Good tutorial / explanation on resampling reese bass?

T

teenious

Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2013
Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a good tutorial, video or written, explaining how to best resample a reese bass I have created. It may sound strange but I don't understand at all what to do to make all the sick sounds I usually hear in good dnb songs. I think I know how to create the foundation for a nice bassline but then I don't know how to go on. I've seen videos where people take a recording of the bass and then put the craziest automations on EQ or filter plugins to create wobbles and stuff, but when I tried that myself, it just sounded shit, all muddy and clashing with other frequencies in my mix. I know this is mostly about experimenting, but I guess I'm really lacking the basics to do that. Do I put the unfiltered bass in one track and put highpassed resampled bits over it or should I completely tear up the original thing, leaving no unfiltered track? What effects can I put on the recorded bass without making it sound too muddy?

Thanks in advance guys :)
 
teenious said:
Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a good tutorial, video or written, explaining how to best resample a reese bass I have created. It may sound strange but I don't understand at all what to do to make all the sick sounds I usually hear in good dnb songs. I think I know how to create the foundation for a nice bassline but then I don't know how to go on. I've seen videos where people take a recording of the bass and then put the craziest automations on EQ or filter plugins to create wobbles and stuff, but when I tried that myself, it just sounded shit, all muddy and clashing with other frequencies in my mix. I know this is mostly about experimenting, but I guess I'm really lacking the basics to do that. Do I put the unfiltered bass in one track and put highpassed resampled bits over it or should I completely tear up the original thing, leaving no unfiltered track? What effects can I put on the recorded bass without making it sound too muddy?

Thanks in advance guys :)
Click to expand...
Well, from my experience on youtube there are very few good videos that go through the process of resampling in a helpful way. Understanding the process is usually very dependent on your own experience and ideas, and involves a lot of experimenting when you start off.

There are a few fundumentals of it that you should know, like bandpasses a notches are the most common types of filtering (notching is very very effective at creating movement in any sound), and a fuzzy distorion after chorus gives you a voicey ripping sound heard on a lot of basses.
Distortions and saturators should be used lightly so they dont kill the sound. Adding 3 different distortions with 6 db of drive will give you a much better, cleaner sound than one with 20dbs of drive.
Feeding a bass into different guitar or bass amps will give your bass character, and can also kill your sound in a nice way.

If your having troubles with your bass sounds and they struggle to fit in, then try and mix it in by lowering the fundamental frequencies of the kick and snare, and maybe lower the low-mids a bit if it sounds muddy.
I have problems with not just my bass, but all instruments, seem to clash with eachother no matter how much i mix them in. Even just a break by itself lacks clarity even though all the percussion has been mixed. This is most likely due to the extremely bad acoustics in my room and the very poor positioning of my monitors, which create heaps of harsh reflections and a very dodgy frequency response between the two monitors.
From what youve said, it sounds like you have a similiar problem, so maybe work on your mixing skills a bit more, or invest in a treated room.
 
Not enough Seamless on this thread!

I agree with Mania, there aren't many good videos on youtube. I keep saying Seamless channel is the best one, because he knows what he's doing. Try that.

Now, anything can be resampled and turned into a sick bass. All you need is to experiment. And read the manual. I use Harmor for resampling, and I'm still getting used to it.

Also, every time you're going to add anything to the sound, be cautious: if you crank up a sound with distortion, it'll give horrible results when resampling.
 
1. Make your nice distorted bass (not tooo dirty though otherwise it'll be guaranteed shite)
2. bounce it to audio
3. load it up and detune the sample against another instance of itself
4. Add some BP/LP/HP filters in series or parallel or both and add LFO's &/or automate the cutoffs
5. bounce that to audio
6. Pitch bend the audio around a bit to get those crazy warpy wobbles you hear a lot
7. Add drums
8. Finish the track
9. Mixdown
10. Send to mastering
11. Publish
12. ???
13. Profit
 
Dugg Funnie said:
1. Make your nice distorted bass (not tooo dirty though otherwise it'll be guaranteed shite)
2. bounce it to audio
3. load it up and detune the sample against another instance of itself
4. Add some BP/LP/HP filters in series or parallel or both and add LFO's &/or automate the cutoffs
5. bounce that to audio
6. Pitch bend the audio around a bit to get those crazy warpy wobbles you hear a lot
7. Add drums
8. Finish the track
9. Mixdown
10. Send to mastering
11. Publish
12. ???
13. Profit
Click to expand...

This is like the 12 steps to stardom!
 
