Hi gang, first topic, hopefully belongs in Theory.
Any advice for detecting what’s being played when listening to recorded songs? Guitar melody lines are usually quite clear in modern mixes, but bass can often be considerably more buried.
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It takes some time to get used to bass lines. Luckily, it usually starts with root note.
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How might you go about finding that root note to begin with? Presumably identify what a singer, guitarist, or higher-register instrument is doing?
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Ok give me a few songs you like and we’ll go from there.
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Hey, thanks! OK, let’s try a band that I think has some very good bass mixes but clearly has a melody that isn’t just straight roots of the guitar’s chords:
I’m pretty sure we’re dealing with E minor, but I can definitely hear more going on with the bass, but it’s hard to pick out exactly what! Could be walkups, could be a complete melody line, but it’s hard to tell.
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Yeah, that’s a great starting song. Technical enough to get your ears going. The fills are chromatic so it’s hard to miss that.
Here’s the cheat sheet, just use it as a starting point and not copy it all.
Nice, what would you suggest? Just listening to the opening riff as a starting point and then trying to work out the rest myself from there?
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Yeah! That would be ideal. I do most of the transcribing myself, just listen and figure out. You’ll get some wrong but overtime you can correct it. If you can use your ear you are not afraid to take on any songs, you’ll soon find out figuring out songs is much, much easier to do than playing it. 
I transcribed this song last year, the keyword is transcribed, I can’t play it “yet”. It’s still beyond my skills.
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This is great. Really distinct bassline. Honestly the kind of mixing I wish more stuff I liked had so I can sit down and pick it apart note by note, haha. Being able to identify what’s going on but being unable to actually play it sounds like a good headache to have but I’ll work my way up to that point!
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One thing you can try is loading the song into the Moises app then turn off every instrument but the bass. Once your ear gets used to following the bass line it’s kinda hard not to hear it in most songs from then on.
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Just realized that what I’m describing is basically the first part of the process of transcribing. I guess at least now I know what to search for…
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This was the inspiration
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exactly what i do first, moises has really helped me with figuring out the root. i also try to compare it to songs that i already know the root of and then check it with moises.