*HELP* How to get Bassline HUGE and WIDE

[x ParaTroXic]

Hi, I've been producing for about 8 months now. I first started off making old dubstep but now I'm making if I dare say it - Brostep. Can anyone please tell me how to get that Huge and Wide Bassline! It will be so appreciated

Ive been layering, splitting frequencies and all sorts but I can't seem to get that *huge* sound - I've looked at the dubstepforum bible. I play mine and compare it to a heavy brostep tracks like:

Excision - Execute, and it just sounds huge and Extremely wide whilst keeping that midrange solid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfHU7uyoD7A

I'm not a huge fan of skrillex either but I had a listen to 'breaking a sweat', and the drop sounds so redicliously wide and huge, even if you are a huge brostep hater you can't deny the technical aspect of that bassline.

://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ewxH0uAU18

Answer this, and I will forever appreciate

Cheers, ParaTroXic
*btw if you want feedback for your track just ask*

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

The technique "automatic double tracking". Duplicate your bass, pan one left and one right and nudge one off the grid by maybe 20 milliseconds. Makes things wide without damaging your sound.

[x ParaTroXic]

Yeh, I was thinking about that, will try it for my upcoming track - cheers!

[x ParaTroXic]

Anymore?

[e-motion]

Layer.


My go to technique here is to duplicate the synth, change the parameters a bit on the duplicate so it becomes more dark and lowend (for example, darker waveforms, make the filters open less, etc.). This copy will add the beef (the lowend).
Now duplicate your first synth again, and trash the duplicate like hell (more distortion, more unison, make sure it gets more highend sound), add stereo enhancer (wide at max), other stereo effects (chorus), etc. This will widden your sound and give it the highs. Cut the low from this one since the low will be completly messed up.

Now combine the 3 (gain structure between them is the key here, EQ it too but not too much or it will sound like separate sounds instead of one big sound), compress them together and bang! there's your huge synth.

EDIT: The beef one, when I said lowend it's not necessarly sub. You may still want to lay a sub beneath those layers.

[x ParaTroXic]

Hmm, another bit of good advice, thanks - I've tried this before, it does work pretty well tbh but Ive noticed when I add chorus and some distortion effects on my highs, the highs become way too strong almost like a drill to the ears!

[e-motion]

Yes that happens. You can either lower the "trashiness" (dry/wet, drive) or lower the volume of the highend duplicate. Actually, the trick here is finding the perfect balance between trashiness and volume. I tend to prefer overtrash but low volume on the high end duplicate but that depends on what I'm after.

Oh and also, the order of the effects chain matters. I usually put stereo effects after the distortion.

[x ParaTroXic]

ahh I see, thanks so muchfor the advice, nice to know that not everyone on this forum are 'full of themselves'.

[Augment]

Download basslane or something, just to make the low end of the bass mon and then wide in the higher freqs. Or do anything else mentioned already, some good tips

[press]

chorus may help here too, im addicted to it and probably use it more than i should but ill be damned if it doesnt make any mids sound better and wider.

[x ParaTroXic]

Yeh ill consider download Bassline Btw blinkesko im really liking your track.
And yeh im not the biggest fan of chorus but it does give that nice 3d sound, ill definately use it haha thx press

[press]

i really like the tal-60 chorus and kjearhus classic (which i miss so damn much after going with logic/au)

[x ParaTroXic]

Cool Ill have a look at this tal-60

[blinx]

I use ozone 4-Stereo Imaging and widen up the mids/highs while leaving my lows normal and unaffected.

[6000]

that excision drop is pretty fucking amazing. just found he posted on the forum (a looong time ago) with some good advice:

I've never used a preset for a bass sound EVER, sure they are great for learning a synth and deconstructing samples to figure out whats going on. But start from scratch, force yourself to spend an entire day just in one synth, save 10 different versions of each sound. The next day go through and listen to those versions, pick the best few, and resample them to the tits. Load up a ton of effects but only process the sound a little bit with each effect. Pay attention to what kind, and in what order you put the effects in and save your "effect processes" in separate projects. Then when you make a new bass you can run it through one of your older "effect processes".

[Immerse]

i just got tal-60 recently and ive used it quite a lot. lovin it

[x ParaTroXic]

Haha cheers guys for the feedback, the stereo thing worked like a charm, but I still don't get how skrillex gets that lead in 'breaking a sweat' so full!

[Cubicle]

I use the brainworx shred spread.

Built in mono-maker to leave the lows mono and spread the rest. Be careful tho, or you're bassline ends up way too wide like mine.

[blinx]

Haha cheers guys for the feedback, the stereo thing worked like a charm, but I still don't get how skrillex gets that lead in 'breaking a sweat' so full!

Straight from his own mouth (source: http://www.izotope.com/artists/skrillex.asp )

" Ozone is just super-versatile. The Multiband Stereo Imaging is really nice, and you can bus a ton of things to it for different reasons. I'm actually next to [dubstep producer and DJ] Flux Pavilion right now, and he says it's fucking wicked for everything, really. Everybody uses it. I use it as a multi-band compressor on individual channels—I'll bus out multiple channels if I just want some stereo imaging, and the EQ in there is very nice too. I use the Multiband Dynamics and the Harmonic Exciter on a lot of shit, and the Maximizer too. I really use it all. It's just cool to have so many choices in one".

"I think where it's really helped me is to create the illusion of a lot of stereo stuff going on, without getting the phase problems. You can use Ozone's stereo imaging and take frequencies above seven thousand [7 kHz], or even a little bit lower, and you can widen everything up there, so that the mix starts to sound a lot wider. In an environment where you're performing live, where a lot of times you have distortion and different high frequencies bouncing around the room, you don't necessarily need those to be as present, but when the higher end stuff starts phasing, because you've widened everything, it almost tightens up your mix. For how bright and how chaotic my mixes are, I think they work really well in the club because I've widened the stereo image. If you do that at a lower frequency band, you get phasing and lose the notation, or lose the actual definition of the synth line. But if you brighten things up at the very top of everything, it gives the illusion of a big wide mix".

[x ParaTroXic]

Haha cheers guys for the feedback, the stereo thing worked like a charm, but I still don't get how skrillex gets that lead in 'breaking a sweat' so full!

Straight from his own mouth (source: http://www.izotope.com/artists/skrillex.asp )

" Ozone is just super-versatile. The Multiband Stereo Imaging is really nice, and you can bus a ton of things to it for different reasons. I'm actually next to [dubstep producer and DJ] Flux Pavilion right now, and he says it's fucking wicked for everything, really. Everybody uses it. I use it as a multi-band compressor on individual channels—I'll bus out multiple channels if I just want some stereo imaging, and the EQ in there is very nice too. I use the Multiband Dynamics and the Harmonic Exciter on a lot of shit, and the Maximizer too. I really use it all. It's just cool to have so many choices in one".

"I think where it's really helped me is to create the illusion of a lot of stereo stuff going on, without getting the phase problems. You can use Ozone's stereo imaging and take frequencies above seven thousand [7 kHz], or even a little bit lower, and you can widen everything up there, so that the mix starts to sound a lot wider. In an environment where you're performing live, where a lot of times you have distortion and different high frequencies bouncing around the room, you don't necessarily need those to be as present, but when the higher end stuff starts phasing, because you've widened everything, it almost tightens up your mix. For how bright and how chaotic my mixes are, I think they work really well in the club because I've widened the stereo image. If you do that at a lower frequency band, you get phasing and lose the notation, or lose the actual definition of the synth line. But if you brighten things up at the very top of everything, it gives the illusion of a big wide mix".

You are the biggest legend ever!!! perhaps the best bit of advice thank you!