Distorting bass is risky unless you know what you're doing. Most of what you often hear as distortion is just a layer on top, either within the instrument itself or on another channel.

Compress, yes. How you compress depends on the instrument. Basslines with significant transients (like a plucked bass or anything with a "click") do not do so well under heavy compression (brickwalls work better as long as you use 'em in moderation), nor do they sit so well with punchy kicks. Anything else, go nuts. And you'll almost always want to compress - just compress, not sidechain - with the kick.

Most of the EQ I do on basslines is to cut out the higher frequencies, especially those above 1k-2kHz. If layering a midbass, then as a starting point I try to taper the high end of the lower bass off at 200 Hz, and the low end of the higher bass at 200-250 Hz. That's almost never the exact setting which works, but it's not a terrible rule of thumb and you'll generally be able to adjust with your ear from there.

Resonant filters, I don't use much, because most of the time basses are hooked up to the modwheel and you can control cutoff from there. If you've got a really thick/distorted bass then you can hook a filter up to an LFO to make it a little more interesting. I think I've done that once.

Not sure if any of that helps, but I'm not sure if there's much more to it either. Well, good luck!

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Cheers for tips DigiNut.

And talking about EQ, is it a good idea to boost fundamental (lowest) frequencie of the bass. So you can hear it more clearly. Or it is better to boost harmonic (higher related) frequencies. Or maybe cutting of some frequencies between harmonic ones? That is the question that bothers me most.

And for example, if I played four notes E;C;G;B; what ever.., each of those notes have different fundamental frequencie, so if I added Eq on my bass channel, and boosted lets say 330 hz (which is the fundamental freq. of E) it would effect my other notes (C;G;B), so how can i go about that ?

quote:

Originally posted by Edvin And for example, if I played four notes E;C;G;B; what ever.., each of those notes have different fundamental frequencie, so if I added Eq on my bass channel, and boosted lets say 330 hz (which is the fundamental freq. of E) it would effect my other notes (C;G;B), so how can i go about that ?

wondering this same thing myself.

and how do you find out the fundamental freq of a certain note? all i know is that A is 440?

quote:

and how do you find out the fundamental freq of a certain note? all i know is that A is 440?

To the rescue!

Also, A4 is 440 Hz; you won't be using A4 for a bassline. A3 is 220, A2 is 110, and A1 is 55.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles To the rescue! Also, A4 is 440 Hz; you won't be using A4 for a bassline. A3 is 220, A2 is 110, and A1 is 55.

ah yes, so what about the rest of the notes?

quote:

Originally posted by Edvin Cheers for tips DigiNut. And talking about EQ, is it a good idea to boost fundamental (lowest) frequencie of the bass. So you can hear it more clearly. Or it is better to boost harmonic (higher related) frequencies. Or maybe cutting of some frequencies between harmonic ones? That is the question that bothers me most.

there was a huge debate about this on the wave's forums a while back but i can't find it! either way, the consensus was that the harmonic bass fx(like waves megabass) is used for more natural instruments than subtractive synths.

its not to say you can't use it but the reasoning behind the megabass(which has some weird theories of its own) is that your mind takes white noise and fills it with sounds in key with whats playing. So it muddens the white noise between the differt frequency layers of the bass and creates harmonics.

either way, i've never had success using megabass in a EDM track, it always clouds other things i want to do. Digi had a lot of good things to say about bass's and i agree with most of it. my 2 cents on bass is that it usually ends up being one of the most simple fx'd pieces in my entire track.

(See post below.)

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

ok so a follow up question:

just recently i had a bass track, and i had in going between 2 notes. 1 note was like F4, then it went down to C4.

the problem i had was that @ F4 there was no bass power like there was @ c4. so i tried F3, and the sound was way too muddy and crappy.

so i suppose my question is, is there a trick or somthing that i'm missin'??

quote:

Originally posted by ASFSE ok so a follow up question: just recently i had a bass track, and i had in going between 2 notes. 1 note was like F4, then it went down to C4. the problem i had was that @ F4 there was no bass power like there was @ c4. so i tried F3, and the sound was way too muddy and crappy. so i suppose my question is, is there a trick or somthing that i'm missin'??

I had the same situation and what I did was:

Exported my bass to audio, chopped it, and then I equalized each note individually. Got to say the result was really good, every bass note was clean and powerfull.

Some things, i highpass at 40-50hz, give a bump of 1-2db at 90-130hz. Low pass accordingly and i also tend to add some distortion to the upper freq range of the bass sound im using and if im not doing that im layering another bass in the upper freq range.


Also add a very small amount of chorus. And depending on the sound im going for ill add either a slight delay or reverb to allow for a compressor to grab it a bit better.

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