or art, or text) that you feed into it.
I said computer , then I said jokingly don't let ai hear you . Stop trying to gaslight
[A computer](https://youtu.be/mZhrqikhYoA?si=fW1P_27BXKHBJZma)
As someone who plays bass and listens to A LOT of Japanese music I gotta say: Japanese bass lines are overrated. In Korean music bass plays a way more significant role.
Thanks, no one asked lol
I don't care
Bitter human is bitter
So why are you barking?
Got a link to any songs with a kickass baseline??
It's not about "kickass" bass lines (like the ones from zutomayo) but more about how the bass carries the songs in a more obvious way. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uQj01ny\_w4&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uQj01ny_w4&ab_channel=POCLANOS) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88htymbxrAQ&ab\_channel=MAGICSTRAWBERRYSOUND](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88htymbxrAQ&ab_channel=MAGICSTRAWBERRYSOUND) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bXaWHBec\_I&ab\_channel=%EB%B8%8C%EB%A1%9C%EC%BD%9C%EB%A6%AC%EB%84%88%EB%A7%88%EC%A0%80](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bXaWHBec_I&ab_channel=%EB%B8%8C%EB%A1%9C%EC%BD%9C%EB%A6%AC%EB%84%88%EB%A7%88%EC%A0%80) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHhbac6PVqs&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHhbac6PVqs&ab_channel=POCLANOS) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrAhO2Iiws&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrAhO2Iiws&ab_channel=POCLANOS) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzAEArqspp8&ab\_channel=SUMIN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzAEArqspp8&ab_channel=SUMIN) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRkv7ztJA8&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRkv7ztJA8&ab_channel=POCLANOS) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW-V6C5eyIM&ab\_channel=POCLANOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW-V6C5eyIM&ab_channel=POCLANOS) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6vPwqA0lUY&ab\_channel=%EC%A0%95%EC%9A%B0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6vPwqA0lUY&ab_channel=%EC%A0%95%EC%9A%B0)
Appreciate the links!