Bass for DnB Dummies

[Equilibrium]

Hi quite the newbie with all of this. I've got a basic software studio coming into creation and am quite clueless about bass. I was mostly wondering how people create DnB Bass sounds? I love the dirty sub sounds of people like Dilinja. Is it matter of VSTi or is there other stuff involved?

Also if anyone has been listening to the East London Eski beats thing that is going on right now, do you have any idea about how the bass sound in tunes like Wiley 'What you call it'... about half way through the tune... high pitched sound... (I think it's just an effect being used.)

Thank you for any help.

[papawillow]

Hi,,,,others can help,,with the sound,, but also check out the dogsonacid website,,, your dnb nirvana.

[original flipper]

Hi

I know one 'outfit' of several top D&B dj/Producers -they ALL use G5/LOGIC6 - but don't worry - U can use any combo!

A lot of the Lead sounds in current D&B can be replicated in FM synths (FM HEAVEN, FM7, eJ ect) although most Analogue subtractives also have similar-ish sounds - the newly updated ALPHA from LINPLUG has a few nice sounds for D&B - but then so do a whole host of other synths - in particular Synapse's HYDRA & SCORPION, ALBINO2, EXCITON2 amd a whole host of others.

I am not familiar with the tune you mentioned, but the synths I mentioned will give you the ability to use a combination of presets or the possibility to program most of the current in vogue sounds - that your talking about.

Oh yes, a lot of stuff is being put through various distortion/overdrive fx - which many of those synths have on board anyway.

Flipper.

[Equilibrium]

Thank you very much for the replies, I'm going to look into everything that has been said.

I've used FM7 before but I found that the sounds never really quite worked, but I will try again.

If anyone else has anything to add that would be great!

Cheers

[original flipper]

Hi

What I am saying is FM7 (and the others) will have a few of those sounds - what you need to realise is how narrow a range of sounds that become prevelant in a genre like D&B, Garage, Hip-Hop (well we are talkin about sub-genres of those styles really) think about 'THAT' bass sound that garage had a few years ago.

So out of 64 presets in FM7's bank 1 you might find '2' yes you read it correctly '2' presets that are tailor made for what your looking for - that is not to say you couldn't spend a few months learning FM7 and then produce a bank of 32 presets that will ALL be perfect for your D&B!

I am sure you get my drift - the FM HEAVEN demo had 1 perhaps 2 presets that were perfect for D&B, HYDRA had perhaps a half dozen (and that was originally called JUNGLIST!) - so do bear in mind that synths are generally designed for a broad audience and also that there really are not that many unique D&B sounds that can be achieved with a synth - perhaps a couple of dozen?

For a lot of your sounds - you need to go loop - da -loop!

Flipper.

[Adam_V]

Honestly mate, the most important thing is to learn how to program a synth, and then how to use effects along with it. Hop on to google and look up subtractive synthesis, and fm synthesis for starters. Then start playing around and experimenting on synths. You'll find that there really isn't much to getting dirty basslines.

And remember, distortion is your friend.

[Rozzer]

DnB bass tends to be heavily distorted and compressed.

Start with a bass patch that vaguely resembles the bass you want to achieve, then ignore the synth itself for a while and spend time tweaking/trying out patches with your favourate compressor & distortion plug (whilst the bassline is running).

Compression settings are hard to advise on, as it totally depends on the material.

A common trick with the distortion is to use some sort of multiband distotion effect, which will allow you to keep most of smooth deep sub-bass intact, whilst distorting the f**k out of the mid range.

http://www.expdigital.co.uk/ <<-- Grab their free Delta Force plugin... really cool multiband distortion plug.

Once you have a nice crunchy sounds that you like, you could try simply sampling one note, and writing your bassline with that sample.... for that old-skool flavour

good luck in your adventures in bass

[jdg]

samples samples samples.

lots of it are samples of synths mapped up the keyboard.

go to DOA.. lots of samples to dl

[Omnivox]

Hi quite the newbie with all of this. I've got a basic software studio coming into creation and am quite clueless about bass. I was mostly wondering how people create DnB Bass sounds? I love the dirty sub sounds of people like Dilinja. Is it matter of VSTi or is there other stuff involved?

well .... there was a small tutorial on dogsonacid website (the grid forum), the guy made a wicked bass by layering FIVE sounds at once. most of the time you can get away with layering a fat lead, layer it on top of a pure sine, then compress the s**t out of it and put some distortion on top.
i made some nice basses using imposcar and synth1 ... download synth1 (it's a free synth) and its banks, there are some pretty nice growly bass presets.

[peejunk]

In DnB it's actually synthesis and sampling together. You create a sound you like, you sample it (usually at just one pitch, i.e. no multisamples, so that you can have that "obviously sampled" sound to it), maybe find some bad loop points within it so that it acts rythmically at few pitches (sound whoose loop is 1/8 @ C, will loosely have a loop dancing @ 1/8D on a G below that C etc.), and then use that sound as basis of further synthesis in a sampler.

So synthesize, resample. Layer two or three samples (one that is very subby, pure sine or just lowpassed to death, and then one for mids, one for highs etc.) to your sound etc.

Another trick is to have a simple sligty detuned sqare and lowpassed "sub" sound define your tone, and you layer some other stuff heavily lowpased above it (anything really, from people talking to furniture clanging) and high shelved so that bass sound defines the tone of it. Then resample this sound and you have an easy crazy patch with a lot of random movement.

You could also try time-domain or frequency-domain resynthesis. Won't work very well for tight basses, but all sorts of other sampled material will work.

As for Reeces and reece-basd basses, I've learnt that Triangle II, with chorus, unison and EXTREMELY short reverb on, can make pretty nasty reeces, and with two of them layered with different filters and reverb/chorus settings you can do all sorts of Opticalish neurofunk nastyness without even resampling.

Final tip: use mad amounts of modulationa and automation to keep it interesting.

cheers

[VitaminD]

hmm.. ed rush used a pro one for their bass for awhile.. so it doesnt all have to be fm based..

I made some reallllyyy deep basslines years ago when I was into dnb by eq'ing then re-eq'ing the sampled line (IIRC).. I forget which synth I used but it was software and around 1999 at the time.. so what im getting at is it doesnt have to be new synths you know.. raunchy, deep subbass lines in dnb/jungle have been around for the good part of a decade now..

[kevvvvv]

Grab their free Delta Force plugin... really cool multiband distortion plug.

Thanx, Rozzer

Be nice to try a different distortion to Steinberg's Quadrafuzz.

btw I've been using exponent's S-Calc for ages. V good too.

[VitaminD]

yeah thanks for the link.. hadnt heard about them but glad I now have

these things are EXCELLENT..

I've been looking for some time now for a spatial plugin.. and this one (delta space) is really nice too..

[VitaminD]

I should also point out a warning using DeltaForce the distortion type labeled 'annihiliator' means business.. so turn down your overall volume level lest you hurt your ears/speakers as its REALLLLLYYYYYY REALLLLYYYYYYY LOUD!

[ouroboros]