methods for giving basslines 'movement'

chromey

a.k.a Impact
VIP Junglist
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May 4, 2009
Location
Nottingham
so I've tried a automating a few things..
filters.. notch, BP, LP

distorting things and automating the parameters..
camelcrusher etc..

still not happy with my results.

whats your best tip for giving bass (or anything else) lots of textural movement and interest?
 
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you can always automate youe eq if you massive to do some weird effects you can automate pitch put envelopes on everything. but you might've already tried that
 
you probably can do it with anything but i sometimes automate my eq especially like the high and you can get some weird phase like effects. automate the waveform if your using a wavetable synth you can automate the amp. ill probably think of more stuff later but this is all i got
 
Many times i use to create a synth sound that evolve with an internal ADSR envelope applied to some parameter of the used synth (ex: osc detune, pitch, filter cut, res, volume, phase or etc etc), or with delayed lfo (also applied to different parameters).
So everytime u trig a note the modulation start and evolve, similar to the modulation of athmos or pad.
Then i use a basic arpeggiator ( in my case the Live arpeggiator, but every daw have one) to retrig the note that i'm playing in my synth bass/lead line.
What i simply have to do for change the movement it's to change the gate of the arpeggiator or the offsets, or beat retrigger and mess around...
just to make things easy and functional...
What happen by changing the time of gate is that with a short gate u get only small start of the ADSR mod, more u open the gate, more u get the following modulation, such a delayed LFO that start after the envelope...
then, if u want at some point, it takes one second to open or close the filter from the atm into the seq track...

U can also apply some control to the velocity, that depends on the routing of ur synth u r using.
With the arpeggiator u can also retrigger the velocity with a decay time and a specific value target. For example, that can be good for the filter res...

but it's really endless the way to use all of this kind of routing...

Also using a different lenght time legato (glide) and mess into the midi clip with shorter notes up and down over long notes can create different movement from the conventional overused LFO's... This can create a kind of plastic pitch morf with the defined tuning and only into a desired spot of the arrange (kind of same as pitch bend)...

I don't know if i have explained clearily... my english it's not the best! :)
 
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Small LFO's/envelopes attached to various things eg the intensity of the wave, amplitude (if there are multiple waves layered)
Flanger is a good one.

Or layer the bass, eg have a flangered sounding bass layered on top of another bass etc.

Infact I think the Icicle CM video went into a fair bit of depth about how he gets movements on his basslines :)
 
Mate the list is endless,
Just be imaginative,
Personally i used kick-drum sample that had been rinsed through a few effects in my last track
Even sidechaining oneshots can give you an insane template to play with ;)
 
Small LFO's/envelopes attached to various things eg the intensity of the wave, amplitude (if there are multiple waves layered)
Flanger is a good one.

Or layer the bass, eg have a flangered sounding bass layered on top of another bass etc.

Infact I think the Icicle CM video went into a fair bit of depth about how he gets movements on his basslines :)
yeah, the layering of different basslines r defo my preferred... In that way u can also work by resampling ur synth sound and layer the wav with others and edith quickly in different loops... it's amazing!!!
It give a really deep feeling of intricated mod that come incomprensible for a listener to get how those were made...
Only issue... be carefull and make sure that u use eq's to keep the frequencies under control everytime u try to layer samples, especially basses, it's a second to saturate or get out of phase and delete harmonics or, worse, big dynamic on the sound.

Sometimes i love to just layer two OSC, both with same simple sine waveform played very low (as sub), but with slightly difference of freq (fine tuning) to create a similar effect of LFO's, basically when the two sound waves, cross each other phase the sounds will be deleted for just a fraction of time, but periodic, and after come back (beats).
Obviously more u rise with the pitch freq then faster become the beats.
It is an interesting way to create a physic mod in a drammatically simple technic. :)
 
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Or layer the bass, eg have a flangered sounding bass layered on top of another bass etc.

Phasing is the key here to get very near to most common neuro reeses. To me having dist aux, phase aux and/or reverb aux it's like a 1-2-3 rule.

Oh and never forget about Noisia's Flux Capacitor VST
 
tie your lfo speed to your note pitch.
This can be done also without using LFO's by using the techinc i said in this post:
Sometimes i love to just layer two OSC, both with same simple sine waveform played very low (as sub), but with slightly difference of freq (fine tuning) to create a similar effect of LFO's, basically when the two sound waves, cross each other phase the sounds will be deleted for just a fraction of time, but periodic, and after come back (beats).
Obviously more u rise with the pitch freq then faster become the beats.
Of course the intenisty of beats then it depend on what kind of waveform r u using.... if u then apply some distorcion, chorus and other fx after the osc... can come monsters synth sound!!!
 
split your high bass from your low bass using buses or simply a clone device with different settings.. always keep da sub clean..

inverting filter env, comb filters, chorus, resonance etc. etc.
 
what i didnt think of for a long time, is that you could always put on chorus/phaser/reverb and other stereo plugins and mono the result afterwards.

i kept on not putting any stereo fx on anything below 300hz before i noticed that, lol :D
 
Ringmod is pretty cool. I like automating a parametric EQ band so it moves up and down the freq spectrum, going from cutting to boosting and changing the Q.

Filterbanks/vocoders are good for getting that Phace sound.
 
Rhythm also contributes a lot to bass. Make sure it hits in the right places and also that your automation peaks and edits or whatever are in 'tune' with your drums etc.

Splitting frequencies to 2 or 3 parts is always a nice way to make it move proper. You could also overlap the frequencies and use opposite LFO's on the parts to make the movement stronger. Other than that, a custom shaped (=drawn) LFO is always nice, but very few plugins can do this unfortunately.

Pulse With Modulation or PWM is very effective too.

Also resampling a reece, looping it and automating the loop points is a nice way to make the bass alive.
 
making your bass synths 'self oscillating' might give you the basis for movement that you are after?

if you google it you will find out about it, has worked wonders for my sub basses.
 
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