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FX on the BASS

As always, i am having lots of trouble with creating a good, original and professional sounding bassline.
Eq'ing is all good and stuff, but i am bad when it comes to polishing the sounds...

What fx should the basses ALWAYS have to sound good?

Sub bass:
- Chorus?
- Reverb? (probably not)
- Delay?
- Distortion?
- Compression? (if so, together with other elements?)
- Gate effect?
- Some phaser?
- Some flanger?
- Stereo enhancer? (where should it be in the stereo spectrum)
- Unison set to 'on' or 'off' in the vst?

Mid bass:
- Chorus?
- Reverb?
- Delay?
- Distortion?
- Compression? (if so, together with other elements?)
- Gate effect?
- Some phaser?
- Some flanger?
- Stereo enhancer? (where should it be in the stereo spectrum)
- Unison set to 'on' or 'off' in the vst?

This really is a problem, please help me out guys...

man it totally pretens what kinda sound you seek in that time..

and what kinda notes you are going to use

there are no rights or wrongs, no do or donots when it comes to music, it's all about the good sound, no matter how you got it

a good pointer though is to keep the subbasses clean from all FX except EQing and compressors (although there's times when putting a verb or a chorus or a delay on a subbas sounds fine too, it's all about what sound you want)

when it comes to midbasses there's no rules whatsoever I'd say it's more about the way it's played than the sound that's played.

the important thing is that the sound's sitting tight in the mix.

I say try them all.
for example in the new project I'm working atm, on the midbass I have stereo enhancer, 2 eq, compressor and a reverb. on the subbass I have a reverb and a compressor.
it all depends on which sound you wanna get

Yes, really are no rules but like previously mentioned generally you want to keep away from doing too much with the low bass. Unless you have an artistic need for doing so you'd want to avoid effects like reverb/delay/stereo imaging-seperation etc. If you are going to use effects like delay etc on the low bass I would highly recommend using an effect that allows you to highpass and only delay/manipulate the mid to upper frequency ranges. This should help keep your basses nice and tight and avoid the dreaded muddy mix :P

Don't be afraid to experiment though! Distortion can be a great effect to use on any bass, a bit of flange or phaser might work really well in your track and keep that bassline sounding different. Just watch out for how much you apply and what frequency ranges you are impacting.

Cheers!

quote:

Originally posted by Dickie-T As always, i am having lots of trouble with creating a good, original and professional sounding bassline. Eq'ing is all good and stuff, but i am bad when it comes to polishing the sounds... What fx should the basses ALWAYS have to sound good?

Sub bass:
- Chorus? not necessarily.
- Reverb? (probably not) never.
- Delay? not very useful on subbass.
- Distortion? rather not.
- Compression? (if so, together with other elements?) yes, but without other elements.
- Gate effect? rather not.
- Some phaser? never.
- Some flanger? definately not.
- Stereo enhancer? (where should it be in the stereo spectrum) maybe it helps. Use a double effect, one to the right, one to the left to make it sound fuller.
- Unison set to 'on' or 'off' in the vst? I'm unsure about unisono, but I'd say 'on'.

Mid bass:
- Chorus? The bass sounds a bit DnB-ish when using chorus. If your bass has a really big part of the melody, I'd try it. Otherwise not.
- Reverb? Never.
- Delay? Might prove very useful, try 3/16 delay times, that usually sounds groovy.
- Distortion? Depends on the bass you want. A little bit is ok, but too much distortion will probably make it sound too thin on the lower frequencies.
- Compression? (if so, together with other elements?) Definately compression. I still have no clue why I should compress something together with other elements though.
- Gate effect? Again, depends on the bass. A gate can be used to make your bass groove more, I use it quite often, especially with more complex basses.
- Some phaser? Nope.
- Some flanger? I personally would never use Phaser and Flanger on a bassline.
- Stereo enhancer? (where should it be in the stereo spectrum) Good idea. At least make it not too centered.
- Unison set to 'on' or 'off' in the vst? Dunno.

... just listen to some tracks you want, get focused on the bass and it will tell you if there is delay, reverb, stereo effets, phasers .....
Just be logic, you know what a phaser is, so you know if your bass need one ..

there are no rights and wrongs in writing music sure and in production there are many many routes to achieving essentially the same effect.

but spreading bass in stereo is bad. it sounds weird.

putting bass out of phase with by chorusing/flanging/phasing sounds weird.

its almost never done. because it sounds weird.

i think you are thinking way way too complex here. the best basses are simple, singe oscillator sounds. basses are typically centred and monophonic. you arent meant to play chords on basses. you arent meant to spread it around in stereo. its the core, basic track which your song is built around. keep it in the middle channel. bass doesnt need much dynamic range either - presence is more important than dynamic which is the reason why compression is so often used on basses. other than that there really isnt much to it.

there isnt anything that you should ALWAYS do. ultimately it comes down to what sounds good to your ears but bass is pretty simple and pretty single minded. i compress the living shit out of my basses and centre it. thats about it.

Bass isn't always monophonic..
Estuera uses Chords on his bass in "Tales from the south" wich sound great.
If you want a long SubBass playing a note on a break and you want it to change suddently the note wich is played because the other instruments play other chords(It's a great uplifting effect), then monophonic sucks because the change will be done too fast and it need some long release to make a transition between the two notes..

i never said it was always monophonic nor did i say that you couldnt put chorus - its just typically not done.

and why on earth would you want bass notes to bleed into each other? it just sounds messy and blurry. sub bass is felt more than heard anyway so the envelope phase isnt so much a problem.

ok don't worry, I just don't want the people who are learning here to think "mybassmustbelikethis". You can do what you want with your bass ! Be original.
For the subbass here is an example from a break i've done : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/TranceDevotion/SubBreak.mp3
Each note overlap with the next one and I think it sounds good.

IMHO this post is not worth the bytes it's taking up.
Each artist has his own sound. An artist gets his sound by using effects and sounds in a diferent way than everyone else.
If somewant want to add a phaser or delay on sub-bass, let 'em! It's their sound. If it sounds good, well... We'll find out!


Dickie-T: Don't ask ppl what's good or not! Taste is individual! Make a bass that you think is good. Post a sample and get some feedback. You might just make a brand new bass sound that'll get popular and eventually overused.

quote:

Originally posted by Corteoz Post a sample and get some feedback.

ok, yesterday night i created a new track, plz listen to the bass and tell me what's good, what's bad, what should be added, etc....

Plz dont listen to anything else only the bass, because the track is cheesy as hell...

http://members.chello.nl/dthijssen/...(short_cut).mp3

tnx

Detuning the basslines gives a cool effect, but of course, it depends on the sound....

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