pcock Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 im now 6 months into seriously makin tunes, and i feel im startin to get my head wrapped around it suffienctly in most aspects of it, my first musics, a piano concerto, is approaching completetion but there is just one thing which wrecks my head. how do you make bollock achingly powerful bass witha soft synth? layering up 20-30 different basslines doesnt cut the cheese, it just sounds messy, no amount of playing around with eqing/compression seems to yeild substandard results, whats the trick? please divulge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YEK Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 have you tried using samplers? edit: they usually have some features that synths don't have, i don't know much about synths and samplers but i know that you can do stuff with samplers that you can't do with synths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sneaksta303 Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 it's all about the original signal and EQ. You can make 2 simple ocilators BOOM with proper EQ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest we_kill_soapscum Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 soft synths can be pain in the ass for a bassline. use a hardware EQ, even if its just board eq, at some point in the signal chain. or run an out from yr comp into an amp then mic the amp. both will help build intensity and grit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Adjective Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 pirate arturia arp2600 vst Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcock Posted November 1, 2007 Author Share Posted November 1, 2007 soft synths can be pain in the ass for a bassline. use a hardware EQ, even if its just board eq, at some point in the signal chain. or run an out from yr comp into an amp then mic the amp. both will help build intensity and grit. i like the idea of micing up my speakers, interestin. cheers. and ive quit pirating! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ten fingers ten toes Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 Please provide an example of the bass you are attempting to acheive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pylonbitch Posted November 1, 2007 Share Posted November 1, 2007 eq and compression. learn how to mix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GORDO Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 low pass filter, resonance way up high Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ten fingers ten toes Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 low pass filter, resonance way up high Works even better if you have the filter into self oscillation from all the resonance, then change the filter cutoff based on the keyboard pitch. A self oscillating filter will produce a very pure sine wave, and it will blow up your sub cockles. This is only one very specific kind of bass tho, hence asking for an example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ten fingers ten toes Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 fuck you crazy double posting board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest boo Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 learn synthesis. simple things like having a sub-oscillator. rather than layering basslines, have a decent amount of oscillators in the patch, doing different things. pulsewidth modulation, detuning, saturation, etc. use more than 1 filter envelope, also doing different things (decay speed, resonance, etc..) ... unison, chorus, etc.. to widen in the highs of the bass can give a big feel... but it depends what kind of bass you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest analogue wings Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Start with just a pure sine wave and play it at a low note. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ten fingers ten toes Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Start with just a pure sine wave self-oscillating filter and play it at a low note. ftfy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest analogue wings Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 How do you play a self-oscillating filter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ten fingers ten toes Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 I plug the pitch lead from my midi-cv module into the 1v/Oct jack on my filter, adjust the resonance to 10, then hook up the trigger output from the midi-cv module into the signal input of the filter. Usually just touching the jack is enough voltage to kick off self oscillation and I don't need to keep the trigger jack connected once its oscilating. Lots of modern keyboards have the option to route keyboard pitch to filter cutoff, which is how you play a self oscillating filter. the cutoff frequency will then represent the note played. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest analogue wings Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 oh ok, I thought you were talking about some lame vst version of self oscillation :) i have a MAM warp 9 filter that you can "play" with MIDI notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcock Posted November 2, 2007 Author Share Posted November 2, 2007 i have no idea what the later posts in this thread are talking about. but for now i am looking for a very pure, soft bass, bass you feel. so i am gonna play around with a low pass filter and play around with this. self oscillator? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ten fingers ten toes Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 The Nord Modular will blow up planets in self-oscillation. You can do plenty in software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ten fingers ten toes Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 i have no idea what the later posts in this thread are talking about. but for now i am looking for a very pure, soft bass, bass you feel. so i am gonna play around with a low pass filter and play around with this. self oscillator? Self-oscillation is an unstable occurance in a resonant lowpass filter -- I suppose possible a resonant Highpass or Bandpass filter as well? I'm not sure because I've always done it with LPF's but anyway to keep it simple use a 24db lowpass filter. The light bulb moment is usually when people realize that "resonance" is feedback. Very specific feedback, at the cutoff frequency of a filter. More feedback, more volume at that cutoff frequency. When you have enough feeback that the fed back feedback is feeding more feedback, you have self-oscilaltion, wherein a filter becomes a very loud pure sine wave oscillator. Once this has occured it won't stop until you turn down the resonance. You can control it by changing the cutoff frequency, which will now change the "note" of your pure sine wave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest synthganic Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 pcock, How/where are you listening to the music you make? (headphones, speakers, type of room, acoustic treatments?) I've been making music for quite some time and have used many different spaces to do so. Just recently, I've moved my studio to a room that swallows bass frequencies because of the space's dimensions and lack of proper acoustic treatments to the walls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcock Posted November 2, 2007 Author Share Posted November 2, 2007 listening/mixing with some cheap monitors, an expensive hi-fi sub system, or rich sennheiser earphones in a little box room full of clutter. i realise that bass sound waves are probably almost as long as my room at certain frequencies, unfortunately there isnt a great deal i can do with the room. currently experimenting with low pass filters and micing my bass coming through the speakers/hifi, starting to sound a bit nicer fair does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest synthganic Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 boosting 40-60hz (depending on the bass note played) with a mid to low q/bandwidth has been working well for me lately. that's being applied mostly to any bass or kick drums coming out of my Motif rack though, not a soft synth. not much exp with those on my part. a favorite technique of some rappers I used to engineer was to make a sub-group of the original bass and some dupes (1-3) with lo pass filters intact to emphasize only the portion of the bass's desirable frequencies coming through the filters. due to phase from latency, this is not a tactic I would personally endorse but maybe it will help you get the sound you desire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Braintree Posted November 6, 2007 Share Posted November 6, 2007 A low shelf filter might be better than a low pass. Try both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hahathhat Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 i like the ms20 plugin in the korg legacy bundle bRRRRRNNN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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