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Any thoughts on creating a similar phat bass sound??
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rufus the dog
Hi all

I am trying to make a bass sound similar to this one (Alex M.O.R.P.H - Photograph - Jonas Hornblad mix). It kicks in at 3.29

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=G2w-O3p8EKo

I am using NI Massive on Logic (I also have Vanguard but doubt it will sound as good on that)

Any thoughts on how to create this would be much appreciated
MOK
I'll bet there's many ways of accomplishing that style of texture, but here's the one that's worked for me so far:

First, realize that the grating, harsh, awesome grit that you hear in that bass isn't actually bass. They're mid's, mostly. Not much low end. Yeah there's lots of bass happening, we can hear it, but it's not in the chunky grit that you're diggin on. So go and make a bass sound you like, perhaps it's missing that grit, and that's fine. Just get that low end frequency content to your satisfaction first.
Now try adding in one more waveform.... Maybe one that looks sort of like this waveform. Note that the waveform is high amplitude for a tiny fraction of it's period.

Try out using a low octave so that this waveform oscillates relatively infrequently. Try out a few octaves to taste. It's that in-frequency that we can hear, the gap of silence between each transient, THAT'S the sweet stuff. Conversely, the more frequently this kind of waveform completes periods, the smoother it sounds. The gaps between the pulses are less audible the higher frequency it is. You don't want smooth. You want JAGGED. And you want that short, loud transient to be mixed loudly comparative to the other waveforms so you can really hear it grinding away.

As a visual reference, try out taking clips of songs with that kind of bass style, load them into your DAW or wav editor or whatever, and look closely at their waveform. You'll notice that they probably often have a short, high amplitude transient happening every .03 seconds(or .003, I can't remember how many zeroes), arbitrary to the rest of the waveform(which is perhaps saw/sine looking in comparison). That transient probably corresponds with the synth's oscillation period if you're in sync mode (you probably oughta be).

Hopefully I didn't abuse or butcher too many terms, there. And hopefully that made sense. I'm still comparatively new to this all myself.

All that said, I've heard lots and lots of versions of this texture that seem pretty uniform. Perhaps there's a more formalized way of getting this sound.

Btw whats with the username? A tad close to a certain high profile artist's moniker...
rufus the dog
Cheers MOK - very detailed! I will have a bash this afternoon

What artist are you refering to? I was just being random with the name!
MOK
Why, Rex The Dog! Retro goodness.
Kismet7
If you have z3ta+, I've made a similar grating bass sound. is sick and grating.

In general Z3ta+ has a good ability to create the sound your looking for along with some proper compression.
Kismet7
I'll post a sample from a track I used it on. And you'll see that sound probably actually came from tweaking Z3ta+.
Kismet7
http://soundcloud.com/kismetk/grating-bass
MOK
So post your method.
Stef
quote:
Originally posted by MOK
So post your method.

+1 i am also pretty interested in how you got that effect step by step.
noicuc
Get a saw tooth waveform , set it to very low oct , eq it , filter it , dist it , .... just feed it and groom it and finally.. there you have it ;)

Kismet7
quote:
Originally posted by MOK
So post your method.



Say please, maybe I will. :D

I made this sound November 2005 for a breaks/movie club scene type track. I tweaked a preset till I got that.
MOK
:rolleyes:
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