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subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 12:11 pm
by Críoch
Ok..

So we have a thread on Kicks.. http://www.subsekt.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=634

Now we have to come up with some bass.

I reckon everyone should get their own kick - or favourite kick (maybe even have a few goes) - and show us how you approached the bass.

There shouldnt really be any limits? Synthesis? Samples? Effects? - You decide :mrgreen:

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 1:43 pm
by helloitsmeagain
hey john, i was kinda wondering how you were gonna approach the the b-line... lots of calls to me made there.

like maybe we state the length of the loop. sometimes i go to 4 bars with bass lines. and then i have some variations on that 4 bar loop... one approach is that perhaps we'd all start with the same midi. we could adjust the velocity, start position and length of note placements but couldn't move them off the keys they sat on.

perhaps at least the key, keeping in mind the kick was in g#, should be specified.

very excited, think i'm gonna learn a lot from you guys on this one!

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 1:54 pm
by Críoch
Do what you like Renato mate.. whatever sounds good. No rulezz :)

Bare in mind that you'll probably be putting stuff on top of it later, in other threads (hopefully) haha

Whether its complex - or a chugging groove - All good :)

Deffo - the kick / bass / loop / track will be in the key of G#

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 9:36 am
by Mslwte
I'm interested to see how people do there bass, it's a definately weak point for me. Who's gonna get the ball rolling?

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 9:41 am
by Críoch
Everyone mate.. do summat :P

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 9:42 am
by Críoch
If I get a bit of time later, I might get something together.

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 9:51 am
by Mslwte
If my bass didn't sound so crap I would chip in John :)

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 10:02 am
by Críoch
But the whole point mate is to show & tell.. Even if it dont sound the best, someone may be able to say "try this.." or.. it might spark a different technique that you could do with the same set up etc..

Go on Mate.. Even if its just you taking the bass out of an existing track. G'wan - you've stuck your head up now Mate :P

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 10:19 am
by Mslwte
ICN wrote:But the whole point mate is to show & tell.. Even if it dont sound the best, someone may be able to say "try this.." or.. it might spark a different technique that you could do with the same set up etc..

Go on Mate.. Even if its just you taking the bass out of an existing track. G'wan - you've stuck your head up now Mate :P
Ha ha I reckon you stuck your head up first when you posted the topic lol
I'll do something later but be gentle with me lol

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 10:21 am
by Críoch
We're out of the comfort zone Man.. Feels good! :)

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 1:22 pm
by helloitsmeagain
In China, where I live right now, there's a saying... the bird to fly first gets shot.

F ck it, that's probably why nobody has invented anything here for like 4000 years.

So here goes. Shoot me if you must. I'm not at all confident about this...

This was a big experiment for me.

First image. My midi. I messed around with that for too long... as I always do. I have a bad habit of going back to it, even once i'm satisfied with the bass... after 20 edits i just gave up.

Next image, operator. All painstakingly laid out so you can get a good look under the hood.

next was image 2. overdrive to dirty it up. saturator, an edited preset. corpus, again, an edited preset.

image 3. i always split my bass and make below 150 mono. then drop some movement on freqs above. always some echo on my bass. eq to kill below 30.

image 4. boring old compression.

rendered that all down and started again. image 2nd1. here you can see the mono i give below 150.

image 2nd2.

a edited preset. eq eq eq... filter freq. this can be done manually with modulation but basically wanted to create a surges of energy. eq. same boring compression.

image addendum.

i used my own kick cause it sat best with the bass line. That's right. you heard me. i made my bass line first, then auditioned kicks. cause you guys made so many cool ones, i couldn't decide. i narrowed down the list, then chose my own cause it fitted my purposes.

ps. transposed to bring it solidly in the key... G# ionian is what i decided on.

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 1:23 pm
by Críoch
Woah - Cant wait to hear that Renato.. I've got mine made, just need to bounce & take screenshots.

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 1:25 pm
by Críoch
Sounds nice on the shitty laptop speakers haha - I can hear the modulation. Will listen properly when I take a break from studying later this afternoon. Cool

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 1:30 pm
by helloitsmeagain
ICN wrote:Woah - Cant wait to hear that Renato.. I've got mine made, just need to bounce & take screenshots.
aaaaaah! now you tell me! i was hanging around for some one to go first so i could bite their style...

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 1:32 pm
by Críoch
haha - man... this is like a "dick comparison" competition - thats why everyone is hesitating joining up hahaha.

No need to be bashful - Its all about ideas. Its great seeing how other people work. I'm a fucking geek - I love this stuff :) :)

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 3:02 pm
by helloitsmeagain
ICN wrote:Sounds nice on the shitty laptop speakers haha
Yeah, sounds good in my earphones, but I gotta be honest, I'm never sure about my bass and I'd love to know how it stands up in monitors.

