What is this KOAN Sound?

[CE9958]

Hey dubsteppers,
So I just got the new KOAN Sound Ep and I've gotta say I'm really digging it. Most notably however the song "Meanwhile, In the Future." I am really impressed with the sounds they've gotten in the drop and I've spent some time trying to recreate it (for educational purposes only of course) but I have to say I'm STUMPED. I just can't figure out what they've done to create these epic sounds.

I'm talking about the sounds from the drop from this song starting at around 1:15... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4QWoCG3pD0

That bass is just so wet and heavy and sloppy and awesome. Curious if anyone has a better idea than I do at the basic approach of something like this? Its just so delicious!

Thanks for the help!

[MoonUnit]

Simpson's did iiiittttttt



gaaaah sorry... had to. I'd ask over in the 'how to make this sound' thread.

[Earjax]

Been working on that sound myself Its not a basic sound unfortunately :/ Its similar to the noisia/spor bass dnb heads have been craving for years. What I did and I've gotten quite close, is use some combs and some phasing and detune a couple of saws to get a basic moving reese, then I separated the synth into 4 tracks and used one for sub, one for mid, one for highs and another one for that kind of wet, twisting formant type thing that you can hear in all their basses (slap on ohmicide and a bandpass, voila). For the lfo I used a bandpass with a little resonance, and from there its all about EQ-ing more distortion and compression. I'll send you a link to my track when I've finished it. Sorry if this is all very confusing, just try experimenting with reeses if you get stuck

[CE9958]

Word man. Makes sense I'll have to give it a try. Definitely send a link when you're done I'd be interested to hear. I've tried doing the same sound using granular synthesis and just making it all slopped up with filtering (WOW Filter) and some EQ shifting modulation but it still lacks the clarity and vocality of the KOAN Sound bass.

[amphibian]

reese bass, notch filters - high passed. The "wetness" comes from the right waveforms and distortion.

[amphibian]

btw, that's a sick track. Had no idea Koan Sound were getting into glitch hop

[B-Frank]

Definitely the first dubstep track (not sure I could even call it that in fairness???) that I have ever found funny... "meanwhile". ha.

[CE9958]

Meanwhile.... WOMP. And yeah dude the new KOAN Sound EP is legendary. A new kind of dubstep-ishness. Tasty like funk and Fat like Dubstep. Excellent.

[blinx]

reese + bandpass + comb filter + x random filter/plugin process i imagine. Kind of sounds similar to when reso runs comb filters over his reese basses in his master class.

[Cubicle]

I'm more interested in that snare actually.
Such a powerful snare.

[CE9958]

I agree actually. The quality of all their stuff on all the songs on the EP is really awesome to me. I'm all in all very impressed with it. In fact, why not... Anyone have any idea how to rock a snare like the KOAN Sound one? It really kicks you in the chest.

[Earjax]

I've managed to get quite a good koan style track going, for the bass I got a reese with a lot of movement and phasing in it, used a lot of ohmicide for distortion, then used a bandpass and played a couple offbeat notes also had to split the bass into 5 different parts to control frequencies ^^ The snare and kick is quite easy, get a nice sample firstly. for the snare make sure its peaking at 200hz, you want it to be extra punchy, also boost around 2000 for a click, then compress the living shit out of it. for the kick you want a lot of bass but nothing below around 40-50hz so that you aren't messing with sub, compress the shit etc. Also forward kcik and snare to a bus which you then want to side chain compress everything else in your mix, this gives them more punch. (You will also want your kick and snare to be peaking a lot more than you usually do in your mix try about 1-2.5 db's more) Hope this helps! If your still stuck on the bass, here's a thread I started a while back that really helped me: http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=223008

[bassinine]

they're vocoding notched Reese's, then resampling, then more layering with Reese's, then processing that as a whole. I've made some VERY similar sounds doing this.

[fragments]

+1 for vocoding. One good way to help get a twisted reese recipe going.

[izaac c]

lol, big up to the koan boys,
there just heavily processed reeces. dnb ting.

[Ascian]

Vocoding is something I've never tried with basses.. What sort of settings work? What do you use as a modulator?

Could be interesting to use vocoding on highs and leaving lows/mids as is

[bassinine]

Vocoding is something I've never tried with basses.. What sort of settings work? What do you use as a modulator?

Could be interesting to use vocoding on highs and leaving lows/mids as is

i've used my voice speaking gibberish, or words like "fuck," as the modulator (pitched down in some cases). then use some sort of bass stab, wub, or plain reese as the carrier signal. you're right though, it's great for highs and some high-mids. then layer with plain reese's for some more mids, and sine as sub (obviously). bounce it and start resampling with your standard fare, rejects, phasers, saturation.

i'm positive koan sound does this is MANY of their songs. you can clearly hear words in some, and in others, that's how they get those extremely bizarre attacks and decays.

[Ascian]

Vocoding is something I've never tried with basses.. What sort of settings work? What do you use as a modulator?

Could be interesting to use vocoding on highs and leaving lows/mids as is

i've used my voice speaking gibberish, or words like "fuck," as the modulator (pitched down in some cases). then use some sort of bass stab, wub, or plain reese as the carrier signal. you're right though, it's great for highs and some high-mids. then layer with plain reese's for some more mids, and sine as sub (obviously). bounce it and start resampling with your standard fare, rejects, phasers, saturation.

i'm positive koan sound does this is MANY of their songs. you can clearly hear words in some, and in others, that's how they get those extremely bizarre attacks and decays.

Sounds really interesting man, definitely gonna give this a go! Very creative!

[Sine69]

Reeses that have been processed to fuck. KOAN Sound are so amazing, I'm loving the EP. Weren't they supposed to do a Q&A here sometime soon?

[Sparxy]

Get into DnB style resampling ala Noisia, Culprate
The Grid on DOA is gonna be your go-to for this