How to make a Kick ass bass Line

[Sol]

HOW TO MAKE KICK ASS BASS SOUNDS

The secret to a kick ass bass patch is the right balance between lower level ENERGY (what you feel) and upper level CHARACTER (what you hear). Your weapons in this battle are:

1. Your BASIC SINE WAVE- the "bottom end" that people feel. I do all my sound design at C, so for bass sounds I keep a sine wave at C1 on hand at all times. Sometimes I use this (or one at C2) as the original source sample, effecting it directly and whatnot, but SOMETIMES NOT (see step 2)!!! If I do, I make sure I keep a copy of the C1 sample for step 3, below.

2. Your arsenal of samples and effects, combined to make sick, phat layers of upper harmonic-rich sound. Your sources can be ANYTHING- waveforms, a horn/piano sample, a vocal sample, whatever. Layer a couple of these, effect them, then grab another effected stack and layer again. The secret is to BE CREATIVE, and also to KEEP GOING!!! Don’t run a stack of saw waves through distortion and a flanger and expect to get something new and fresh.

3. A bass sound with too many upper harmonics (and not enough lower) ceases to become bass (bass just means any LOW sound- if you play the left side of a PIANO you are playing BASS). After stacking and effecting so much there’s a good chance you lost your original low frequency harmonic- add it back again now if you have to by restacking the original C1 sine wave. The C1 wave is your secret weapon to ensuring your bass sound doesn’t get wimped out!!!

4. After you have a nice patch of rich, phat noise, run the ENTIRE THING through this ultimate of weapons, the low pass filter. This is what you use to "fine tune" your sound. As you slowly turn the knob down, you will hear the upper harmonics you stacked start to shave off (the C1 sine wave will stay untouched of course). Again, the secret is to stop when you get the perfect combination of CHARACTER and ENERGY- you want some top level detail but you also want it to "feel" like bass. By using an envelope, You can also let the listener hear more upper harmonics at a different part of the sample- In this case you want the majority of the envelope to fall at the meaty sweet spot you found. A short sweep is all you really need to add interest, and ensures your sample/patch can be used later to play a lot of different melodies (as opposed to a long one that becomes a melody in and of itself).

:holmes:

[dj kinda]

ok ye, basically i have FL 4....im very new to all this, tranna learn to do a bassline.....but all that made no sense to me wat so ever.....

and chance of a newie version?

[djstax]

No where near as good, but very straight forward...

1) Open up your synth VST (Download Junglist if you haven't got it yet)
2) Have just one oscillator set to a triangle wave
3) Play a low note that you can barely hear - this will be the sub bass, what you feel.
4) Layer other sounds (synth or samples) over the top
5) Apply a high pass eq to your other sounds at around 65-80hz so they do not clash with the sub bass

[dj kinda]

i dont wanna sound like a dik, but stilldont gte that either, IM USING FRUITYLOOPS! so a quick set of simple instructions to that will be very help full!!

ta!!

[Tired]

put noise in sampler channel start wiv bd 2 in vintage folder in packs and fuck around wiv iy play lo hi reverse modulate to fuck

helpsif u have legacy effects switched on there pretty quik and easy.
put in granulizer use and noise u think mite sound good a few octaves down read the help file if stuck wiv summat and pick the demo projects to bits thats wat i did wen i first started and it helped a lot

[Bhima]

It all depends on what sort of bass you're trying to make.

If you're going for a photek/bukem bouncy PUNCHY bass, you want to have two basses:

Have one without a compressor on and without a big attack but with a nice release so that the dynamics don't change much at the start and it fades out at the end. Turn it up to about -3dB then, copy your bass pattern to the other oscillator but make it an octave higher. Compress this loads so you get a massive attack going up to about -0.5dB and high pass any bass out of it. Make the notes of this really short so you dont get anything after the attack but long enough so you get a punch. Mix the two together and you have the classic jungle bass.

[DJ-DS]

kidnap dillinja

[whizz]

Good tips!

Resampling with different layers is definitely the key for nasty B-lines!

My tunes usually don't have a nasty B-line (not a common thing in liquid stuff) but my last tune I wanted to do something different. I had read a lot about resampling and layering bass but I had never tried it before. I think the result came out quite nice :)

See for yourself, the tune's called Hellman and is in the review section of the forum ;)

[Bhima]

Resampling? That's something totally different... Resampling is where you change the sample rate of a sound to limit its upper frequencies, but save disk space.......

[whizz]

Resampling? That's something totally different... Resampling is where you change the sample rate of a sound to limit its upper frequencies, but save disk space.......

People nowadays call bouncing a sample and using it again in a sampler resampling.

I'm more then well aware that the original meaning of resampling is changing the sample rate :rolleyes2

[DJ-DS]

yeah resampling ,dillinja does it alot

infact who dosesnt...................


my tips still the best tho innit but b4 you go and kidnap dillinja go in a transit van or somehting so u can take some of them valve amps and distorion racks...


for a reece thers this tune called nitrous think its by some crew called badcompany im not to sure ive neva herd of them some people say that in local tales of old u can sample a bit from this tune

[dj kinda]

ok, please dont hurt me!! im not trying to be a dik!! BUT... i still dont understnad,

can sumone write me out a quick instructions for doing this in Fruityloops 4!

cheers, ill buy you a beer if u do!! ta!

