articulating, crisp 1/16 bass

[kurasu]

Course we all know a bass guitar has got 'phase reset on the oscillators upon each note on'........

actually it does, in a technical sense..

[stefancrs]

Course we all know a bass guitar has got 'phase reset on the oscillators upon each note on'........

actually it does, in a technical sense..

That's what I immediatly thought too
and, nocompromise, if you don't believe that is has a huge difference on fast, percussive, short sounds, just try it out for yourself. Each note will sound different than the previous one if you don't reset the phase, it's very audible and makes the sound lose clarity.

[FaX]

what synth would you recommend for 1/16 psytrance basslines?

the usual subtractives sound way too muddy

I want an really well articulating, crisp sound which can be played at really low notes and still sound full but not muddy.

the full-on type of gms, psysex, hujaboy .. skazi .. ?

hujaboy would be nearest if you know them but I think most of you don't ..

I've tried v-station, es-2, tau and a bunch of others.. all way too muddy

I need some exceptional articulation.

I don't want to resort to vb-1 yet .. ;P


<EDIT> PLEASE


before responding, try to understand that my needs are very specific

don't respond with mixing advice. I know all that stuff already. I've been tweaking basses for 10 years. haven't tested all the synths though, so there's where I'd like to have recommendations.

If you get a good bass out of an 303 emulator, that's cool, but that's not what I'm looking for. ok?

I'm looking for the most prefect, crisp, almost anti-boomy - but still full - psytrance bass sound. got everything else rounded up, but want to find the "perfect" synth for it, too.

please, try to understand what I'm looking for.

Ugo's REZ should do the trick me thinks oh and if that fails BPF or dual LP/HP filter in series should do it also .

[nocompromise]

Yeah in a very broad technical sense thats true. I'm saying that articulating crisp bass is not dependent on using phase synced oscillators.

Have u ever recorded a bass guitar and analysed it on an oscilloscope (or whatever)? Yeah the physics state that the phase of the envelope starts at zero. Goes positive. Then goes negative (if u follow that). But the spectrum and harmonics of each note are dependent on a lot of other things. Hence the articulating crispness of it is NOT dependent on the phase of the note on. Or the actual sound......

If he is listening to this sound in isolation (and I think he is cos he states he knows instantly if its the right sound ot not) how the hell can he tell. If its in isolation it already is articulating and crisp. FFS.

The most common trick to make something crisp and articulate, is to add another sound to it. If the bass is too boomy u can treat that with eq. If it doesn't cut through, u can add another sound to it that does. This is all basic stuff u say u know. It was basic when I started doing it and 20 years later its still basic. This is a bit like common sense not being all that common.

Are u gonna die cos u can't get this sound? I'm sorry u don't have the technical know-how to achieve what u want. We're all still learning everyday u know. Most professionals wouldn't pay this any attention cos it ain't gonna get ur track finished.

Who gives a shit whether its articulating and crisp other than u. I know you would be very surprised and shocked to find out what you're heros actually use. You'll maybe on day discover that u can make the crappest bass sound the way u want with a little lateral thinking. If u can't get the bass the way u want, process or adapt everything else in the track so it makes the bass appear to be crisp and articulating.

Excepting the people who have a problem with what I write/the way I write it (ie I'm not saying this specifically about you so don't bother with the physical threats.....), I really despair of peoples intelligence.

[stefancrs]

Yeah in a very broad technical sense thats true. I'm saying that articulating crisp bass is not dependent on using phase synced oscillators.

Have u ever recorded a bass guitar and analysed it on an oscilloscope (or whatever)? Yeah the physics state that the phase of the envelope starts at zero. Goes positive. Then goes negative (if u follow that). But the spectrum and harmonics of each note are dependent on a lot of other things. Hence the articulating crispness of it is NOT dependent on the phase of the note on. Or the actual sound......

If he is listening to this sound in isolation (and I think he is cos he states he knows instantly if its the right sound ot not) how the hell can he tell. If its in isolation it already is articulating and crisp. FFS.

The most common trick to make something crisp and articulate, is to add another sound to it. If the bass is too boomy u can treat that with eq. If it doesn't cut through, u can add another sound to it that does. This is all basic stuff u say u know. It was basic when I started doing it and 20 years later its still basic. This is a bit like common sense not being all that common.

Are u gonna die cos u can't get this sound? I'm sorry u don't have the technical know-how to achieve what u want. We're all still learning everyday u know. Most professionals wouldn't pay this any attention cos it ain't gonna get ur track finished.

Who gives a shit whether its articulating and crisp other than u. I know you would be very surprised and shocked to find out what you're heros actually use. You'll maybe on day discover that u can make the crappest bass sound the way u want with a little lateral thinking. If u can't get the bass the way u want, process or adapt everything else in the track so it makes the bass appear to be crisp and articulating.

Excepting the people who have a problem with what I write/the way I write it (ie I'm not saying this specifically about you so don't bother with the physical threats.....), I really despair of peoples intelligence.

