Making a dubstep breakdown with 1 bass sound

[Shaloxeroligon]

Hi,

I'm currently working on a dubstep song. It's going well so far. However, I'm sort of unsure how to handle the breakdown.

The way I went about it was that I created six 16-bar basslines, each one using a different sound (i.e. FM growls, vocoder growls, high screeches, distorted wobbles, etc.). My plan was to take snippets from each one and then mix-and-match them together to make one breakdown. Each snippet is between 1-3 beats long, so it changes instruments fairly frequently (I did this based on what I heard from my reference track).

My problem is that, because I put so much effort into making each individual bassline sound good, I feel like I'm not giving each instrument a chance to show off its cool sounds if each one is only playing for 3 beats at most.

With that in mind, here is my question: in dubstep, is it weird to have 1 bass instrument playing for an extended period of time, as opposed to switching instruments much more frequently?

I know that a lot of people say "there are no rules in dubstep", but I'd like a little feedback. Which would sound better: switching basslines every beat or so, or switching every 3 or 4 bars?

[cron]

I'm basically being the KVR granddad here, but you might do well to look back at earlier tracks, when it was still a niche London sound. Those tunes rarely consisted of more than an ultra low sub with a filter wobbled square wave.

Here's a track from 2007 which has just one synth sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VBKJCnEdCA

Another 2007 tune with one synth sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quNioKxyw_c

Here's another one at the ultra minimal end of things from 2006. A chest rattling sub and little else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uijeNhcTqH0

Those 2 tracks from 2007 were considered pretty maximal and bolshy by the standards of the time. I remember when somebody asked a question about dubstep (possibly the first I ever saw on KVR, circa 2006), I'd just heard Chestboxing by Skream and I suggested switching waveforms every few bars. Go from a saw to a square or whatever. Seems so quaint now... If only I knew where that kind of madness would lead.

So yeah, I'm not saying 'this is the way' or anything - Dubstep is so different now that it might as well be a new genre - but looking back can sometimes be a useful source of inspiration. The genre was pretty much all about sublety, space, and bass (i.e. actual low frequency content as opposed to mid-range complexity) so simple synth sounds were kind of the order of the day. Should you emulate the old style? Hell no, but perhaps there's a space in between what's going on now and what went on then where interesting, contemporary, and fresh things can happen.

I say make your tune the way you want to. If you want to give one synth sound some time on its own, do it. It might sound shit, it might sound amazing, but it will sound 'you', and whether it's an exciting new direction or a failed experiment you can take whatever you learn from doing it forward to the next track.

[arkmabat]

I don't know dubstep well but just a gradual sine wave drop should be in the right direction. Like 700 hz slowly drop to 40hz

[Shaloxeroligon]

Thanks for the advice, folks. This is helpful. I'm kind of new to the dubstep genre, so it's good to hear what other people have to say. I will definitely put your suggestions to good use.