@Mania

There are a few fundumentals of it that you should know, like bandpasses a notches are the most common types of filtering (notching is very very effective at creating movement in any sound), and a fuzzy distorion after chorus gives you a voicey ripping sound heard on a lot of basses.
Distortions and saturators should be used lightly so they dont kill the sound. Adding 3 different distortions with 6 db of drive will give you a much better, cleaner sound than one with 20dbs of drive.
Feeding a bass into different guitar or bass amps will give your bass character, and can also kill your sound in a nice way.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.

have problems with not just my bass, but all instruments, seem to clash with eachother no matter how much i mix them in. Even just a break by itself lacks clarity even though all the percussion has been mixed. This is most likely due to the extremely bad acoustics in my room and the very poor positioning of my monitors, which create heaps of harsh reflections and a very dodgy frequency response between the two monitors.
From what youve said, it sounds like you have a similiar problem, so maybe work on your mixing skills a bit more, or invest in a treated room.
Click to expand...

I know my setup is not the best, I just bought my first pair of proper monitors. And of course my bedroom has bad acoustics compared to a proper studio room. But to be honest, I take that problem kinda lightly, I'm doing my best to improve my mixdown (listen to it through my DJ headphones, send it to producer friends, etc) and I know I still have to learn a lot until I hit the point where my sound can't get any better without investing a ton of money in better speakers, a new studio room or anything. Still, I'm aware this is part of my problem!

@DarkYsidro

Not enough Seamless on this thread!

I agree with Mania, there aren't many good videos on youtube. I keep saying Seamless channel is the best one, because he knows what he's doing. Try that.

Now, anything can be resampled and turned into a sick bass. All you need is to experiment. And read the manual. I use Harmor for resampling, and I'm still getting used to it.

Also, every time you're going to add anything to the sound, be cautious: if you crank up a sound with distortion, it'll give horrible results when resampling.
Click to expand...

Thanks mate, gotta check out that channel. I have Harmor too, but when I watch videos of people who use it to resample their stuff, I don't understand half the stuff they're doing in there. I guess I gotta take a looooong look at the manual. Thanks for the distortion advice, this may very likely be a big part of my problem.

@Dugg

1. Make your nice distorted bass (not tooo dirty though otherwise it'll be guaranteed shite)
2. bounce it to audio
3. load it up and detune the sample against another instance of itself
4. Add some BP/LP/HP filters in series or parallel or both and add LFO's &/or automate the cutoffs
5. bounce that to audio
6. Pitch bend the audio around a bit to get those crazy warpy wobbles you hear a lot
7. Add drums
8. Finish the track
9. Mixdown
10. Send to mastering
11. Publish
12. ???
13. Profit
Click to expand...

Ok now all three of you mentioned not to overuse distortion, I really gotta keep that in mind. Thanks for the other tips too, looks like I'll soon be ready to hit BBC radio 1...or so he said...lol
 
Harmor has lots and lots of things to tweak when making your bass. But normally (as I've seen so far) you use only a part of it to achieve a good resampled bass. there are tons of stuff for any kind of sound, really.
 
Everyone does things a little different.

I try not to resample into audio unless I really have to. For me, the only reason I can see rendering to audio as beneficial is if my cpu is bogged down, which doesn't happen too often. I like to keep everything in midi and link various parameter dials from within my synth, along with dials from my FX plugs to one or two pot wheels on my controller. From here I can automate that dial which in turn automates all the parameters I've linked to it, giving the bass a good movement without all the different elements sounding "off" with each other.

Again, like others have said, less is more.

Also a major part in good movement is LFO (as most will tell you) however!........Try and use snippets of un-synced LFO movement to shift the listeners attention. Something that morphs not quite in time is huge when done correctly! I like to add an envelope to the rate of an un-synced LFO to either speed it up slightly or slow it down, combined with a pitch bend works a treat!
 
Mr Fletch said:
Everyone does things a little different.

I try not to resample into audio unless I really have to. For me, the only reason I can see rendering to audio as beneficial is if my cpu is bogged down, which doesn't happen too often. I like to keep everything in midi and link various parameter dials from within my synth, along with dials from my FX plugs to one or two pot wheels on my controller. From here I can automate that dial which in turn automates all the parameters I've linked to it, giving the bass a good movement without all the different elements sounding "off" with each other.
Click to expand...
I do exactly this.
The great way about this method is that you can go back and change parameters as you go, move plugins in different orders, change the phrase ans notes of the bass, and continually change parameters on all of your FX. This gives you great variation and heaps of flexibility. Using macro's for multiple parameters is a great way to change the sound dramatically when you move it around, and make those 'how did they do that?' basses.
Once you are happy with a stage of resampling, then you can bounce, and reap the benefits of working with audio. It's all up to you really.
 
