The 'help me make that dungeon sound' thread

[Insahn]

Does anyone know how to achieve that dark dungeon tone in the reece/growls, sleeper's got it down to a tea, DJ MADD, TMSV etc.. anyone got anytips on moving away from a neuro-dnb reece into a dark dungeon styled growl

e.g

I've been working on this a lot lately too. I really want to crack the code on this.

I think it involves getting a fairly clean tone like a nice thick saw wave or one of the more gritty but clean sounding wavetables on massive that produces some sort of texture and then putting that through a LP filter and raising the cutoff and the resonance fairly high but not piercingly so. From there you need to compress the high end resonant harmonics so the whole tone is roughly the same volume. You should get a growly sounding thing by doing this. Apply a notch filter with an LFO, modulate wavetables, feedback, tube drive, phase for subtle movement. Nothing should be too dramatic I don't think. From this point on I have been resampling into Kontakt and splitting frequencies into lows, mids, and highs. I'm mainly going off of a few things that district said in his tutorial in that you should use distortion gradually in small doses and each time re-EQ to compensate for the distortion giving your sound harmonics you didn't intend it to have. Also, running a bit of saturation in between each EQ or filter in the chain is a tip I picked up from DOA and it seems to give the sound focus again. The part I am struggling with though is filter movement. I can't get anywhere close to what District has done on Modulate. Any tips would be really appreciated, but then again I don't think there are too many people on this forum that know how its done either and if they do they aren't saying anything.

[eyeatus]

been focusing on dungeon drums for a while. lots of helpful info in this thread thanks guys!

[Brian Oblivion]

I'm mainly going off of a few things that district said in his tutorial in that you should use distortion gradually in small doses and each time re-EQ to compensate for the distortion giving your sound harmonics you didn't intend it to have. Also, running a bit of saturation in between each EQ or filter in the chain is a tip I picked up from DOA and it seems to give the sound focus again. The part I am struggling with though is filter movement. I can't get anywhere close to what District has done on Modulate. Any tips would be really appreciated, but then again I don't think there are too many people on this forum that know how its done either and if they do they aren't saying anything.

I just had a little pop at it, thats as far as I got before my patience ran out, forgive the drums, chopped a little loop that was handy, the hits are very different.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/hof3lo

Its not quite there but I think its safe to say hes using massive with a few lfos/performers/envelopes to modulate different things like wavetables, filters, distortions. I dont think youll ever know exactly what wave forms and modulation he set up. That thing I posted is just coming straight out of massive through a chorus, eq etc, you can get crazy doing all the resampling and splitting and whatever else, might help. His seems generally more squelchy and fluxy than mine.

The thing distance mentioned in his tut about having diff layers opening when the other is closing might give it more movement. I can hear what sounds like some sort resonant filter in his, like an auto wha or something, I dunno if thats in massive/an effect/something moving around in a sampler, but its hard to pin down, too hard for 7am tbh.

[leeany]

Okay, so been wondering how to really get that "organic" feel to my bass.

It would seem that it would be as easy as taking a sine, perhaps bringing the cutoff and drive up a little, and then routing the Filter Cutoff to the LFO.

But that doesn't quite achieve the fatness and (yes, I'm overusing this word) organic feel.

There are many many variations on this idea of a bass, but they all have the same vibe to em.

Anyone got some pointers?

Example are:
Stagger by Skream
Haunted by Digital Mystikz
Cold Blooded by Kryptic Minds and Youngsta
Ruffhouse by J:Kenzo
....and many many more

kryptic minds use 808 kicks for their subbass, look up kryptic minds masterclass on youtube. you might also want to watch the icicle masterclass

[KONVEX]

I'm mainly going off of a few things that district said in his tutorial in that you should use distortion gradually in small doses and each time re-EQ to compensate for the distortion giving your sound harmonics you didn't intend it to have. Also, running a bit of saturation in between each EQ or filter in the chain is a tip I picked up from DOA and it seems to give the sound focus again. The part I am struggling with though is filter movement. I can't get anywhere close to what District has done on Modulate. Any tips would be really appreciated, but then again I don't think there are too many people on this forum that know how its done either and if they do they aren't saying anything.

I just had a little pop at it, thats as far as I got before my patience ran out, forgive the drums, chopped a little loop that was handy, the hits are very different.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/hof3lo

Its not quite there but I think its safe to say hes using massive with a few lfos/performers/envelopes to modulate different things like wavetables, filters, distortions. I dont think youll ever know exactly what wave forms and modulation he set up. That thing I posted is just coming straight out of massive through a chorus, eq etc, you can get crazy doing all the resampling and splitting and whatever else, might help. His seems generally more squelchy and fluxy than mine.

