Making Basses w/ Ableton's Simpler

[contakt321]

Hey folks,

Dug this up from a post I made in another thread to send to someone and thought other people may find this useful so I am posting in it's own post.

Making Basses w/ Ableton Simpler:

Create an instrument rack with several simplers (try 3)

Load up the same sample in all of them, Low pass one, hi pass one, and then filter so the third is mid-range. (sample from another synth like Operator or freeware or there are Simpler presets of single waveforms, I believe in the spectral folder)

There are some great basics about this in the Reese bass thread for the production bible (do a search) that can be applied to all kinds of bases (not just Reese)

From there you can:
- Effect each separately (some ideas: distortion on the mid and or highss, chorus on highs, reverb on highs, saturator on lows, etc)
- Try creating a short loop of one of them, but leaving the rest as long one shots (for different texture in the modulation)
- Pitch one of them up an octave w/ the transpose (or pitch up a 3rd or a 5th aka 3 semi-tones for a minor third, or 4 for a major 3rd or 7 semi-tones for a 5th)
- Etc, etc

Also things to try in Simpler (if you haven't):
- Pitch envelopes (adjust this so the pitch goes up or down over time)
- Glide (turn this on so the notes slide from note to note)
- Spread (adjust this to slightly detune the sound in two directions to "fatten" the sound)
- LFO (you know whatthis does)

Last:
- Re-sample!
- Repeat
- Try only using Pitch, Glide, Spread, LFO, etc on some of the layers, or do it all of the layers

Hope this helps folks, if you have tips or questions post away.

[mole]

Thankyou very much for the information,
Will be trying this...











Peace

[karmacazee]

Man, I always overlook Simpler.

I guess it's because I paid to upgrade to Sampler, and I kind of want to get my money's worth out of that...

Will be trying this out though, sound!

[contakt321]

Man, I always overlook Simpler.

I guess it's because I paid to upgrade to Sampler, and I kind of want to get my money's worth out of that...

Will be trying this out though, sound!

Aha!

Further Tips for Ableton Sampler Owners:

1. Do all of the steps above and get a sound that you are liking, has some great movement, etc
2. Create a Midi Pattern that is 50 or 60 bars long
3. Draw in a "C" Midi note one octav play e lower than you would ever a note in your bassline and have it be 7 bars long
4. Starting on bar 9 (leave a 1 bar gap after the prior note) draw a "C" an octave higher, repeat and do all "C"s up to an octave higher than you will ever play
5. Right click (Control + Click on Mac) and select "Freeze". Now Right click (Control + Click on Mac) and select "Flatten" (this makes it an audio track)
6. Draw warp markers at the beginning of each new note.
7. Right click (Control + Click on Mac) on the waveform down in click view and select "Slice to Sampler" and choose increments "Warp Markers"

Now you should have a midi instrument track of your Sampler Basslines.

8. Adjust the Keyzones so that the Lowest "C" goes all the way down, then only up to "B" of the octave, Assign the next Keyzone to the next higher "C" repeat until the right samples are assigned to the right octave.
9. Add any additional effects, compression, etc
10. Make your bassline

Why would you do this?
- Saves CPU
- Adds modulation from the sample being pitched up and down gives movement and character to your songs (sounds less softsynthy and/or perfect)
- Easy to save and revisit later

Other options:
- Do more or less keyzones (for more or less modulation)
- Toss this Sampler Bass in an instrument rack w/ Analog playing a single sine wave (as a Sub bass)

Hope this makes sense, I don't have Ableton open so if anything doesn't make sense let me know and I can amend it.

But yes, Simpler and Sampler are both beasts.

[upstateface]

Good Tut thanks man.