Purpose

Bassline reads the current chord and the timeline and plays a bass part that stays in key and in time. It covers simple root and fifth patterns, octave bounces, walking lines, Euclidean pulses, funk slap with thumb, pop, and ghost notes, and 303-style acid with slides and accents. Because it re-reads the chord every step, it rides a chord progression and turns it into a rhythm-section bass.

Use

Wire a chord source such as Progression into Input 0, a timeline clock into Input 1, and optionally a scale into Input 2. Choose a Style and Rate, set the Octave low, and the voices output drives a bass instrument like Synth. The same note output also works as a control source for sub-bass visuals.

Inputs and outputs

• Input 0: chord_state current chord. Required.
• Input 1: timeline timeline clock. Required.
• Input 2: scale scale context. Optional, helps keep passing notes in key.
• Output 0: voices emits the bass line as note voices, with an optional doubled octave voice.

Controls

• Style: root, root_fifth, octave, walk, euclid, arp, slap, or acid.
• Rate: note speed from whole to sixteenth.
• Octave: base octave, defaulting low for bass.
• Hits: pulse count used by the Euclidean style.
• Approach: chance of approach notes leading into the next root.
• Ghost and Pop: funk articulation amount for the slap style.
• Slide: glide and accent amount for the acid style.
• Gatelen, Velocity, Accent: note length, level, and downbeat emphasis.
• Doubleoct: adds a second voice one octave up.
• Seed: sets the random choices so a line repeats.

Notes

• Pair Bassline with Progression so the bass follows the harmony automatically.
• Slap controls only shape the slap style and acid controls only shape the acid style.
• Keep Octave low and Gatelen moderate for a tight, punchy bass.

Ports

Inputs

• chord_state row required
  chord_state_v1
• timeline row
  timeline_state_f32_v1
• scale row
  scale_v1

Outputs

• voices row
  note_voices_f32_v1

Parameters

Style (Style) Menu op('bassline').par.Style

Default:

root

Options:

root, root_fifth, octave, walk, euclid, arp, slap, acid

Rate (Rate) Menu op('bassline').par.Rate

Default:

quarter

Options:

whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth

Octave (Octave) Int op('bassline').par.Octave

Default:

-1

Range:

-4 to 2

Hits (Hits) Int op('bassline').par.Hits

Default:

8

Range:

1 to 16

Approach (Approach) Float op('bassline').par.Approach

Default:

0.35

Range:

0 to 1

Ghost (Ghost) Float op('bassline').par.Ghost

Default:

0.6

Range:

0 to 1

Pop (Pop) Float op('bassline').par.Pop

Default:

0.7

Range:

0 to 1

Slide (Slide) Float op('bassline').par.Slide

Default:

0.4

Range:

0 to 1

Gatelen (Gatelen) Float op('bassline').par.Gatelen

Default:

0.6

Range:

0.05 to 1

Velocity (Velocity) Float op('bassline').par.Velocity

Default:

0.85

Range:

0 to 1

Accent (Accent) Float op('bassline').par.Accent

Default:

0.3

Range:

0 to 1

Doubleoct (Doubleoct) Toggle op('bassline').par.Doubleoct

Default:

Off

Options:

Off, On

Seed (Seed) Int op('bassline').par.Seed

Default:

1

Range:

0 to 100000