Writing the riffs was one of the more difficult parts of the task, as it was the first thing I needed to do. I had to think of a bass guitar part for each of the 5 songs in my EP, which would all be recorded first in order to set up a bassline (no pun intended) to build the rest of my work off of. Essentially, I needed to figure out the best way to write a bass guitar riff that suited my level of skill.
The technique I applied was to, essentially, improvise in the recording studio, recording the bass guitar lines onto ProTools on the days I booked the recording studio with a metronome helping me to keep time. The reason I did this instead of writing the riffs down prior to entering the studio was simply because I felt that my creative choices would have changed the riffs either before or during the recording process, and the spontaneity of the riffs on the day actually helped me feel happier with how they turned out.
Also, I decided to record the bass parts prior to the sequencing elements of the songs because I wanted to make sure the focal point of the song remained on the bass guitar section as per my original aim. I felt that if I had designed any of the other instruments or synths in advance, then the bass guitar sections I recorded on the day would have had to fit in with those sections. In that case, if I did not like how the sequenced elements sounded after the bass recording sessions had happened, then I would not have time to change my bass recordings at all, forcing me to commit to an idea which may not have been the best one for the EP.
In addition, I used tips from a vital piece of research to improve my skill when playing the bass guitar in the studio. The website linked above describes and details how best to ‘jam’ in a studio, and lists some ways which could help improve improvising and playing in general. One such example is a tip the website offers about rhythm – a very essential component for bass guitar players – telling us to “understand the rudiments of rhythm as well as the bass’ relationship to the drums.” This essentially means that bass guitarists have to know how to be rhythmic in their playing, as well as understanding how well bass guitars and drums work together. One of the unspoken rules about the latter is that the bass guitar works well in tandem with the drums (which is logical, as they are both very rhythmic instruments), and bass players such as Scott Devine (on his website post) claim that bass lines need to either ‘lock in’ with the kick or are ‘conversational’ with it to help keep the rhythm of the song flowing smoothly, by playing around the ‘root notes’ (the lowest/base note of a chord, hence the ‘root’ part in the name) in time with the drums. This is both to ensure that the music sounds pleasant to the ear and maintains a good rhythm due to the communication between the bass guitarist and the drummer.
The interesting thing, however, is that it does not apply all the time, as demonstrated by one of the more well-known bass guitar players in the last 40-50 years: Paul McCartney. One such example of Paul’s bass guitar riffs is on The Beatles song A Day In The Life, which you can listen to here, as well as being able to see a detailed analysis of his bass guitar riffs he played.
This was what the first 13 bars of the bass riff for A Day In The Life by The Beatles looked like: 
This seems to go against the previous notion of playing around root notes and outlining chords because the riff does not stick exclusively to that root note. The rhythm changes slightly too, with the usage of half notes, dotted half notes, quarter notes and eighth notes which give a bit more life to the riff. This is important to note because it lifted the bass guitar up and away from simply being an accompaniment to the drum, allowing it to be a complex rhythmic and harmonic instrument on its own, standing out just enough to fill a bigger role, instead of just simply “keeping time and mapping the chord changes.”
With all of this in mind, I was inspired to come up with a plethora of different riff ideas for my time in the studio, and with the recording studio booked and armed with those ideas, it was time to record the tracks.