Original bass lines from the Riff Lab
Bass Line Library
Original bass exercises in ten styles. Every page has the TAB, a bar-by-bar chord table, practice notes and MIDI files you can open in any DAW.
Ten bass lines
Reggae One-Drop Bass Line
Silent on beat one: the bass enters on the “and” and the drums drop together on beat three.
A minor · 74 BPM · Laid-back
Bossa Nova Bass Line
The root held for a dotted quarter, then the fifth on the “and” of two.
F major · 132 BPM · On the beat
Blues Shuffle Bass Line
The 1–3–5–6 boogie figure in steady quarter notes, walking back down on the F7 and G7 bars.
C blues · 108 BPM · On the beat
Walking Jazz Bass Line
A quarter-note walk through a ii–V–I–vi turnaround with half-step approach notes.
F major · 138 BPM · On the beat
Metal Gallop Bass Line
An eighth and two sixteenths on a low root, with accents and a slide into each change.
E minor · 152 BPM · Pushed
Slap Funk Sixteenth-Note Bass Line
A sixteenth-note slap grid: accented roots, octave pops and ghost notes.
E Dorian · 104 BPM · On the beat
Neo-Soul Bass Line Behind the Beat
Sparse and late: long roots, a ghost note and a hammer-on, placed behind the drums.
D Dorian · 82 BPM · Laid-back
Disco Octave Bass Line
Root-and-octave eighth notes over a kick on every beat.
A minor · 122 BPM · On the beat
Country Two-Feel Bass Line
Root on beat one, fifth on beat three and a short pickup into the next chord.
G major · 116 BPM · On the beat
Indie Eighth-Note Bass Line
Six straight eighths on the root, an octave on beat four and a slide into the next chord.
E minor · 128 BPM · Pushed
How these pages work
These are original exercises written for Basnote’s Riff Lab, not transcriptions of recordings. Each one is a short pattern in the spirit of its style, with a chord progression, a tempo and a feel.
The TAB, the chord table and the MIDI files are generated from the same data the app plays, so what you read is what you hear in Riff Lab. This is a first selection of ten lines; the Riff Lab itself holds more styles, each in six variations.