Dubstep Bass

There have been a couple threads in the past 2 years regarding this, but neither offered too much help...

So I was contacted by a St Louis rap collective about producing some trax for them this weekend, and this is one style I never really fucked with, but since it's a possible $ making opportunity, I figured I'd give it a go, except I wanna give them some sick dubstep instead of the traditional rap beat. I have everything down pat except for the bass.

So, can anyone give me a hand in creating some nasty bass? Keep in mind that I'm working with Reason, so naming VST's isn't really going to do me any good.

People say "it's all in the LFO" blah blah blah but what else? Does anyone have/can create some presets in Reason so I can learn from them?

I don't listen to dubstep, but if you post an example I'll show you how to do it in Reason.

And this last one is from a D&B tune but the bass is something I would like to archive...

Thanx man. I have reason 4 so any patches you post, I can run.

LFO->filterCutoff and automate lfo-time.

Or you can just put down a slow attack on the envelope and punch in the notes...

Ok but what about the tones?

use a square wave, lowpass filter, layer with low sine wave. on envelopes medium attack, quick release. Perhaps map keytracking to the LFO rate(lfo is mapped to cutoff). Until it sounds "right" to you. What do you mean by tones? There could be more subtleties to creating this sound I don't know though, thats a good place to start.

  Bubba69 said:

use a square wave, lowpass filter, layer with low sine wave. on envelopes medium attack, quick release. Perhaps map keytracking to the LFO rate(lfo is mapped to cutoff). Until it sounds "right" to you. What do you mean by tones? There could be more subtleties to creating this sound I don't know though, thats a good place to start.

by tones, I just mean the actual sound of the bass, not the modulation. I will try out your technique in the morning when I can crank it. As of now, i'd wake the whole house. Which sucks, cuz i'll probably be up for hours...

I love these sounds, but I hate dubstep

  sneaksta303 said:

  Bubba69 said:

use a square wave, lowpass filter, layer with low sine wave. on envelopes medium attack, quick release. Perhaps map keytracking to the LFO rate(lfo is mapped to cutoff). Until it sounds "right" to you. What do you mean by tones? There could be more subtleties to creating this sound I don't know though, thats a good place to start.

 

by tones, I just mean the actual sound of the bass, not the modulation. I will try out your technique in the morning when I can crank it. As of now, i'd wake the whole house. Which sucks, cuz i'll probably be up for hours...

if you want the easiest way out download NI MAssive or plugin Albino and coast through the presets. there are a handful that are prime ready for dubstep wobble bass, and you can quickly tweak them to customize it a little bit

I made a wobble bass line layering 3 different subtractor synths in Reason 2, I'm away from my laptop so I cant post the patch.

  acid1 said:

I love these sounds, but I hate dubstep

you a hater

it sounds like a squarewave, but it's got some over tones you might be able to hit w/ some creativity. It's like one osc is at the octave mark while one is at +5 or +7 semitones. Detune a bit, add lfo to cutoff, and maybe a bit of scaled lfo to the wave shape, so it's not just a boring filter sweep. It needs something to make it more expressive. play w/ adding lfos to other things too.

Honestly though you are sorta limited in Reason. I was listening to a bunch of dubstep today and I can TOTALLY hear what tracks are made in Reason. The bass sounds from subtractor are really distinctive, but not totally in a good way. It's really digitaly and...well....reasony.

  slightlydrybeans said:

it sounds like a squarewave, but it's got some over tones you might be able to hit w/ some creativity. It's like one osc is at the octave mark while one is at +5 or +7 semitones. Detune a bit, add lfo to cutoff, and maybe a bit of scaled lfo to the wave shape, so it's not just a boring filter sweep. It needs something to make it more expressive. play w/ adding lfos to other things too.

 

Honestly though you are sorta limited in Reason. I was listening to a bunch of dubstep today and I can TOTALLY hear what tracks are made in Reason. The bass sounds from subtractor are really distinctive, but not totally in a good way. It's really digitaly and...well....reasony.

yeah but reson 4 has THE THOR!!! lol

man, what do u all mean by LFO controling the filter cutoff, on the filters i have freq, and res, by cutodff do u mean thirning freq down till the sound disapears??? lol gona check the wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutoff_frequency

well seems complicated but i know one of you will explain to me easily...

  Bubba69 said:

use a square wave, lowpass filter, layer with low sine wave. on envelopes medium attack, quick release. Perhaps map keytracking to the LFO rate(lfo is mapped to cutoff). Until it sounds "right" to you. What do you mean by tones? There could be more subtleties to creating this sound I don't know though, thats a good place to start.

well, i always wondered what that button does, kbd. track, i don't get it

  Producer Snafu said:

  acid1 said:

I love these sounds, but I hate dubstep

 

 

you a hater

I'm also a lover

  acid1 said:

  Producer Snafu said:

  acid1 said:

I love these sounds, but I hate dubstep

 

 

you a hater

 

I'm also a lover

awww

Let me get this thread back on track and try to avoid any more Snafu faggotry

This vid was made for Ableton but the principles can be applied to any DAW really.

  acid1 said:

Let me get this thread back on track and try to avoid any more Snafu faggotry

 

This vid was made for Ableton but the principles can be applied to any DAW really.

haha perfect video steps for the cookie cutter sound!

never chorus yer bass ya fucking retard.

bass is to remain mono if you have the intent of pressing it to vinyl.

if not then chorus the fuck out of your bass i don't give a fuck.

dubstep basslines are fairly easy to make, it's the grimey ones that are kind of hard to process if you wanna maintain the right tone.

i myself am still discovering the boundaries of tone and distortion outside of just reeces and gabber kicks

well, i did, something...

  THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

well, i did, something...

sounds like an oldschool neuro bassline then dubstep, are you band passing it?

  Producer Snafu said:

never chorus yer bass ya fucking retard.

 

i myself am still discovering the boundaries of tone and distortion outside of just reeces and gabber kicks

I can't tell if this post is an attempt at trolling as to hide some exclusive knowledge or just plain ignorance, I'm going to assume the later.

Something dnb and dubstep producers have been doing for years is called resampling.

Here is a vid that basically shows and explains the process (not quite for dubstep but you can apply this concept to anything and i couldn't find a better one). Its a bit longer, and at first you have no clue what he's doing but it all makes sense in the end. This also addresses the sub bass issue Snafu is having problems with.

So yeah, use the first vid to make a wobble, resample it a few times... use chorus, flange, phasing, distortion, stutters, anything you can think of. Have fun, be creative, and experiment.

it's too hard, i quit...

  acid1 said:

  Producer Snafu said:

never chorus yer bass ya fucking retard.

 

i myself am still discovering the boundaries of tone and distortion outside of just reeces and gabber kicks

 

I can't tell if this post is an attempt at trolling as to hide some exclusive knowledge or just plain ignorance, I'm going to assume the later.

 

Something dnb and dubstep producers have been doing for years is called resampling.

 

oh yeah i would have never thought of resampling . . . and then processing, and then resampling again and then processing the fuck out a bassline.

hide the knowledge, na ill tell you how to make a decent dubstep wobble In Reason even though i don't use it.

but this is how i would go about it

open up a synth where you can find the innitial patch.

set both oscillators to saw wav.

on the second oscillator you need to slightly detune the pitch so that way the pitch fluctuates up and down at a level you are comfortable with. this of course is how you make a reece synth,

open up the screemer and ad some nice distortion that will compliment the reece.

2 open up an eq and get rid of the sharp mid frequencies.

add more screamer if that's what ya like. . . and eq till you are happy with the sound.

if you have a multiband distortion then use that, try not to distort your low frequency too much because that's where your bass is gonna help.

Bounce it to wav . . . . or export it if you don't know what i'm talking about.

now instead of using a vst (if you don't have the ram to support the project you are working on) you can use this sample of a reece you just bounced and reprocess it. . . . add more distortion.

when you are happy with the final product be sure that the synth line you bounce is at a low pitch and about 10 seconds .

when you got that done ad a sine sub to the whole lot and bounce again.

then load the sample into reason, add a filter, set lfo or you can automate the cuttoff, be sure to mess with the mod of the lfo cut off, you don't always need a fucking agressive wub, maybe add a lil res too to give it that vowel like edge to the wub.

then bam fucking bass wobbles up in that bitch!!!!

or you could use this dude's advice.

  Quote

Load a subtractor, right click on it and go to 'initialise patch'. Ok, now heres a pic of the area were mainly working with, the controls Ive put a little green mark on, copy thier settings...

 

 

Now you will notice 'filter 1' at the top has red marks on its 2 sliders. If you move the sliders down to where Ive got the red dots on the bar, then move them up one by one to where they are in the pic you will hear how each effects the sound, mess with it and see waht u like.

 

Once uve got these settings in, just turn on both osc' and select saw waves, square waves, maybe waveshape 6s or 8s and ur away. Each time u hit a key itll do a wobble.

 

Done. If you fancy, detune the waves, throw a chorus/unison/scream/phaser/whatever on the end of it to mess with it a little, whatever floats ur boat.

 

Advantage of this method is, you dont have to adjust the tempo of the lfo, you just strike a key everywhere u want a wobble. Plus those lfos sync to track in reason but not to key, not that I can find in reason 3 anyway. So when u hit a key you could potentialy start the note in the dip of a wobble, it wont start the wobble all over again every time u hit a key. You got more control with the envelope.

 

Alternatly bounce out a long saw/square note, and load it back into the NNXT sampler. That has lfo and it has track AND key sync so you can set up and lfo wobble as above, but also have it start the wobble over every time you hit a key, so you can chose for example a 3/8 woble and still have the riff repeat the same every bar rahter than taking multiple bars before the 3/8 pattern comes back round and kicks off with a wobble on the first beat of the bar. I dunno if thats making sense to anyone :teeth: I hope u get the general point anyway. Plus the NNXT alows you to layer multiple samples over the same keys. So you can take pads, bounces out of any synth, (esp absynth) and layer it over flat sustained reese samples to give them so odd sounds.

 

If anyone knows how to keysync a subtractor or a malestrom ull make my day, seems crazy that it wouldnt be possible but Ive not managed it yet.

or you can try this

made a short song also without resampling it, dubstep is not hard to make.

i hope this has been a help to you

Side Chain niggas!

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