acid bassline without a 303

[fassyman]

i've been messing about with square waves in the es2 with an envelopes on the reso/filter cutoff but cant quite get it

anyone got any tips on replicating this sound?

safe

[Electric_Head]

get alien303 vst

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

In reason I use sub tractor with one square and one saw wave and turned up the fm knob a little bit (with the usual massive resonance and filter env.), that seemed fairly close, problem is I don't know how that would translate to your synth if you have a mod matrix you can route osc1 to osc2 frequency or something (only have the amount turned up a little bit though).
hope this isn't completely useless I just feel like contributing something

[cloak and dagger]

Here's a website that compares all of the emulator VSTs to the real thing:

http://www.acidvoice.com/tb_303_vst_plugin_software.htm

[hutyluty]

i go for

two saw waves detuned lots of res and automate the old freq, then some overdrive distortion

sounds a bit like the oen in acid jackson (kind of)

sometimes i automate the position of the wavetable position thingy (in thor on reason) so that it changes harshness too.

[fassyman]

cheers everyone ill test these out later

Here's a website that compares all of the emulator VSTs to the real thing:

http://www.acidvoice.com/tb_303_vst_plugin_software.htm

just lookin at this, anyone ever used the AudioRealism Bass Line 2 vst?
seems it may be worth investing in

[hasezwei]

vst-wise i can really reccomend the audiorealism abl-2. fire it up, add a distortion plugin and a delay for endless fun. its a bit counterproductive tho, whenever i start it i end up tweaking knobs for hours instead of working on a tune

now if you want to make acid basslines on the es2 (which i think is possible, i remember the es2 having great modulation/routing options) you have to analyze what makes an acid bassline interesting to the listener first.
basically what's so awesome about acid is that you can listen to the same 1-bar loop for 10 minutes without it getting boring, which is achieved by continuous subtle (or sometimes not that subtle) change.


you know this one. don't tell me you don't.

now the way of writing basslines and the parameters used with the 303 are set in a very specific way thats not really typical of traditional keyboard-based synthesizers:
every note can be either a normal note or transposed an octave up or down. it can also be "accented", sounding a bit louder and more importantly having a different filter envelope, and "slide" which means it kinda merges with the note played before it. should be self-explaining really. you have 16-32 notes per pattern, depending on which emulation you use (no idea how much the original had) and these loop. you can do stuff like adding swing to the notes but i dont hear that used too often.

now the knobs you tweak: these are basic ones like tuning (which you really dont need to emulate as you have a pianoroll to write your notes), volume, a waveform selecter etc and the more important ones like cutoff, resonance, "env. mod", "decay" and "accent" as well as distortion and drive.
now what do these important knobs do?
cutoff is simply the cutoff of your filter, obviously. however filter cutoff is no static thing in acid. it's always controlled by the filter envelope of the note being played. the fact that the filter is always moving is what makes it all the more interesting to twist the cutoff knob. if you have a midicontroller hook one knob up to your filter cutoff.

then you have resonance. the 303's filters are pretty special and have a distinct sound at high resonances. it's a lowpass obviously, google says it's an 18db/octave 3-pole lowpass filter. according to this the es2 has 18db/octave filtering so you should use that. you should assign a midi control/knob to the filters resonance now.


303's can get very filthy if you're into that sort of thing...

the next knob is a bit more vague, i am not entirely sure but from my experience the "env. mod" knob determines how intense the envelope modulates the filter.
set up 2 envelopes now. one is your regular amp envelope controlling the note volume. the second one will be your filter envelope, i do not know the specific shapes so you'll have to experiment with that. fast attack and fairly short release would be my bet. now in order to simulate the "env. mod" knob you will modulate the filter cutoff via envelope 2 in the modulation matrix and set up a midi control to the intensity of that modulation. i know the es2 goes below zero in that, might sound good, you'll have to try that for yourself.

okay third knob, "decay". again i am not entirely sure as this is the most subtle knob in my experience but i suppose its just lengthening the decay of the 2 envelopes slightly. it's more audible on some cutoff/resonance/env mod combinations and less on most others.

now "accent". this one's tricky. it's certainly essential to the 303's sound (and acid in general) but kinda hard to emulate with a regular VA synth. my guess would be to work with velocity here, having a standard velocity for unaccented notes and everything higher than that will be accented, depending on how much higher the velocity of that note is. you could hook up velocity to the filter envelope's intensity. however that way you cant change the accented note's intensity on the fly, if anyone has a better idea let me know.

distortion and drive, well... these two should be easy to understand and with all the plugins at your disposal in logic you should just try out fx-combinations to make your acid sound nice and hypnotic.
i hope this is understandable in some way, i wish i still had logic to give more practical advice but this should do the trick.

if you (or anyone else) have massive i can do a step by step tutorial with that.

let's conclude with some more hypnotic subtle changing 303ness:

1995 IN YO FACE SON!

[-[2]DAY_-]

I'm sure you've got the basis of it going with resonant LP saws or squares, portamento, decaying filter envelope, some overdrive, etc but to add a little bit more to it, try attaching slow and shallow LFOs with quirky shaped waveforms to the filter frequency, fine tuning of the oscillator(s), resonance, really just about anything, to make the sound drift a little bit and sound more analogue. Little purposeful imperfections, can really bring out the character of the synth

[das_raunchy]

i think the closest would be a -1 octave saw and square or can try pulse. i always used bandpass with pretty high res and used velocity to control the way the filter closes. add some distortion and maybe some delay. 303

[AxeD]

Pattern seq and resonance filters

[narcissus]

filtering and distorting a saw wave until it sounds squelchy is easy as fuck... the real test is to make a pattern that just hits that primal chord deep down inside of every acid freak. accent and glide.

also, check out audiotool.com .... for an online app they're 303 emu is ridiculous.

[stepwriterun]

d16 Group's Phosycon is good too. To emulate the 303 I think you really need to focus on the sequencer because most people won't notice the difference between a 3 pole and a 4 pole filter.

[flood]

since you're on logic, if you don't want to buy anthing check out the ESM, its pretty 303-like. otherwise check out ABL or Phoscyon, or get a x0xb0x, which is a hardware 303 clone for a fraction of the price of a 303.

[paradigm_x]

ABL is imo the best vst; d16 is a bit more flexible but not quite as right...

Ive owned it for years, great. Ive got 2 x0xb0xes now so not used for ages.

[knobgoblin]

the real secret to the acid sound is the 303 seq. I dont think that a mouse and keyboard allows for the kind of fast interaction you need with the sequencer to work properly tho, so you'll need to set up a midi controller for all the sequencing keys to really integrate the 303 style sequencing into your daw environment. But nothing beats the real thing, except in my mind the x0xb0x, which is just incredible and sounds better than any vst I've ever heard. my last few tunes have been based around simple x0xb0x bass lines, I think they are perfect for dubstep, somewhere between the overly processed bass sounds that are so popular and simple sine waves.

[Ldizzy]

How about a discrete fx unit that would allow me filter curves reminiscent of anything acid

im tweaking patches in vsts i like and would like to squelch them up

any FX vst / au to recommend ? (im on a macbook pro)

[Ldizzy]

^(just the filter effect that is!)

[BloomingAudioLife]

get alien303 vst

[wormcode]

I think I'd say Rebirth over Alien303 really. Neither of them are extremely close, but I prefer Rebirth's sound over Alien. www.rebirthmuseum.com If spending cash, ABL Bassline, then Phoscyon.

[ninjadog]

It's all about the slide, or portamento, or whatever your synth manufacturer calls it.