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I think Mr. Mystery needs to get off his high horse too.
Great, you have the miraculous ability to magically layer sounds perfectly and when other people want to know how to do it next time just save some time and tell them they suck, seriously, your content said one thing bad, your intent said 10xs worse.
Some people like me don't pick and choose when to layer, I ALWAYS layer, because its fun, I don't like simple bass lines, and its just MY technique. But I can't remember the last time I DIDN'T layer at least a bass, so drop the condescending "I'm superman" shit.
For the OP this is usually what I do. Do the sub last. The groove will most likely be established by the mid bass, and its easier to slip the sub into the mid bass groove then vice versa.
For the mid bass focus on 2 things. First is "punch" and second is how strong or bright and what kind of overtones are you looking for? The first mid bass is usually a sharp attack, short decay, filtered down saw cut around 125 and boosted a tad around 150-175 (for the "punch"). I keep this sound dull but strong and sharp. Its basically the foundation or bottom of the mid bass. The second, what some people call the "high" bass is usually just my overtone bass.
This is the one that really defines the attitude of your bass. Trilian is a beast for getting raw white hot overtones. The power filter in trilians fxs is SICK for overtones imo. But I basically will just start tweaking, things like fm depth, tone, pitch lfo, noise lfo, tube distortion, ANYTHING the sounds good, tweak it. It shouldn't take long to find something that works or you're most likely just being obsessive.
Quit when you have a good sound, not when you have a perfect sound.
Afterwards I have a series of things I do just for loudness, they're personal things that I do like overdrive, a bit of soundgoodizer and some equal to really bring out the sound. And also a bit of compression and limiting.
Next is the kick bass interaction. I usually don't sidechain but use grossbeat for a volume lfo that mimics a sidechain. I do this so each peak is a bit different in the pump. One will have a quicker attack, another slow, another a bit slower then the first, just to make the sound more unstable really.
Instability creates the illusion of power and energy, so little variations like this in a sidechain help a beat drive even more.
I always chain the mid, then hi cut the delay and send that signal to a NONchained channel. I like for my hi cut delay feedback tones to stay at a steady volume, while the lower frequencies before the delay are the ones that are actually being chained.
This helps avoid your mid basses from bouncing too much. Well what it does really is make lower frequencies bounce, while the higher frequencies just float and drive forward. The mixture of this just makes the bassline sound much more complex and present then it really is. Next I add my sub, I only cut under 50 for the sub, and always chain the sub but JUST ENOUGH so it doesn't intefere with the kick. A lot of times the sub can add a powerful groove but if you sidechain it too much the groove gets swallowed and dissappears. So sidechain with caution.
At this point everything is bussed to one channel, the sub, mid bass and kick, and I throw maximus over the mix. Then I usually go to the clear rms preset and tweak from there. To be honest I use to bus my kick and bass before and just throw a bit of compression and limiting over the bass, but a mastering unit like maximus will usually sound a thousand times better. Imageline wasnt lying when they said maximus is "arsenal for the loudness wars". It really is a miracle plugin imo. I use to use ozone but I just find maximus sounding so much more organic.
Lastly I can often have what I call a "noise bass" or "interaction bass" or a "swell bass". This is usually a really raw, bright, bass that dominates both the sub and mid bass. When I make my swells I make them so they reall cut through the bassline. But for the swells I turn to trilian for that right now. I love thier taurus samples for swells. If I choose not to do a swell every 2 bars, I'll do an interaction bass. An interaction bass is usually just a crazy distorted sound, its not even always actually a bass. Some times I've used fx, but its basically a sound that just interacts with the groove in someway so as the bass is driving, the interaction bass is dancing on top of it almost randomly. Its hard to explain, and I'm sure theres an actual terminology for this bass. The way you have mid basses usually hitting notes fast, then a sub hitting notes slower, this last bass hits just 1 or twice every 2 bars. It can even be an acid on the 3rd note of every new bar. I depends on the main groove how it all winds up playing out.
But play around, don't restrict yourself with sounds. Sometimes some crazy fx can be used in basslines and chopped up and even though they aren't actually bass sounds they become part of the bassline. Theres endless variations to doing bass. But this is just some of the simple stuff I do.
I'm getting closer and closer myself to feeling like my basses are getting more and more professional sounding, and will be doing a very extensive tutorial on trance basslines one of these days, both rolling and rythmically gated bass, subs, and noise fx, + the kick. But I'm gonna wait for my new processor to finish it, cause camstudio just eats too much cpu and it usually ruins my projects. I contemplated using my webcam but the resolution is too low and I'm not buying a new one, but soon I will def be doing a useful tutorial on my own specific method of making professional basslines.
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Sequencers: FL Studio 9XXL & Reason 3.
Main Synth Bass GTs - Pro-53, V-Station, Sytrus, Subtractor, Trilian, Blue, Sylenth & Z3ta.
Main Synth Lead/Pad GTs - Z3ta, Sytrus, Sylenth, Vangard, Albino & Nexus.
Main FXs GTs - Waves Plugins, Soundtoys, Volcano, FL Native FX.
Hardware - Truths, Echo Audiofire, Virus Snow, & Novation Xio Midi-Synth.
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