ok time to give away more of my secrets (not that any of this stuff is really SECRET, but whatever). Still, though, this will have you making fresh and new basses as opposed to constantly ripping off other people's ideas. Stop trying to reinvent Coca Cola and go make your own damn soda...
First, understand the principles:
1. there is no such thing as a "sound", except for a pure sine wave. Sounds are really just COMBINATIONS OF OTHER SOUNDS (called harmonics). Actually theres more to the nature of sound but this definition will suffice for our purposes. A "Phat" sound is just a sound with ALOT of sounds in it.
2. a bass sound is just ANY LOW SOUND. For good dance music you want to make sure that at least part of that sound (read above) includes frequencies in the 80hz- 100 hz range, called the "sweet spot". You can go a litttle lower than that (maybe to about 60) , but then your dealing with SUBbass, which is difficult to hear on home systems, and, in clubs, willl be more felt than heard. Fine if that's what you want , just know that 80 is the area for a good, firm, "felt AND heard" effect.
3. All distortion and resonant filtering tweaking do is create mid/upper harmonics that are added to the sound. (again, see, number 1). So in fact, the sounds that you think of as "bass noises" in your favorite DnB tracks are actually sounds with alot of mid-range and high-range sounds in them, just with bass frequencies (80 hz or so) included.
Now that you grasp the fundamentals, time to experiment. Here's the basic formula:
1. First, grab your bass frequency- a sine wave at or around 80 hz. You can use a saw or other wave but understand that these wave types are just sine waves with upper harmonics already included. (When you low-pass filter a saw wave all your doing is lowering the volume on the upper harmonics built into it, bringing it closer to a sine wave).
2. Layer some upper and or midrange harmonics. Let your imagination run wild. Make sure that the sounds you add don't overpower the bass frequency, sound "natural" with it (not awkward), and that there is some sort of envelope or filter sweep to keep things interesting, (even a short quick one). These new harmonics can come from ANYWHERE- your main weapons are your filter, volume envelope, and effects:
the original bass sound distorted and filtered (yawn)
a horn sample chorused and resonant filtered
a conga or other drum with the attack cut off- resonant filtered and enveloped
your little sister pitched low, flanged, enveloped.
a piano layered with a square wave run through a ring modulator and resonance
2 or 3 of these layered and filtered again
a wrench dropped in the toilet then left in the oven for a few days
Remember: the more sounds you layer, the phatter the sound. Not all the sounds need be the same volume level. If you use your original bass frequency to fuck around with (filter it, etc), make sure you add another one later- or your bass will end up having no, well, bass. Youll have to experiment to get a sound that's interesting, new, and "convincing" (ie the upper harmonics don't sound glued on to the side), but once you do get a good one, it's YOUR sound and you are moved one step closer to true DnB producers Valhalla. When you do make up that sick, fucked up, "must have" bass sound make sure you guard it's formula with your life so that loser producers like us can spend their hours running around trying to duplicate it. Happy sound designing.
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PS. And to think noone responded to my offer to do preproduction for them. Forget all y'all.... Guess Im stuck making a track a year with my fuckin dayjob... ;)
oh yeah and big up to rob the original poster- he was dead on but he only scratched the surface...
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