Hi all... I'm trying to come as close as possible to a Nu-Disco / Funk bass sound using only software (i.e., no samples or recording bassists). Some artists that I love include Breakbot, Aeroplane, and Nehzuil. Some examples of the types of sounds that I'm looking for include:
https://soundcloud.com/nehzuil/uness-di ... to-be-like
https://soundcloud.com/edbangerrecords/ ... yours-feat
https://soundcloud.com/emporium-baku/ae ... e-cant-fly
I use Ableton, and while I prefer free synths/VSTs, I am open to any suggestions for how to get these bass tones with software. Thank you!!
Help! Nu-Disco / Funk Bass Sound!!!
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- KVRAF
- 1595 posts since 17 Nov, 2007 from Seattle, WA
Boy, first time I've logged into KVR in a long time....
I see two potential questions in your post. First, you mention wanting to emulate a bass, and second you're more broadly interested in the nu-disco style's soundscape. Starting with the latter, modern retro revival electronic music, like nu-disco and whatnot, really lionizes the sound design of 'back then,' often to the extent of replicating old artists' methods and even equipment. So this can lead you to two conclusions:
A) They're using old hardware synths,
B) They're using new hardware/software, but within the constraints of what was available back then.
Personally, I have no special affection for old equipment, and keep it in the box, software only. And so for me, getting nu-disco-friendly sounds relies on keeping the patch or signal chain simple. You'll probably not need to or want to use more than 3 oscillators, as most of the synths back then had less than that. You'll probably not want to have complicated envelopes, modulation, routing. And you'll probably want very little in the way of FX and signal processing. Keep it simple.
In my experience, the older but tricky, elusive sounds end up boiling down to a real subtle use of a simple filter envelope, but set in a real particular way. It's impossible to be more specific than that, however.
On the other hand, there's no need to be dogmatic; if a sound works, then use it, complexity be damned.
Regarding making a bass guitar patch. I've made one from scratch that I still use today, pretty satisfied with it, but it's pretty complex, and limited. I used one oscillator, with a 'fret' waveform, and then layered beneath it a lower-register, frequency modulated sine, to give the low-end meat that a fret oscillator generally lacks. Alternately, pulse width mod also can be used to good effect for this part of the sound.
After that, I set up two parallel filters, one lowpass, the other bandpass. I tied the lowpass filter cutoff to raise and lower according to how high or low the midi note is, as well as to midi velocity. This phase can be real finicky... But then, the whole thing was.
Trying this out would be a good exercise if you're already at least intermediate or pretty good technically with your synth, but if you're more musician than technician, better to do what the above poster suggests. Chances are that most musicians(like Aeroplane or Breakbot, I'd wager) cannot be bothered with all this fiddle faddle, since it's effectively re-inventing the wheel; You could sample a guitar, or buy a VST for it, or just roll with a 'good enough' patch that came with the synth. Lots of tunes get away with fooling the listener via layering, or making it difficult to notice that the bass(if solo'd) sounds nothing like a bass guitar, such as with two of the tunes you linked(the third is, I think, samples).
I see two potential questions in your post. First, you mention wanting to emulate a bass, and second you're more broadly interested in the nu-disco style's soundscape. Starting with the latter, modern retro revival electronic music, like nu-disco and whatnot, really lionizes the sound design of 'back then,' often to the extent of replicating old artists' methods and even equipment. So this can lead you to two conclusions:
A) They're using old hardware synths,
B) They're using new hardware/software, but within the constraints of what was available back then.
Personally, I have no special affection for old equipment, and keep it in the box, software only. And so for me, getting nu-disco-friendly sounds relies on keeping the patch or signal chain simple. You'll probably not need to or want to use more than 3 oscillators, as most of the synths back then had less than that. You'll probably not want to have complicated envelopes, modulation, routing. And you'll probably want very little in the way of FX and signal processing. Keep it simple.
In my experience, the older but tricky, elusive sounds end up boiling down to a real subtle use of a simple filter envelope, but set in a real particular way. It's impossible to be more specific than that, however.
On the other hand, there's no need to be dogmatic; if a sound works, then use it, complexity be damned.