The thing distance mentioned in his tut about having diff layers opening when the other is closing might give it more movement. I can hear what sounds like some sort resonant filter in his, like an auto wha or something, I dunno if thats in massive/an effect/something moving around in a sampler, but its hard to pin down, too hard for 7am tbh.

PLEASE tut this is too sick

[Insahn]

I'm mainly going off of a few things that district said in his tutorial in that you should use distortion gradually in small doses and each time re-EQ to compensate for the distortion giving your sound harmonics you didn't intend it to have. Also, running a bit of saturation in between each EQ or filter in the chain is a tip I picked up from DOA and it seems to give the sound focus again. The part I am struggling with though is filter movement. I can't get anywhere close to what District has done on Modulate. Any tips would be really appreciated, but then again I don't think there are too many people on this forum that know how its done either and if they do they aren't saying anything.

I just had a little pop at it, thats as far as I got before my patience ran out, forgive the drums, chopped a little loop that was handy, the hits are very different.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/hof3lo

Its not quite there but I think its safe to say hes using massive with a few lfos/performers/envelopes to modulate different things like wavetables, filters, distortions. I dont think youll ever know exactly what wave forms and modulation he set up. That thing I posted is just coming straight out of massive through a chorus, eq etc, you can get crazy doing all the resampling and splitting and whatever else, might help. His seems generally more squelchy and fluxy than mine.

The thing distance mentioned in his tut about having diff layers opening when the other is closing might give it more movement. I can hear what sounds like some sort resonant filter in his, like an auto wha or something, I dunno if thats in massive/an effect/something moving around in a sampler, but its hard to pin down, too hard for 7am tbh.

Wow, you've nearly nailed it. That's awesome. Mind giving us the details on what you've done? Really well done.

[Brian Oblivion]

tbh its not that involved, its just lots of distortion, the waveforms you use are almost irrelevant, I garantee you almost all the settings Ive got are different to what District did to get something roughly simillar. In this case I used mtalk, scrapyard and groan 1, and theres an lfo on a skream filter theyre all going through with a bit of res, the lfo is also attached to the mtalk wavetable and the scrapyard intensity, but really you can hook the lfo up to any of the wave tables or intensities to make different moving tones, it was pretty random what I hooked up, theres probably far more interesting sounds to be had by experimenting with it. The lfo on the scream lp filter is doing 90% of the work, thats really all it is.

The distortions are what gives it the tone. Ive got ring modulation on the mtalk osc, and Ive got it set to "Bend -" all the way up. The groan osc is set to "Blend +", again right up. The filters are set to series and theres a comb filter (filter 1) behind the scream filter (filter 2). Theres a "sine shaper" distortion on the inset between the two filters, and a "classic tube" distoriton on fx1. Ive also turned the feedback up a little. Hard to know when ur replicating the bass and when ur replicating youtube distortion tbh, but a little touch of all those distortions together gives it the tone. Its got a "Dimension Expander" and some unison detune on it to finish off. Then through chorus and eq, nothing crazy, just a tight dip around 430hz to give it some breathing room.

Of course I could just give you the patch, but then Distance would have to kill us both. Really that bass sound is too Distance, I couldnt bring myself to use it as it is, its all about finding something unique, or at least something that isnt like someones signature sound but just a little more shit like ive ended up with here. Theres tons of dials that will change the tone, the wavetables, the bend +/-, the pitch of the comb filter, the amount of ring modulation, you can add phase modulation to one of the osc and modulate that, modulate the amount of res on the lp filter, the amount of all the distortions, the shape of the lfo (mines on a sine). The best thing you can do is try out diff wave forms, try hooking the lfo up to the different peramiters mentioned and see what happens. Another idea is to add velocity to some of those controls, then you can draw in the velocities for each note and slightly alter the tone where u want. Really you dont want my patch or districts, cause theyre unseable now, and youre gonna make something better than these if you keep fiddling yourself and learning by ear whats going on when you do things.

I didnt use a sub there, its just massive churning out, but Id recommend an 808 or an 808 mock patch on a synth like massive for subs, and maybe some multiband compression, squeeze the crap out of the lower mids to make it thick and solid, leave the tops wide open. Watch the distance tut again, its all there really, the core of what those guys are doing, just use your ears when adding the distortions in, add a little of each then go back and retweek, hear what theyre doing and which ones you need more or less of.


I see quite a few posts on the dark, wompy, subby bass things in this thread, its just lfos/envelopes like this distancy bass, like all moving bass, just dont open the filter as far, or if youre into your wavetables, find a table that moves from almost a clean sub into something thats got a bit more of a dark grow and slam an lfo on it, youll kick yourself when you get it right cause itll have taken you 30 seconds. And dont be afraid to saturate the shit out of everything Ive posted about, cant go wrong with a saturation vst.