Well. When I tried to make a good, crisp, fast, short bass sound playing on the 16ths with polyIblit I was not pleased. It wasn't static enough. If one samples it, it will probably be just fine, but when each note, without any modulations, sounds different from the last one (and I tried this atleast together with a kick drum) it looses clarity.

[Ackelito]

stefancrs - "The olivo-cerebellar network is a key neuronal circuit that provides high-level motor control in the vertebrate CNS. Functionally, its network dynamics is organized around the oscillatory membrane potential properties of inferior olive (IO) neurons and their electrotonic connectivity. Because IO action potentials are generated at the peaks of the quasisinusoidal membrane potential oscillations, their temporal firing properties are defined by the IO rhythmicity. Excitatory inputs to these neurons can produce oscillatory phase shifts without modifying the amplitude or frequency of the oscillations, allowing well defined time-shift modulation of action potential generation. Moreover, the resulting phase is defined only by the amplitude and duration of the reset stimulus and is independent of the original oscillatory phase when the stimulus was delivered. This reset property, henceforth referred to as selfreferential phase reset, results in the generation of organized clusters of electrically coupled cells that oscillate in phase and are controlled by inhibitory feedback loops through the cerebellar nuclei and the cerebellar cortex. These clusters provide a dynamical representation of arbitrary motor intention patterns that are further mapped to the motor execution system. Being supplied with sensory inputs, the olivo-cerebellar network is capable of rearranging the clusters during the process of movement execution. Accordingly, the phase of the IO oscillators can be rapidly reset to a desired phase independently of the history of phase evolution. The goal of this article is to show how this selfreferential phase reset may be implemented into a motor control system by using a biologically based mathematical model"

haha just kidding..

anyway i think this thread is giving lots of technical imformation on how to get a clean sounding bass or any sound at all..

the phase problem is repairable, aint it? either by exporting to a wavfile and correct it by inverting and/or make the wavefile mono?

as i understand,
if a sound gets out of phase it will change character, and as you put it, thats not optimal f.ex a fast baseline, it will sound undefined, so would you recommend to export every single note or can a fix be done on a whole sequence? (i guess not) anyway stefancrs could you explain more about this topic, i find it quite interesting... i want to learn more about it and fixes for it and easy ways for a newbie to hear and find these differences in sound, as i believe that this can be a usual thing which might be overlooked, iv heard before that you should try to invert many things to hear if they sound better... break it down for me, tell me the true story

btw i really like polyiblit for those juno 106 alike baselines...Though Polysix has a fatter flavour..

for bass iv been using these

Vb1
Synth1
Polyiblit
Polysix
JX16
Albino
Muon Tau Pro
Yamaha An1X

gonna buy bazzoid soon.. it sounds nice..

but what i should do instead is to try and get the best of things i already got... cause its more a matter of my programming and production methods/skills thats lacking.. but lets not talk about that, we all know i suck

[jsd]

ackelito: the phase problem is easily solved by sampling the individual note and then playing it back via sampler. this will make sure your wave starts in the same place every time. either that or use a synth which supports a forced waveform reset.

combine this technique with proper EQ and compression and you should be able to make very fast basslines that kick ass.

also make sure your kick drum is not competing in the bassline's frequency space.

my opinion is that you can get a great bassline out of just about anything. synths are almost irrelevant now. it's all down to EQ, compression and FX to determine the real character of a sound.

[Ackelito]

argh, always the finest details that f**k up an otherwise beatufull thing, aint it?

hehe, yeah most of the times its like that... and in music its always the difficult part to fix the fine details

no, no, you see, I play around with all kinds of stuff, try out new mixing techniques and stuff all the thime. I'm just trying to keep the focus on synths when everybody's telling me "you just don't know how to mix"

okej i take it back but man, you just dont know how to mix haha

yeah, this thread is loaded with misunderstandings .. it IS one big misunderstanding ;P .. on both parts ;P .. I think these boards are (for me) the wrong media to discuss anything serious, except for feature requests ;P that's why I'd like to lock it ;P

Agreed about the missunderstandings... though i believe that you can discuss certain serious things, it will always be comic parts and jokes, but in the end together we can reach higher knowledge..


you speak as if I wouldn't know this!?! (no, just kidding here, heh ) ... (don't get your point tho ..)

no point about the whole thing, just that most music today is a formula, and if you get your self a formula and polish it long enough it will probably sound very clean... but if you try different things you will have a hard time mastering them all... at some point in commercial music you must get formulatic, at least to some degree... not that it appeal to me, but i think its important that you have something to polish if you want it to become good! maybe not so satisfying in the long run, beeing a formula and all, but look at Gms, they have Zorba, Soundaholix and much more.. so you can always expand your projects...


I didn't say I'm trying to use them all on one song, did I? .. I was saying that I'm testing them out, side by side, to see which sounds best =)

this is where we differ, i would say, this synths is good for this sound and this synth is good for that sound..
and they are probably good sounding synths all of them, but this one is just not good for the purpose im after right now, ect ect...

