The CHARACTER of a Bass Sound

[marcelkennard]

I was just wondering, have any of you guys had any interesting yet useful experiences from automating CERTAIN things in your bass channel rather than just filters to get movement. I just get the impression that modulating filters seems like a really weak way to mould sounds in a truly unique and crazy way. For example, last night I was modulating the phase distorter in Massive and I was instantly able to create a unique sounding bass movement. Any other ideas?
P.S. I'm trying to make a slightly Phace - esque kind of tune with these sounds

[logikz]

yeah i heard PWM is cool to modulate. but i dont know, i never had much luck with it.

[groelle]

modulate the waveform to go along with the phase, does wonders.

[T:M]

If you are using a synth with multiple oscillators but aren't using all of them, try switching on the other ones but not mixing them into your current sound but modulating/automating the mix of them. It can give a really cool morphing sound.

I never tried that phase modulation + wave modulation thing before, but I tried it really quick with Zebralette along with some of the spectral fx and it sounded sick (kinda Loadstar-ish)! Give it a try! Gonna give it a go with Absynth after class today, expecting big things to result.

A few other things you could try modulating/automating (depending on the synth): Overall detune, Analog amount or "spread", the filter mix between two different filter types, envelopes, that kinda stuff.

If you are using Logic, ES2 & EXS24 both allow you to modulate parameters via a sidechain, which can yield some very interesting results.

[groelle]

^^^^^

its fucking sick if you do it in massive and take a wavetable that changes pretty much - ie modern talking or scrapyard or something like that. gives you strange and if you do it right, pretty sick sounds.

[lostnthesound]

I'm a real big fan of automating one of Massive's OSC's between two waveforms, it can really really do wonders.

You can also find some luck in setting the OSC to automate based on one of Massive's envelopes. Linking it to an Attack for example can produce a nice swell in the sound.

Cheers!

[marcelkennard]

sick, yeah I tried out the phase + waveform modulation, sounds pretty nice, I seem to be getting a bit tired with all Massives Wavforms, wish there were more!

[parsons19]

I have never done it but perhaps automating Intensity of the Osc could provide an interesting result? Some Waves would be better than others though as some waves change more that nothers when the Intensity knob is changed. Could be cool for changing between heavy and softer sections with bass?

Suspect someone here has tried it!

[edd.]

sometimes i like making a couple of sends on my bass and automate the volume the bass is sending to each bus.

[marcelkennard]

Yeah I always use the intensities parsons, it's good for slight adjustments, doesn't improve the sound dramatically though...
I wish I knew other synths as good as I do Massive... I might just shag a fish.

[parsons19]

Might have to try it myself then!

I might just shag a fish.

Good luck mate, I reckon that one could get messy

Maybe just download a few other synths to play around with Dunno how experienced you are production wise and what synths you have but there are some good freebies out there that may entertain you for a bit Zebralette, which T:M mentioned, is a good one and that also comes with a kinda demo/trial thing of Zebra 2

[T:M]

Might have to try it myself then!



Good luck mate, I reckon that one could get messy

Maybe just download a few other synths to play around with Dunno how experienced you are production wise and what synths you have but there are some good freebies out there that may entertain you for a bit Zebralette, which T:M mentioned, is a good one and that also comes with a kinda demo/trial thing of Zebra 2

Yeah, Zebralette is really cool, its only got one oscillator but that one oscillator is kind of a wavetable of sorts. you get 16 slides where you can draw waves and morph between them, furthermore you have 4 different modes in which the slides work. You also get two spectral fx (which are pretty unique imo), plus integrated modulation (phorus/phaser/chorus) and delay effects. pretty sweet!

[parsons19]

Yeah the fx are really sweet! Haven't really got round to using Zebra in a tune yet though...

[marcelkennard]

That does sound pretty interesting, might have to check out its potential...
Yeah basically I'm using massive for basically every bass I make and just process the fuck out of those sounds, had some pretty nice results with it recently- it's all about constantly thinking of new ways to tweak and muck about. I like assigning macros and mapping them to my midi keyboard/controller, it's easy to come up with rhythms etc that way...

[ARTFX]

In Ableton, I group my synth with all the effects in an Instrument Rack. Then I can map the macro knobs to the filters of the synth and to other parameters on the effects, this way you can create interesting results. In Massive switch one of the OSC to formant mode and turn the intensity, it's like changing the pitch but with a nice tone.. And yeahh, for effects, a light amount of chorus on a send can be interesting sometimes, together with a phaser or something like that.