Regarding making a bass guitar patch. I've made one from scratch that I still use today, pretty satisfied with it, but it's pretty complex, and limited. I used one oscillator, with a 'fret' waveform, and then layered beneath it a lower-register, frequency modulated sine, to give the low-end meat that a fret oscillator generally lacks. Alternately, pulse width mod also can be used to good effect for this part of the sound.
After that, I set up two parallel filters, one lowpass, the other bandpass. I tied the lowpass filter cutoff to raise and lower according to how high or low the midi note is, as well as to midi velocity. This phase can be real finicky... But then, the whole thing was.
Trying this out would be a good exercise if you're already at least intermediate or pretty good technically with your synth, but if you're more musician than technician, better to do what the above poster suggests. Chances are that most musicians(like Aeroplane or Breakbot, I'd wager) cannot be bothered with all this fiddle faddle, since it's effectively re-inventing the wheel; You could sample a guitar, or buy a VST for it, or just roll with a 'good enough' patch that came with the synth. Lots of tunes get away with fooling the listener via layering, or making it difficult to notice that the bass(if solo'd) sounds nothing like a bass guitar, such as with two of the tunes you linked(the third is, I think, samples).
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- KVRist
- 106 posts since 22 Mar, 2011
For bass patches, the filter envelope is often the key. Specifically, en envelope that opens a LPF.
I often like the filter cuttoff to be set low and the envelope open the filter about 2/3'rds to maximum.
Very quick attack, sustain and release and then play with decay to get the pluck you want
Healthy amount of saturation always nice.
Delays, Phasers and Chorus are your friend on a lot of nu disco sounds - especially for pads, leads and brass.
Might be worth getting a good electric piano emulation so you gave some go to rhodes/clav/wurlitzer goodness.
Arturia's Analog Lab is really nice, will give you circa 5000 old school analog patches from a host of classic synths that Nu Disco idolizes (CS-80, MiniMoog, Jupiter, Prophet 5 etc).
I often like the filter cuttoff to be set low and the envelope open the filter about 2/3'rds to maximum.
Very quick attack, sustain and release and then play with decay to get the pluck you want
Healthy amount of saturation always nice.
Delays, Phasers and Chorus are your friend on a lot of nu disco sounds - especially for pads, leads and brass.
Might be worth getting a good electric piano emulation so you gave some go to rhodes/clav/wurlitzer goodness.
Arturia's Analog Lab is really nice, will give you circa 5000 old school analog patches from a host of classic synths that Nu Disco idolizes (CS-80, MiniMoog, Jupiter, Prophet 5 etc).
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- KVRian
- 834 posts since 2 Mar, 2008 from Melbourne, Australia
Moog/Prophet funk bass.
2 OSC (both saw)
Drop on an octave lower than the other and detune a little.
If you've got a unison feature crank that in a touch to get a few stops before supersaw. You just want a nice wide detuned saw.
Lowpass, lots of resonance, and a small filter envelope to catch just some of the higher up sound.
If you use Massive here's a patch to get you started ----> PATCH
2 OSC (both saw)
Drop on an octave lower than the other and detune a little.
If you've got a unison feature crank that in a touch to get a few stops before supersaw. You just want a nice wide detuned saw.
Lowpass, lots of resonance, and a small filter envelope to catch just some of the higher up sound.
If you use Massive here's a patch to get you started ----> PATCH
Sound Engineer / Musician / Producer......but I'm always learning.
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- KVRist
- 304 posts since 12 Jun, 2011
Yeah does seem that its a nice analog sound used in a lot of nu disco. A lot of good answers above to.
I would just say sometimes its worth bring in a musician just to get the sound of the live nuances
I would just say sometimes its worth bring in a musician just to get the sound of the live nuances
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 4 posts since 17 Sep, 2014
Thanks. I know that bringing in live players is the ultimate, and I'm not debating that point. However, for the purposes of this project, I am endeavoring to keep it to software only.anmlsrmnml wrote:Yeah does seem that its a nice analog sound used in a lot of nu disco. A lot of good answers above to.
I would just say sometimes its worth bring in a musician just to get the sound of the live nuances
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- KVRAF
- 4046 posts since 2 Jul, 2005
All those sounds are real bass or something trying very hard (and mostly succeeding) to be a real bass. I've never heard a synthesizer sound that much like an actual bass guitar. There are plenty of cheap really nice bass libraries with stuff like sampled hammer one and playable slides which are the type of thing you'll be needing to pull this off. If you absolutely have to use a synth I would try fm8 or something with the same feature set since fm has the most realistic bass guitar sounds I've ever heard.
