That Bass Sound from Rhapsody’s Power

[Abuwabu]

Hi guys

First time poster here hoping to learn a lot.

Can anyone give me any pointers on how to recreate the bass sound from Power (Rhapsody ft Kendrick Lamar) that kicks in around 15s into the track? I don’t know where to start.

[CHOOS]

Hey man

In the future try to post a link to the song you're referring to on yt or wherever else.
Do you mean the low sub type bass or the zippy/raspy sound?

[MMaarrkk]

I assume it's the raspy bass sound, which I find quite interesting. I gave the song a listen, but it falls outside of what I usually end up making as the first thought I had is using modulation. Would love to see someone remake it or at least point towards what could have been used. (Unless it's a sample, which is probably quite likely. It could even be an 808 with the lows filtered out)

EDIT: I was right, it is a sample. The original song is Disco From a Space Show by Guitar Rad. The samples starts around 17 seconds in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... =emb_title

[CHOOS]

OK so it's not 100% because when you change the width of the pulse and the settings on the phaser it makes a big difference to the sound but this is how you would get something similar to then make it your own with some other bass line

https://vimeo.com/426393034

[Kwurqx]

... (Unless it's a sample, which is probably quite likely. It could even be an 808 with the lows filtered out)

EDIT: I was right, it is a sample. The original song is Disco From a Space Show by Guitar Rad. The samples starts around 17 seconds in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMTBMCJgYxI

Well....in 1976 it was most likely not a sample....

It was still very much the "analog" era. Luckily in 1976 synthesizers where mostly very basic. Often anything in a single box with sliders, knobs and keys was a subtractive synth with 1 or 2 oscillators per voice (8 voices or less, often MONO). And basic filters. Often LPF at 12 or 24 dB/Oct, maybe HPF. You would often get SAW and SQUARE oscillators, if you were lucky PWM, NOISE, TRIANGLE and SINE. Some had added complexity like like RINGMOD/AM or OSC SYNC.

Anyway, many subtractive synths can achieve similar sounds from those days.

Without going to much into actually recreating it with some synth (I'll leave that to CHOOS ).

Some basic recipies. The main "sub bass" and the "raspy" bit can just be a very low SAW. To add some tone color you can mix in a SINE or TRI at 1.5 octaves (3rd harmonic) and/or at 2 octaves (4th harmonic) above. Mix to taste. Adding richer spectra (like from a SAW or SQUARE or a PULSE at some width) will soon add too much high frequency content.

Leave filter (mostly) open, or you will muffle the SAW "rasp". Keep Filter Resonance low or it might cut the low end. If possible you could try and drive/saturate the filter to add some extra harmonics/distortion especially from non-linear response filters. Maybe boost lows with some EQ.

All this and more can be done with a basic free synth like Synth1
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/synth1 ... chiro-toda

Have fun experimenting.

[MMaarrkk]

Well....in 1976 it was most likely not a sample....

Well, yes. But the post asking about how to make the sound can benefit from knowing what the sound actually is and how it sounds like. As there were no links provided and already having stated that I myself can't really help much in the regards of actually remaking the sound, I at least wanted to do some research and find if the sound was actually sampled, which it was. Linking directly to it could potentially help ease the work of someone, like CHOOS, to replicate it and highlight that some characteristics of the sound are there because of filters on top of it (having bits of hihat left, etc.).

https://vimeo.com/426393034

Tell me if it's just me, but it appears there's no sound on the video?

[BlitBit]

OK so it's not 100% because when you change the width of the pulse and the settings on the phaser it makes a big difference to the sound but this is how you would get something similar to then make it your own with some other bass line

https://vimeo.com/426393034

There might be a problem with the video because at least on my machine there is no sound.

[CHOOS]

FML I keep forgetting to change the Audio input.
Ill do it again. few minutes...

OK Ive Replaced the video so the above video should work.
Did it from scratch so it's a bit longer. I tried it the last time before i started recording so I knew what to do.

The portamento might not be there in the song but I might have heard it but it's minimal anyway

[Abuwabu]

Wow guys... what an amazing response, especially CHOOS who went beyond the call of duty with the video. Thank you so much.

[CHOOS]

No worries man. I used to make a preset or explain how to but a video is so much better at explaining than text.