[Electric_Head]

I'm mainly going off of a few things that district said in his tutorial in that you should use distortion gradually in small doses and each time re-EQ to compensate for the distortion giving your sound harmonics you didn't intend it to have. Also, running a bit of saturation in between each EQ or filter in the chain is a tip I picked up from DOA and it seems to give the sound focus again. The part I am struggling with though is filter movement. I can't get anywhere close to what District has done on Modulate. Any tips would be really appreciated, but then again I don't think there are too many people on this forum that know how its done either and if they do they aren't saying anything.

I just had a little pop at it, thats as far as I got before my patience ran out, forgive the drums, chopped a little loop that was handy, the hits are very different.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/hof3lo

Its not quite there but I think its safe to say hes using massive with a few lfos/performers/envelopes to modulate different things like wavetables, filters, distortions. I dont think youll ever know exactly what wave forms and modulation he set up. That thing I posted is just coming straight out of massive through a chorus, eq etc, you can get crazy doing all the resampling and splitting and whatever else, might help. His seems generally more squelchy and fluxy than mine.

The thing distance mentioned in his tut about having diff layers opening when the other is closing might give it more movement. I can hear what sounds like some sort resonant filter in his, like an auto wha or something, I dunno if thats in massive/an effect/something moving around in a sampler, but its hard to pin down, too hard for 7am tbh.

Nice sound, a great starting point for everyone

[Dublicious]

tbh its not that involved, its just lots of distortion, the waveforms you use are almost irrelevant, I garantee you almost all the settings Ive got are different to what District did to get something roughly simillar. In this case I used mtalk, scrapyard and groan 1, and theres an lfo on a skream filter theyre all going through with a bit of res, the lfo is also attached to the mtalk wavetable and the scrapyard intensity, but really you can hook the lfo up to any of the wave tables or intensities to make different moving tones, it was pretty random what I hooked up, theres probably far more interesting sounds to be had by experimenting with it. The lfo on the scream lp filter is doing 90% of the work, thats really all it is.

The distortions are what gives it the tone. Ive got ring modulation on the mtalk osc, and Ive got it set to "Bend -" all the way up. The groan osc is set to "Blend +", again right up. The filters are set to series and theres a comb filter (filter 1) behind the scream filter (filter 2). Theres a "sine shaper" distortion on the inset between the two filters, and a "classic tube" distoriton on fx1. Ive also turned the feedback up a little. Hard to know when ur replicating the bass and when ur replicating youtube distortion tbh, but a little touch of all those distortions together gives it the tone. Its got a "Dimension Expander" and some unison detune on it to finish off. Then through chorus and eq, nothing crazy, just a tight dip around 430hz to give it some breathing room.

Of course I could just give you the patch, but then Distance would have to kill us both. Really that bass sound is too Distance, I couldnt bring myself to use it as it is, its all about finding something unique, or at least something that isnt like someones signature sound but just a little more shit like ive ended up with here. Theres tons of dials that will change the tone, the wavetables, the bend +/-, the pitch of the comb filter, the amount of ring modulation, you can add phase modulation to one of the osc and modulate that, modulate the amount of res on the lp filter, the amount of all the distortions, the shape of the lfo (mines on a sine). The best thing you can do is try out diff wave forms, try hooking the lfo up to the different peramiters mentioned and see what happens. Another idea is to add velocity to some of those controls, then you can draw in the velocities for each note and slightly alter the tone where u want. Really you dont want my patch or districts, cause theyre unseable now, and youre gonna make something better than these if you keep fiddling yourself and learning by ear whats going on when you do things.

I didnt use a sub there, its just massive churning out, but Id recommend an 808 or an 808 mock patch on a synth like massive for subs, and maybe some multiband compression, squeeze the crap out of the lower mids to make it thick and solid, leave the tops wide open. Watch the distance tut again, its all there really, the core of what those guys are doing, just use your ears when adding the distortions in, add a little of each then go back and retweek, hear what theyre doing and which ones you need more or less of.


I see quite a few posts on the dark, wompy, subby bass things in this thread, its just lfos/envelopes like this distancy bass, like all moving bass, just dont open the filter as far, or if youre into your wavetables, find a table that moves from almost a clean sub into something thats got a bit more of a dark grow and slam an lfo on it, youll kick yourself when you get it right cause itll have taken you 30 seconds. And dont be afraid to saturate the shit out of everything Ive posted about, cant go wrong with a saturation vst.

Decent mate, big ups, upload some of your dungeon tracks if you have any?

[Brian Oblivion]

Soundcloud

I dunno if thats really dungeon tbh, I doubt youd hear it in a Youngsta set, its a grumpy little track all the same I guess. I make tunes with my mate Pistons, hes the main man, Im just technicals and flux control. Weve got a backlog of tunes from like 2007 that weve been working on, 100s, some of which are just awful and a good deal of them have been put in the sin bin for just ripping off the dungeon guys too hard, but we got a hefty little bag of bits no ones heard yet that will hopefully be seeing the light of day in the near future. Keep an eye on Mindstep Records for new bits, Crises gets first dibs on most of the stuff we do.