[Ackelito]

ackelito: the phase problem is easily solved by sampling the individual note and then playing it back via sampler. this will make sure your wave starts in the same place every time. either that or use a synth which supports a forced waveform reset.

combine this technique with proper EQ and compression and you should be able to make very fast basslines that kick ass.

also make sure your kick drum is not competing in the bassline's frequency space.

my opinion is that you can get a great bassline out of just about anything. synths are almost irrelevant now. it's all down to EQ, compression and FX to determine the real character of a sound.

good tip, will try to run my bass notes trough a sampler with that function..

making proper Eq and compressor settings is harder than it sounds

yeah, i noticed this some years back when playing a tune in my friends car, he had a subwoffer, thats when i started to struggle real hard not to have any clashing in the lowend.. its nasty when the kick gets canceld out by the bass.. and now i produce on a subwoffer system,(blue sky) just to hear whats going on down "there"

i share the same opinion about beeing able to create a baseline with almost anything, but it takes lots of knowledge to be able to do so..

its all down to knowledge or great intuition
and sometimes both...

[Ackelito]

So the thread is dead now? just when it starts to get interesting!

silly shit

Anyway i got a secret to share with you..

Sample a bite of the crispiest&crunchiest snack you can get your theets in, layer it with the deepest sinewave you can find and voila you got a crunchy punchy bass! that really bites...

you may want to filter the snack crunch a tad bit in the upper frequencies for better results.. for ultra crispness, boost a little in 5khz-7khz region and a mild cut in the 400hz region for clearity!

try that one for a breakfast.. ohh so crisp!

[insaneacyde]

moonlite, U and I have exactly the same problem. I feel for u cause I'm in the same boat. It's hopeless trying to explain what you're looking for here, nobody knows. How do you explain a Hux-Flux bassline to someone here at KVR? I mean sure people have heard of Juno Reactor and GMS etc but what you are looking for is underground, cutting edge psy-shit man! I have been tryin for 4 1/2 years to get a whip ass psy-bassline, my kicks kick Eskimos ass, my synths blow Infected Mushroom away, my percussions rock but the bassline... the closest I get, and I've tried many expensive synths, is mda JX-10! hah!hah!hah! sob! You see most commercial ($$$) synths give you too much (this is for commercial musicians who need all the help they can get) so first dont even bother with anything that costs money. They cater for too many. Second, there is no dedicated bass softsynth for psy-trance. 303 synths might have worked for goa but not for what you want. Things like Novation Bass etc, etc once again cater for the many and fall short.
The difficult thing is tryin to get the roundness of each individual note to shine through instead of just a mumblemumble right? you want BadadedaBadedaBadeda!!!???...a fuckin mission dude
my setup is mda JX-10 thru a Luxonix MultiFX (Bitcrush, filter 24, overdrive) thru a EQ thru a Mono Compressor then a BassEnhancer phew!
and it's still pooftah!
Whenever I try a new synth it always sounds so good with a few notes, then I get excited and I do the 16 note thing then I sit and tweak it cause it sux now, after about two hours I scream throw my mouse , violently exit my sequencer and Play DeusEx till my fingers bleed!
Anyway why so up-tite man? How could you be so rude to xoxos? He has made the best Psy synth the world ever saw ("Cantrip" - strangely it's not here at KVR which sux cause I wanted to vote for it- enuff asslicking)
Psytrance is not about stress dude, chill out, make a hasshie huh? AND IT'S NOT A PRODUCT! It's a way of life, DONT make it for commercial reasons - challenge yourself to open the minds of your listeners - everything else will follow.

[insaneacyde]

ps. I would give you my presets fo mda JX-10 and Luxonix Multi-FX but you dont use them!!!!heeheeheeheehehheheheheeeheheheheeee!!!!!!

[stefancrs]

FYI: I think huxflux is one of the very few good psytrance groups. No doubt more kvr'ers than me listen to them, and, imo, there's nothing wrong with tips. You guys need a synth with phase reset on the oscillators or you need to sample a bass sound. The rest is about EQ and compression.

[insaneacyde]

erm..ok stefan, maybe a few KVRers do listen to psytrance but it's still frustratin to hear people telling you to eq and compress (I have an excellent idea where the frequencies lie for a good trance bass sound - I know where my kick drum should be too - both of which dont hog each others frequencies) when you've done all the right things.

It's the way the sound comes from the synth that no amount of eq and compression can do, only the synth itself. You know even when I'm making other types of music softsynths always seem to disapoint when it comes to bass. It always seems to thin...grrr! dont tell me about eq!

Anyway, I'm pretty happy now with the sound I'm getting from my little JX-10. I still sympathise with moonlite, I have had the same response everytime I have asked this question and also been so ticked when someone told me to EQ. I mean if all your other sounds are Eqed well ,and I know mine are, why would your problem be Eq? I have slowly built my bass sound so that it sounds decent and the things that that pushed it too the level I wanted where never Eq or compression but the tweaking of the synth itself and things like tube saturation to get it to sound organic.

I remain convinced that psybass cannot be made by $$$synths because they are too versatile, too many osc's and bits and bobs. Leads and FX, even kicks but theres no one synth designed with Psybass in mind.

[insaneacyde]

also p.s. sampling is not an option that just causes more problems and restrictions.

Which synths do come with phase reset?