[Bo an all that!]

Your not old enough to buy beer

[DJ-DS]

ok, please dont hurt me!! im not trying to be a dik!! BUT... i still dont understnad,

can sumone write me out a quick instructions for doing this in Fruityloops 4!

cheers, ill buy you a beer if u do!! ta!
do it in an audio editor then use the sample u made in fruity loops the same way u would use any other sample

also i think reading up on eq,ing and learn about frequancys might help ya understand it more.

[dj kinda]

Your not old enough to buy beer

not what my ID says!! haha

[dj kinda]

do it in an audio editor then use the sample u made in fruity loops the same way u would use any other sample

also i think reading up on eq,ing and learn about frequancys might help ya understand it more.

and cheers man!

[Bhima]

Bass in a sampler?


...nah! :screwy:

If you have a bass sample, you can't manipulate its length/pitch properly. I've never heard of such a technique...

[whizz]

Bass in a sampler?


...nah! :screwy:

If you have a bass sample, you can't manipulate its length/pitch properly. I've never heard of such a technique...

Well I guess everybody can still learn, even the mighty Bhima :rolleyes2

[Bhima]

True, everyone is still learning...

What do you guys do? Timestretching and stuff? Usually, my bass goes over 2 (and sometimes 3) octaves. If it was a bass sample, the length of it would be all over the place; ie. it would sound pants!

[whizz]

True, everyone is still learning...

What do you guys do? Timestretching and stuff? Usually, my bass goes over 2 (and sometimes 3) octaves. If it was a bass sample, the length of it would be all over the place; ie. it would sound pants!

There's different methods really:

1. export just the one note that sounds best out of your synth for a serious lenght of time (4 bars or so). Play with this in your sampler => layer it with a detuned version, maybe even a reversed version to get a real nasty organic sound

2. export an actual melodic progression out of your synth and open this loop in a sampler.

The advantage of working in a sampler is that you can layer the original sound with reworked versions of the original or completely different sounds alltogether.

For in stance, since somebody's been talking about dillinja, the bassline in nasty ways has him saying something layered on top of the bassline ;)

[Bhima]

"The advantage of working in a sampler is that you can layer the original sound with reworked versions of the original or completely different sounds alltogether."

I don't see how you just can't do that with multiple synths... I use about 5 synths on one bassline; each sounding different...

[whizz]

"The advantage of working in a sampler is that you can layer the original sound with reworked versions of the original or completely different sounds alltogether."

I don't see how you just can't do that with multiple synths... I use about 5 synths on one bassline; each sounding different...

Resampling is only one method ;)

If your method works for you, stick with it

[Bhima]

Well, yeah. It's about what you make, not how you make it.

[nto]

kidnap dillinja

:hmm:

i like that idea

[OxyGen Tent]

yo.

there's a pretty good newcomers guide here (http://www.spinwarp.com) in the Production Tutorials section - many of which use FL.

hope it helps :toke:

[iLLuzi0n]

Resampling is much less resource hungry as the system isnt having to process the vsti's output and all chained fx with automation.

For a nice example of how resampling is used to simple yet good effect get hold of Zero-G Koncept and Funktion. Its a mediocre dnb sample pack with an integrated NI sampler as a VST plugin. The beats and other stuff are ok but some of the basslines included show how adjusting a few settings in the sampler on set slices of the audio can be used to wicked effect.

For reeces i use a Reaktor ensemble called Menace or Dragon. Very quick to use but also a bit of an overused sound. Theres also an Emu Z-plane filter emulator available for Reaktor. Shame i cant afford the real thing tho heh.

[ed fiasco]

ok, please dont hurt me!! im not trying to be a dik!! BUT... i still dont understnad,

can sumone write me out a quick instructions for doing this in Fruityloops 4!

cheers, ill buy you a beer if u do!! ta!

step 1 - uninstall fruity loops
step 2 - install reason/logic/cubase
step 3 - crack on.


i'll have that beer on the 13th :zombie:

[Hop scotch]

''step 1 - uninstall fruity loops
step 2 - install reason/logic/cubase
step 3 - crack on.''

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

You obviously havn't experienced the audio capibilitys of FL 6.0!!!

It makes an even cooler noise when you open it, yeay

[ed fiasco]

''step 1 - uninstall fruity loops
step 2 - install reason/logic/cubase
step 3 - crack on.''

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

You obviously havn't experienced the audio capibilitys of FL 6.0!!!

It makes an even cooler noise when you open it, yeay

nah fruity loops is cool i'm only joshing.

[WTS radio]

haha, that was writen time ago....All about Reason rewired into FL6, deadly bass cominmg from albino2 resampled and into kontakt 2....filters galore!!! :csaw:

[Echo Inada]

s'tru FL 4 is wank, 7 all the way, dont get automation clips til 5... also if you haven't figured out whatcha need to know yet check out http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=warbeats+fl+studio video tutorials aimed at the beginner, its mainly for mediocre rap junk but can be applied to any genre, might help explain things better..