I'm looking for bass tabs a particular song.

Looked at:
Songsterr
911 tabas
big bass tabs
ultimate-guitar
totalbass
tabcrawler
riffstation

Now, I also searched for guitar tabs and guitar chords ( I can pick out the bass from these).

If I cannot find the info online, what's the next step? Call the music store? Try to pick it out blindly by playing random notes along with it?

Try watching a live performance on youtube, I've figured out a lot of songs that way.

 
Heavens no, that isn't how you learn songs by ear.


Why don't you tell us the particular song and maybe we can guide you through how to listen and learn.  A little ear training will save you hours poring over crappy online tabs.


Can you match pitch with your voice?  If I were to play middle C on a piano, could you sing it back to me?

Learn to play it by ear.

Look for piano sheet music of the song, and transcribe the bass clef portion.

youtube has helped me when trying to figure out a part.

Well, there are 12 notes you can hit. You can start by randomly choosing notes until you hit the root of the song. From there you can listen to the next chord and do the same. Takes all of about 10 seconds per chord.

If there are runs or fills, once you have the root you can randomly hit notes until a second one sounds good. And a third. And forth. And so on.


Or, you can learn the pentatonic major and minor scales and just use those. Root + 5th = 90% of bass playing.


It's really not hard to do, dude. Once you start getting the ear a bit of practice you won't be guessing anymore.

It just takes a lot more time and patience to do it by ear if the song is complex.   Some songs are easy peasy.  Some, not so much.  But as one said, you can at least start by finding out what key the song is in.  And go from there.  

There are times when a bass line or guitar part is over my head and I have to find alternative ways to figure it out.   It's just all about what level we're at of our understanding of what a guy is doing.  Most pro's might be doing stuff that is over our heads until someone shows us, or we plop down and work it out by staying with it.  Then once you get something, you're at a new level of skill.  

I learned a lot by working Beatles songs like "Daytripper", "Taxman", etc etc.  On guitar or bass.  Insert whatever artist or song you like.  Some are harder to figure out than others.  Which is a story unto itself.

Maybe some guys here will help you if you let them know what you're wanting to work out.

Thats more or less how learned to play by ear....Playing along with songs and fingering different notes till what I was playing on my instrument matched what I heard on record.

Unless one is naturally gifted with a good ear, this is a skill that takes years to develop.

Hell...I've been playing bass for over 30 years at this point and even now am finding little things on songs that i never picked up on before.

If you can find a chord list, that will narrow the options down a lot.  Start with the root, 5th, major and minor 3rds, etc.