KVR Audio

marioisaac · Post by **marioisaac** » Tue May 05, 2015 2:19 pm

Any idea on how to make a Bass like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjAoBKagWQA

It seems to be glued with the kick. Seems to be one sound.
Is it only a Kick, or a Kick and a Bass?
How would one go to achieve this kind of sound?

Thank you

Deep Purple · Post by **Deep Purple** » Tue May 05, 2015 2:57 pm

Can't listen to it as I'm at work, but if it's sustained for a long time I would assume that it's the ADSR filter - the sustain is probably set quite high. If it seems to be 'glued' to the kick - maybe it is the kick.

marioisaac · Post by **marioisaac** » Tue May 05, 2015 3:18 pm

Thanks for the reply, but the information provided still don't shed enough light to learn how to produce this kind of sound.
I've tried to make long kicks (using sine waves), but they don't sound like this.
To my ears, this sound is more than a simple sine wave being pitch modulated.

A more detailed explanation, or pointing to a video would be really helpful.

mehum · Post by **mehum** » Tue May 05, 2015 3:25 pm

This is most certainly programmed although it has a pretty natural sound.
If you want close to similar sound with a bass guitar (would have to be 6 string since it goes pretty deep) a compressor might do the trick. Keep the attack and release fairly slow, set a quite aggressive ratio, but not limiter and then adjust threshold to push down the early sustain and makeup gain bring everything back up again. You want the sustained tone without adding too much noise...

If you use a synth any that sounds good in the low register would do. You want quite long release time since it dies of quite natural.
Make sure you get the transient right. You can keep everything pretty filtered since you want this sub-bass feeling, but open it up with the envelope just at the start. Probably square wave for a wooden, hollow sound.

Since it's transients match the kick drum exactly on every note it feels almost like the kick is triggering the bass. Hard to do without programming. If you have recorded the bass you could try to move the kick and bass notes around. Adding a bit of side chain, so that the bass ducks a little on each hit of the kick, might also help but you still need this really tight relationship between them. The sound of the kick is also important, of course, and need to be pretty deep but rather short to allow the bass to take over.

Note also how the sustain is being helped by the lowest note of the pad. The bass note dies off but the pad continues.

Björk really has great sound design and production all through!

Aloysius · Post by **Aloysius** » Tue May 05, 2015 3:34 pm

I'm not listening to it or even looking at my screen right now but if it's sustained for a long time it's probably a sample with a loop point.

mehum · Post by **mehum** » Tue May 05, 2015 3:40 pm

marioisaac wrote:Thanks for the reply, but the information provided still don't shed enough light to learn how to produce this kind of sound.
I've tried to make long kicks (using sine waves), but they don't sound like this.
To my ears, this sound is more than a simple sine wave being pitch modulated.

A more detailed explanation, or pointing to a video would be really helpful.

Saw this after writing the above.
It's surely both a kick and a bass tone played simultaneously. Plus the pad taking over when the bass note dies off.

billcarroll · Post by **billcarroll** » Tue May 05, 2015 4:01 pm

One of the best videos ever, and one of my favorite songs.

The video version of "All Is Full of Love" is the "Mark Stent Mix" of the song. The low "bass" sounds like a very deep kick, with lots of sub. The more sustained bass sound is a layer above with more harmonics, and reverb making it sound far away and expansive. At least that's my take.

marioisaac · Post by **marioisaac** » Wed May 06, 2015 1:33 am

mehum wrote:This is most certainly programmed although it has a pretty natural sound.
If you want close to similar sound with a bass guitar (would have to be 6 string since it goes pretty deep) a compressor might do the trick. Keep the attack and release fairly slow, set a quite aggressive ratio, but not limiter and then adjust threshold to push down the early sustain and makeup gain bring everything back up again. You want the sustained tone without adding too much noise...

If you use a synth any that sounds good in the low register would do. You want quite long release time since it dies of quite natural.
Make sure you get the transient right. You can keep everything pretty filtered since you want this sub-bass feeling, but open it up with the envelope just at the start. Probably square wave for a wooden, hollow sound.

Since it's transients match the kick drum exactly on every note it feels almost like the kick is triggering the bass. Hard to do without programming. If you have recorded the bass you could try to move the kick and bass notes around. Adding a bit of side chain, so that the bass ducks a little on each hit of the kick, might also help but you still need this really tight relationship between them. The sound of the kick is also important, of course, and need to be pretty deep but rather short to allow the bass to take over.

Note also how the sustain is being helped by the lowest note of the pad. The bass note dies off but the pad continues.

Björk really has great sound design and production all through!

Thank for your response. Can't try this at this moment as I don't have my system set up; I'll try it in the following weeks.

Thank you for driving my attention towards the pad, as I wasn't aware the role it was playing in "sustaining the bass".

marioisaac · Post by **marioisaac** » Wed May 06, 2015 1:34 am

Aloysius wrote:I'm not listening to it or even looking at my screen right now but if it's sustained for a long time it's probably a sample with a loop point.

Thank you, I'll take this into consideration.

marioisaac · Post by **marioisaac** » Wed May 06, 2015 1:36 am

billcarroll wrote:One of the best videos ever, and one of my favorite songs.

The video version of "All Is Full of Love" is the "Mark Stent Mix" of the song. The low "bass" sounds like a very deep kick, with lots of sub. The more sustained bass sound is a layer above with more harmonics, and reverb making it sound far away and expansive. At least that's my take.

Indeed a beautiful song

Did not thought about reverb; I'll be playing with this notion.

Thank you for your help.

dewgong · Post by **dewgong** » Thu May 07, 2015 9:40 pm

There are three bass sounds

Kick has a sub component
There's the actual bass which is just a standard bass sound synthesised or fingered bass
There is a pad above the bass. The pad has a wider stereowidth and reverb.

Try putting all that into an inst. rack or combinator. Kick also doesnt seem to have much of its own sub. There's another sound paired with it that drives into the low end

do_androids_dream · Post by **do_androids_dream** » Thu May 07, 2015 10:16 pm

It's more simple than you think - touched upon by others in the thread. The way to make that kind of subby but punchy bass is to have a simple sine or heavily filtered square wave bass tone and a kick that doesn't overlap too much with the bass tone frequency. The kick provides the 'wood' or 'knock' - the attack (punch) - and the bass tone carries the sub. Together, mixed in the right way, you can get a really nice solid punchy sound. It will take practice but you'll get there.

Bjork - Sustained Bass