Please give me some feedback on this. I'd love to know if I'm doing something wrong and how to improve it.

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 3:46 pm
by Críoch
Heres mine.. I like to put lfos on stuff.. so thought I'd try doing something with that.

First I sandwiched Sams Kick & mine together. I just roughly cut them with an autofilter on each channel & made a dip in EQ where they overlapped a bit. I stuck an other eq to take a bit out of "teh click" :) and compressed them. I then had another EQ to make room for sylenth.

I made some room in the kick where Gsharp 2 was hitting - around 102/3 or something.
Kick Channel.jpg
Kick Channel.jpg (103.87 KiB) Viewed 25099 times
Sylenth - It has 4 Osc's. 1st page I have a Saw and a sine. lfo the pitch until it sounds raspy.. then mess with the cut off to dampen it down. Just whatever sounded nice really. I have the lfo on freq rather than 1/16th's cos I think it sounds odder. I added some bitcrush on it to make it sound a bit fkd. Dont add too much of the drive knob on the filter cos it takes away the bass. I've highlighted everything I changed from the init patch. Theres no chorus on this. It was on.. but the wet was 0%.
Sylenth 1.jpg
Sylenth 1.jpg (380.08 KiB) Viewed 25099 times
On the 2nd page.. I've a saw thats been detuned to add some width. Its playing 2 octaves up from whats on the other saw & sine.

Mess with the filter and try to balance the volume between A/B a little.

I have a little bit of velocity on the cut off on B to make it move a bit. Also have the pitch of this 3rd Osc being modulated by noise.. so the "bassier" ones arent affected. I often do this on the overall pitch on sounds cos the noise seems to add a random pitch to it. Subtle is best otherwise its just too obvious. I can barely hear it on this.. but I can notice it as the loop plays out.
Sylenth 2.jpg
Sylenth 2.jpg (373.51 KiB) Viewed 25099 times

And this is the pattern.. I like to loop things in 3's or 5's or whatever.. with slight changes in them so as it repeats, its different. This particular pattern is over 3 bars. The loop in the .zip is 2bars & you cant tell.. but again, as its playing here, its subtle. I could have eq'd the bass a bit more than I did.. but it was just quick. I think theres a little too much bass with it.. but I like how it sounds. Its probably a little too bassy. I made a shaker to go with it too & it sounded cool haha.

Would be interested in hearing other opinions too :)
sylenth pattern.jpg
sylenth pattern.jpg (117.98 KiB) Viewed 25099 times
ICN SS Bass Project.zip
(3.19 MiB) Downloaded 629 times

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 4:53 pm
by Críoch
helloitsmeagain wrote:
ICN wrote:Sounds nice on the shitty laptop speakers haha
Yeah, sounds good in my earphones, but I gotta be honest, I'm never sure about my bass and I'd love to know how it stands up in monitors.

Please give me some feedback on this. I'd love to know if I'm doing something wrong and how to improve it.
I like it man.. I tried it there with your kick & theres great groove in it. I'd be totally happy with it if it was mine. It sounds nice, not too bassy. I shortened the audio & changed the playback position & got a nice groove from it. If it was mine.. thats what I'd usually do: find something within the audio. I took a bit of the top off with Eq to clam the clicky bit of it. But thats just personal taste man. I think its class.

Gonna give it a go myself when I have time. Thanks for sharing your process Renato! :)

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 2:53 am
by helloitsmeagain
hear you on the clicky-ness of it. Probably due to the fact that I have no release on my osc. I'll look into solving that with some eq first...

I know the loop kinda sounds like it ends near the beginning. I actually wanna try something with this... Have the bass loop seem like it resolves early in a 2 bar loop but then have the drum loop feel like it resolves at the end. Not sure how it will turn out... might just use your suggestion and move that start position around.

Like the sound you got going. Solidly dark. I guess it's obvious from my loop I'm a big fan of deep house. Where mine is a touch funky with a pile of groove, yours is driving and wicked. The work you doing is a big insight for me. 10 to 1 your track is gonna be way more dark than mine...

Re: subsekt sound design school _ BASS

Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 5:40 am
by helloitsmeagain
hey john, took your advice! nice one.

12db low pass at 350. Click gone.

shifted the start point in the 2 bar loop to 2.3 and cropped the loop so as to remove the 1st, now it starts on 1.2. It means the bar is only 1.3 in length, which is something I've never done before. Rhythmic dissonance, with a bass line. who'd a thunk it...