JJ
JJ
Don't F**K with Mr. Zero.
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- KVRAF
- 4046 posts since 2 Jul, 2005
Some of those songs do switch from real bass to synth bass later in the track and it sounds like the second song is switching back and forth between what sounds like a moog and a real bass for a few specific notes. Like they're using the synth for an accent.
JJ
JJ
Don't F**K with Mr. Zero.
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- KVRAF
- 4046 posts since 2 Jul, 2005
I will add that if you are dead set on using a synth only for a bass that you check out some old funk and disco records from that era that did use a synthesizer for their bass. You will notice that a lot of the things that make the bass convincing are the style of playing. Lots of hammer ons and offs and variation in the note lengths which really give the impression of a live bassist.
Don't F**K with Mr. Zero.
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fluffy_little_something fluffy_little_something https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=281847
- Banned
- 12880 posts since 5 Jun, 2012
Bass guitar and those bubbly synth basses are completely different worlds in my view. The former has a very specific sound character, the latter is not so specific at all, and very easy.
I have tried to make a bass guitar on normal VA synths, some of my patches might pass embedded in songs, but not on their own. A real bass guitar can sound so dynamic, varied, and expressive, no chance to do that with a normal synth. I have heard some samples, but was not overly impressed by those, either. Often they sound like plastic somehow. I love the Marcus Miller sound, a compressor helps a lot.
I have tried to make a bass guitar on normal VA synths, some of my patches might pass embedded in songs, but not on their own. A real bass guitar can sound so dynamic, varied, and expressive, no chance to do that with a normal synth. I have heard some samples, but was not overly impressed by those, either. Often they sound like plastic somehow. I love the Marcus Miller sound, a compressor helps a lot.
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- KVRAF
- 4046 posts since 2 Jul, 2005
I've made very passable funk baselines using scarbee's stuff, especially the most recent rickenbacker(spelling) I also love the Orange tree samples Rick library for slightly more agressive playing. The thing that allows these to make such convincing performances is the large amount of round robin samples and velocity layers along with useful little incidental noises that they have mapped outside of the playable range of the instrument.
All it takes is a good live played performance or careful programming along with the proper signal path. I've never had anybody call me out on my bass being fake. When I'm going for a more psychedelic funk sound I'll often layer a minimoog style bass over the top of the real bass. When doing that I use a overdubbed live performance so the timing isn't super mechanical. Another useful thing for a funky sound is doubling the bass with a guitar run through an octaver pedal with very light gain and a hefty amount of compression.
I guess this is more of just a "how to get a good sounding funky bass line" post, but whatever. None of the posted examples need a super convincing library as they aren't especially dynamic or anything. I do stand by my opinion that all but one of them are real bass guitars sampled or otherwise.
JJ
All it takes is a good live played performance or careful programming along with the proper signal path. I've never had anybody call me out on my bass being fake. When I'm going for a more psychedelic funk sound I'll often layer a minimoog style bass over the top of the real bass. When doing that I use a overdubbed live performance so the timing isn't super mechanical. Another useful thing for a funky sound is doubling the bass with a guitar run through an octaver pedal with very light gain and a hefty amount of compression.
I guess this is more of just a "how to get a good sounding funky bass line" post, but whatever. None of the posted examples need a super convincing library as they aren't especially dynamic or anything. I do stand by my opinion that all but one of them are real bass guitars sampled or otherwise.
JJ
Don't F**K with Mr. Zero.
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- KVRian
- 834 posts since 2 Mar, 2008 from Melbourne, Australia
So just to clarify OP, are you after the Moog/Prophet funk synth sound or the Fender Jazz Bass sound??
If it's the synth, see my instructions and Massive patch a few posts above...
If it's the synth, see my instructions and Massive patch a few posts above...
Sound Engineer / Musician / Producer......but I'm always learning.
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- KVRian
- 1383 posts since 1 May, 2010
Thanks for the tip.soul_junkie wrote:So just to clarify OP, are you after the Moog/Prophet funk synth sound or the Fender Jazz Bass sound??
If it's the synth, see my instructions and Massive patch a few posts above...
musisikamar.com
