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| quote: | Originally posted by Four_On_Four-er
Real analogue is where bass shnines, because the waveforms are no longer being "pixelized" (I could be wrong). This, however, is becomming a myth, as digital technology is at such a damn high resolution that VA tech is where it's really at (it just hasn't been refined to the Nth degree). |
Math shows that this is just wishful thinking. Try to picture a waveform. Then take the waveform's y position at regular intervals. As you make the intervals larger, what disappears first? High frequencies. Digital music has a nearly insignificant effect on bass.
Also, heavy bass is very, very easy to achieve digitally with the right processing. It's simply a matter of cutting and augmenting in the right places, then compressing.
It should be noted that a bass note is defined by it's fundamental, the lowest frequency in a note. All of the basic waveforms have this frequency, and it is the loudest in each one. In other words, if a saw is lacking in bass, it's not a saw. It sounds like a saw through a high pass filter. If you looked at the waveform of an HP'd sawtooth, it would not be recognizeable. Since most synths fairly faithfully reproduce the basic waveforms, it's safe to assume that they represent the bass fairly well.
Therefore if you are sorely lacking in bass frequencies below, say 100 Hz, then don't blame your synth. Instead, just write your notes so that they play below G#1.
Furthermore, warmth does not just mean low frequencies. Play your favorite professional bass sound. Then play a sine wave at 60 Hz. Which is more warm? It should be the former, because warmth is defined by an abundance of composite frequencies, and the pro sound looks at the range he wants the bass to occupy and crams that with as many composite frequencies as possible without making the note indistingushable. The most ready example is the supersaw. The terms often used for that sound are bright, warm, and full. This still applies to bass as well. Therefore, your goal should be to fill your bass up with frequencies within the range you want to have it. This can be achieved through chorus effects, detuning, and selecting complex waveforms (square, saw, etc.).
This last point is related to why analogue synths make such nice basses. It's because they aren't perfect. Analogue synths don't faithfully reproduce the sounds you ask them to. There will always be variations in an analogue sound. This gives the analogue synth a naturally warm sound.
Hope you found this helpful. 
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