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Originally posted by kitphillips Do you guys generally make your layers have different rythms or just use them purely to get more timbral control? I've tried to put an offbeat sub in my tracks along with the mid bass (in a different pattern) but it generally comes out pretty muddy... Maybe my kick is eating up too much lows or maybe I need to highpass my mid bass more viciously, but then I find I lose the most pleasing frequencies of that sound...

In my recent productions I havent been layering bass as the tracks I've been making didnt need them but when I have done in the past I would say both; 1 for timbral for the actual bass soun, and other tracks have a slightly different rhythms to create the pattern itself, all depends what you want to achieve.

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Originally posted by Kysora Basses used to cripple me too, it just came with experience I guess.

+1, def experience. Experimentation is key.

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Originally posted by alanzo It's like sifting through cat shit to find a penny. In the end, it wasn't worth the effort.

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Originally posted by lay Maybe this helps: http://www.squidoo.com/bigbadbass

Thanks, interesting read. I have never layered my basses, maybe that's why my tracks always sound so thin.

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Yeah, obviously less is often more with bass and its often better to use one bass patch - in most mf my tracks I use one bass patch, in one or two I have two bass patches playing the same pattern.

What I'm wondering is for those who DO layer their basses, whether you play a different pattern with each patch, or whether you just use two patches to make a certain sound play only one pattern. And of course, how you make all this work without sounding like soup.

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Originally posted by kitphillips What I'm wondering is for those who DO layer their basses, whether you play a different pattern with each patch, or whether you just use two patches to make a certain sound play only one pattern. And of course, how you make all this work without sounding like soup.

I do both.

Note placement and EQ is my usual plan of attack, and before that simply chooing sounds that go together in the first place.

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Originally posted by kitphillips And of course, how you make all this work without sounding like soup.

If its a 2 layer bass, make sure they compliment each other, so not of similar freq range and timbre. Use eq to give one its own space in the spectrum. The sub would be the deeper part and not so much heard, with the mid having more depth in character which is the part you hear more to define the bass. The two parts shouldnt be fighting to be heard but sound as one.

Lots of experimentig to see which patchs you create work with each other. Adding fx's like distortion and filtering can help depending on the type of bass you are after to make them work as one.

When playing different parts I find two or three patchs playing different notes isnt such a problem as they are not making one bass sound playing the same notes. But they do have to compliment each other when playing their individual patterns. You can really go crazy with this and have lots of fun making cool basslines and its not as difficult compared to making one bass sound from different patchs. Just make a midi pattern you like and try out different patchs till you find ones that work well. Then you can go in and process as you wish.

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Originally posted by alanzo It's like sifting through cat shit to find a penny. In the end, it wasn't worth the effort.

This track illustrates my own layering methods a bit :-

http://www.mediafire.com/?tjb5kbdubprj821

It's a half baked idea that i've abandoned for now so is unmixed as it is, but the part from 1.52 shows a subby bass that's a layered low part with an EQd and distorted higher part and a mid range plucky mid bass playing a different midi part. The layered low end is EQd to sit together and mildly ducked by the kick and then bussed with the mid bass and they're slightly compressed together.

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Ah yes as tehlord added, sidechain is good to help it all fit with the kick, not as a pump effect either, but that can work also.

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Originally posted by alanzo It's like sifting through cat shit to find a penny. In the end, it wasn't worth the effort.

This is an example of single layered bass using Zebra 2


http://soundcloud.com/soundmagus/ma...xed-by-cosmosis

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Psy-Trance Production

For my last few tracks I've layered basses:

-found a suitable bass sample (WAV from a sample pack) and chopped it up until I created a pattern that I liked - put it on its own channel with an EQ cutting off frequencies beyond, e.g., 500hz;
-used Melodyne to get the corresponding MIDI notes;
-placed the MIDI notes on a second channel with a sub-bass preset (pure sine wave with PSP VW) and frequencies cut off @ 100hz.

Last edited by Nicolas Oliver on Aug-09-2010 at 18:10

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Originally posted by tehlord This track illustrates my own layering methods a bit :- http://www.mediafire.com/?tjb5kbdubprj821 It's a half baked idea that i've abandoned for now so is unmixed as it is, but the part from 1.52 shows a subby bass that's a layered low part with an EQd and distorted higher part and a mid range plucky mid bass playing a different midi part. The layered low end is EQd to sit together and mildly ducked by the kick and then bussed with the mid bass and they're slightly compressed together.

Like that track dude, very much the style of trance I've always loved. It reminds me of GTR - Mistral quite a bit I think, which is probably why it appeals.

I see what you've done with the sub and mid bass there as well. I didn't realise that the mid bass was usually mixed so low. Its definately something I'll keep in mind.

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Originally posted by music2dance2 If its a 2 layer bass, make sure they compliment each other, so not of similar freq range and timbre. Use eq to give one its own space in the spectrum. The sub would be the deeper part and not so much heard, with the mid having more depth in character which is the part you hear more to define the bass. The two parts shouldnt be fighting to be heard but sound as one. Lots of experimentig to see which patchs you create work with each other. Adding fx's like distortion and filtering can help depending on the type of bass you are after to make them work as one. When playing different parts I find two or three patchs playing different notes isnt such a problem as they are not making one bass sound playing the same notes. But they do have to compliment each other when playing their individual patterns. You can really go crazy with this and have lots of fun making cool basslines and its not as difficult compared to making one bass sound from different patchs. Just make a midi pattern you like and try out different patchs till you find ones that work well. Then you can go in and process as you wish.

All good advice that I've heard before but probably not taken enough notice of. I guess its like anything else in production, you can talk about it till the cows come home but need to actually practise it.

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Originally posted by kitphillips Like that track dude, very much the style of trance I've always loved. It reminds me of GTR - Mistral quite a bit I think, which is probably why it appeals. I see what you've done with the sub and mid bass there as well. I didn't realise that the mid bass was usually mixed so low. Its definately something I'll keep in mind.

Thanks old bean.

It's probably worth noting that those levels were by no means final. I probably would have layered a toppy, fizzy sound over the mid bass too to help emphasise it without necessarily making it any louder.

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