You don't need to use a technique just because you've heard people banging on about it. Resampling allows you to do certain things but you need to understand how it will get the exact sounds you want. All you're doing is recording a sound so you can use that as the basis for a new sound.

The original sound has to be right and the end result needs to actually need resampling to achieve it. Just mess around to see what's possible and decide if it's what you need.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk
 
Found myself getting better results by creating a fairly subtle chain of FX to run things through, but then I rinse repeat a few times, Resample, run through FX Chain and bounce, and repeat. Seems to add a bit more to the sound then just cranking it all at the start, but these things make my head hurt.
 
tewky1 said:
Found myself getting better results by creating a fairly subtle chain of FX to run things through, but then I rinse repeat a few times, Resample, run through FX Chain and bounce, and repeat. Seems to add a bit more to the sound then just cranking it all at the start, but these things make my head hurt.
Click to expand...

It's a very exausting process. I, for the remix song on my sig, resampled like 4 times the basses, with different FX each time.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys, sorry for answering so late. You're right of course that the actual process of recording the sound and working with that sample is not necessary in all cases. I guess I'll do a mix of both techniques for the track I'm working on, automating my bassline live but maybe making a recording of it, highpassing that record, putting more effects on and then throwing that sound back in as a sample. By the way, this new thread here on the forums did also answer a lot of my questions, maybe you haven't seen it yet:

http://dnbforum.com/showthread.php/170992-How-do-you-make-your-basses-MOVE-AND-WARP
 
I tend to make an 8-16 bar "loop" (after resampling a ton) it doesn't make any sense by itself. Its just tons of different automations and fx on the same note. then I'll save that in a bass file. I do this so i don't use that whole bass for the track I'm working on. Just a sound design session. After the file has a bunch of things to work with, ill have a pallet to pick from and chop up in a sampler. That also helps with experimentation too. If you make the same sound all the time on every track, you don't notice it as much when you're working on a bass "in the track". But when you make like 5 basses in one sound design session, you tend to try out different things to keep yourself interested in what you're doing.


As far as tuts. Masterclasses have been the best for me. . . .All the point blank vids, youtube is a huge help. Bassgorilla, sample genie. . . etc etc etc. theirs tons, you just have to do the footwork to track them down and find the best tuts for you.

- - - Updated - - -

Dugg Funnie said:
1. Make your nice distorted bass (not tooo dirty though otherwise it'll be guaranteed shite)
2. bounce it to audio
3. load it up and detune the sample against another instance of itself
4. Add some BP/LP/HP filters in series or parallel or both and add LFO's &/or automate the cutoffs
5. bounce that to audio
6. Pitch bend the audio around a bit to get those crazy warpy wobbles you hear a lot
7. Add drums
8. Finish the track
9. Mixdown
10. Send to mastering
11. Publish
12. ???
13. Profit
Click to expand...

And THAT shits funny, right there.
 
Here's a quote from calyx pasted from another forum

Q:Those basslines... any tips on getting them to move like that?

A:To cut a LONG story short; regardless of whether you’re using a single ‘bass / mid’ sound or a collection of different ‘bass / mid’ sounds, once you’ve got the beginnings of a bassline composed or even just a small part or sound, create two identical tracks playing the same part (whether audio or midi-instrument). Then using EQ and/or high-cut and low-cut, dedicate one of those tracks to the bass / sub element of the sound, and dedicate the other track to the mid / tops character of the sound. Use EQ and subtle compression to make the sub element heavy and consistent. Then experiment with a myriad of plug-ins and effects on the mid / tops channel. Try all sorts of combinations of effects and experiment with automation of plug-in parameters to create movement and variation in the texture and character of the mids/tops. Every time you’ve made sounds, combinations and settings that you like, bounce down / record the audio of the mid/tops track and move on to another variation. Once you’ve made LOADS of variations and parts, then select what you think are the best of the best. Then experiment with chopping them up, inserting hits and notes of different mids/tops bounces, and try using more effects and filters to create more movement and flow between the different pieces of effected audio. Then just keep on working it and experimenting endlessly with the aim of evolving your own new techniques and sounds.
 
Thanks for all the useful replies, the Calyx method sounds really nice, I'll definitely do that. cohma101's approach is somewhat similar, and thanks to him for reminding me of the Point Blank videos, watched a masterclass vid with Xtrah once, but did not check their other stuff, and now that you remember me I feel really stupid for that^^
 
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