anyone using FL Studio to make wobbly basslines?

[sequethin]

I have no real technical musical background and I'm tryin to make the bassline in my head come out of the speakers by clicking on stuff. It's fun, but it gets frustrating sometimes. Is there something I can tweak to make a sine bass wobble for me? or should I be looking for a patch that has the effect already? Any advice is appreciated (yes, I know this is no substitute for formal musical training )

[andythetwig]

try starting with both a sine wave.

add chorus with very little modulation at first to thicken it

stick it through a saturation or distortion filter- not too much.

eq- cut out the mid range, boost the bass & treble

fiddle with the chorus to change the sound, anything that feeds back into the higher frequencies gives the sound texture (wobble?)

it's basically done with lots of effects, sample and resample until you find a bassline that defines your personality

[gravious]

not sure how it all works in Fruity, but you might want to try messing around with some LFO'd filters. Good for the pumping wobbly sounds.

[sequethin]

not sure how it all works in Fruity, but you might want to try messing around with some LFO'd filters. Good for the pumping wobbly sounds.

Yeah I started looking at that. I googled for info but I found a lot of deep scientific explanation about frequency oscillators (which is great, but I mean... I just want my bass to go wumpwumpwump right now haha). If I get something working I'll post what I did

[zefa]

Ill try and help, i dont use FL but reason...

On your synth you need to select IMO a square wave, but this can be a sine...

Then you need to find the LFO, you only need to have one LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) on for this...select the filter frequency as this is what you will be oscillating to create the wowowowow bass sound.

In the LFO section there should be a Rate and Amount, you need to sync the LFO to the track then set the Rate / Amount to what modulation you would like..eg 1/8, 1/16 etc...

Hope this helps!!

[gravious]

Yeah I started looking at that. I googled for info but I found a lot of deep scientific explanation about frequency oscillators (which is great, but I mean... I just want my bass to go wumpwumpwump right now haha). If I get something working I'll post what I did

Yeah, I hate that kind of techno jargon stuff!
Basically, if you get an LFO to control the frequency/cut of a filter, you should be able to bang out some cheerful wumpwump noises.

[sequethin]

thanks guys. I found a nice synth and started messin with the lfo and some chorus and eq plugins... the bass is rolling along now Don't worry - I'll remember you when I'm famous hahahahahahahaha

[bze]

Cut the wobble and do something reasonable

Forget 'bout the chorus, it messes up everything if applied to bass. It's more important to consentrate on proper filtering and equalizing. Every bass sound should be composed of at least 2 oscillators with slightly different settings. FL's 3xOsc is just perfect for this, -learn- how to use it effectively.

[dj $hy]

^^^Forget Chorus for deffo^^^

BUT

Dont know about needing 2 Osc, a simple sine is enough for a wooble. Slap an LFO on it assigned to you filter and you'll get that trade mark low wooble.

Then get another channel open and add a mid bass with the same LFO rate and you start getting a layered bassline. THEN get a long not over the top and maybe use a lead sample to get some top end outta it.

Make sure your bass is in MONO and try copying the bassline, get an EQ open on the original and the copy and then do opp' for each one. ie, if you got an 8 band EQ, start the original bass with the first band full up, on the copy put it full down so its opp to the original. When you've done all 8 bands you get more dynamic's for the one bass cos your spanning it over the EQ.

LFO bass is just the start though. You need to get more layers ontop of that first Sine but as I said above I dont think you need to use 2-3 Ocs for the first bass, just get a nice simple Sine on filter lfo and the add more layers to it to build it up. You'll keep the smooth LFO wooble of the sine but it'll be beefed right up with the 2nd 3rd layer

[andythetwig]

hey cool, I'll never use chorus again!

[sequethin]

once I wake up its gonna be me and fl studio all day

[setisan]

yeh i use it sometimes..with synths try automate functions by right clicking on knobs to see which ones you can program some motion into..

[setisan]

but my fave is just recording my old keyboard going into a stompbox distortion and workin' that tone pot!!!!!!!!!

[subframe]

I tend to agree that you don't *need* 2 osc's for bass, but if it works, I'll do it.

I'm not sure what you meant by 'different settings', bze, but watch out for detuned subs - the oscillators will phase, so you may get heavy heavy bass for the first part of the sound, but as they drift out of phase, you'll lose the bottom end. Of course, you might want that, or you can always resample just the heavy part and work with that, etc etc...

[edit]sorry, that wasn't specific to FL at all[/edit]

[setisan]

hey! fellow SF bass man..

[moldy]

Ever tune a guitar?

[sequethin]

Ever tune a guitar?

I actually bought a bass a long time ago when these two other guys I knew "wanted to start a band" I think everyone goes through that phase at one point. Luckily I left that phase with a bass guitar. I need to take it to a shop though.

[unlikely]

I'm going to be obscure and say: check out a certain seemingly innocuos FL synth, then instead of LFO think retrigger and envelope, you'll see what I mean if you find it

[Citrus Boy]

I'm going to be obscure and say: check out a certain seemingly innocuos FL synth, then instead of LFO think retrigger and envelope, you'll see what I mean if you find it

hmmm..curious^^

try using more than one synth and eqing out the freqs you dont want..also add a v.subtle distortion to the sub bass part for some nice whumping harmonics..

thats it..said too much now

[sequethin]

since this topic started I've managed to get my hands on reason. might post something for flames *cough* I mean comments soon