All the older tracks are in Reason, weve been using ableton now for about a year maybe? the sound quality you can get with it and the speed you can work at is powerfull, no harm to Reason, I love that thing, but anyone whos made the switch will know what Im saying. So were going through our backlog right now and seeing if we can drag them through ableton and hopefully get em as crisp as we can and out somewhere people can hear them.

[charliefoy]

dungeon lol

[district]

I'm mainly going off of a few things that district said in his tutorial in that you should use distortion gradually in small doses and each time re-EQ to compensate for the distortion giving your sound harmonics you didn't intend it to have. Also, running a bit of saturation in between each EQ or filter in the chain is a tip I picked up from DOA and it seems to give the sound focus again. The part I am struggling with though is filter movement. I can't get anywhere close to what District has done on Modulate. Any tips would be really appreciated, but then again I don't think there are too many people on this forum that know how its done either and if they do they aren't saying anything.

I just had a little pop at it, thats as far as I got before my patience ran out, forgive the drums, chopped a little loop that was handy, the hits are very different.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/hof3lo

Its not quite there but I think its safe to say hes using massive with a few lfos/performers/envelopes to modulate different things like wavetables, filters, distortions. I dont think youll ever know exactly what wave forms and modulation he set up. That thing I posted is just coming straight out of massive through a chorus, eq etc, you can get crazy doing all the resampling and splitting and whatever else, might help. His seems generally more squelchy and fluxy than mine.

The thing distance mentioned in his tut about having diff layers opening when the other is closing might give it more movement. I can hear what sounds like some sort resonant filter in his, like an auto wha or something, I dunno if thats in massive/an effect/something moving around in a sampler, but its hard to pin down, too hard for 7am tbh.

BIG UP! haha thats proper sick. to be honest i can't really remember what i did but it was pretty much done just in Massive, no resampling or anything like that.

[Brian Oblivion]

lol, big up District, you Chestplate boys have a ferocious signature sound.

I must admit Im not really one for resampling and splitting everything, it can work now and then but most stuff sounds best coming right out of the synth. Its very easy to destroy a great bass patch by getting carried away with that stuff, I think some people presume they have to split everything into 3 bands and resample it 4 times before they can hope to get a proper bass sound and its not the case at all really.

[wub]

lol, big up District, you Chestplate boys have a ferocious signature sound.

I must admit Im not really one for resampling and splitting everything, it can work now and then but most stuff sounds best coming right out of the synth. Its very easy to destroy a great bass patch by getting carried away with that stuff, I think some people presume they have to split everything into 3 bands and resample it 4 times before they can hope to get a proper bass sound and its not the case at all really.

Agreed. Decent detuned 3xOsc patch with long attack and some decent effects chaining. Job done.

[district]

lol, big up District, you Chestplate boys have a ferocious signature sound.

I must admit Im not really one for resampling and splitting everything, it can work now and then but most stuff sounds best coming right out of the synth. Its very easy to destroy a great bass patch by getting carried away with that stuff, I think some people presume they have to split everything into 3 bands and resample it 4 times before they can hope to get a proper bass sound and its not the case at all really.

agreed!

[Sonika]

Okay I noticed in the original How To make That Sound thread people are asking how to make SPECIFIC sounds from specific tunes. I'd like to try that with a tune.

I loove that wobble in Badman by Kryptic Minds. Can anyone direct me to how to do that? Using Massive, preferably.

Also if you care, send me a patch

[Insahn]

lol, big up District, you Chestplate boys have a ferocious signature sound.

I must admit Im not really one for resampling and splitting everything, it can work now and then but most stuff sounds best coming right out of the synth. Its very easy to destroy a great bass patch by getting carried away with that stuff, I think some people presume they have to split everything into 3 bands and resample it 4 times before they can hope to get a proper bass sound and its not the case at all really.

agreed!

Good tips guys, thanks for the responses. I feel like I'm alright with Massive, but it's clear that its capable of more than what I'm getting out of it straight out of the box. I will be keeping it simple from now on.

[PERCEPT]

Bass amps. That is all.

[Ghost of Muttley]

Anything that generates sine waves and is capable of colouring or altering the harmonics is pretty much capable of making whatever you want

[Twistan]

Hi there, this is my first post on the forum and probably won't be my last.
I've been listening to dubstep for a couple of years now and I recently start (trying) to produce some. I'm into deep, dark, dungeon dubstep like Sleeper, District, Lurka, .... and 'tearout' dubstep like the Monsters crew (Akira, Vylex, AD, Subfiltronik,...). My question is How do you make such a " growling " bass typical in deeper dubstep? I use FL Studio and NI Massive

For example:

kIcks in round 55 seconds

Thanks in advance!