The Official Growl Bass Thread

[shim]

i am 100% sure that isnt the wow filter hahaha.

[sunny_b_uk]

WOW never seems to wow me

[Maxxan]

Haha yeah sorry but you're talking out your ass now mate.

I like WoW filter btw but not for growls. WoW filter on bandreject with no movement, set it to a cool vowel sound and then just run any bass through that and you get a really cool vowelly timbre. Like, don't automate it, just use it to shape the sounds. It's awesome. But I agree it's pretty crap if you just run massive through it and whack an LFO with 100% wet on. Subtle automation and dialing down the dry/wet can add some character to an already modulated growl though.

[Augment]

Yeah, like with distortion units, u probably dont crank up the disto to 100%. 100% wet and resonance makes wow sound shit (imo).

[asembled]

This is as closest i've heard to that SMANS growly texture. No dubstep tho.
https://soundcloud.com/phoark

[hookey]

This is as closest i've heard to that SMANS growly texture. No dubstep tho.
https://soundcloud.com/phoark

Wow, thats sick as fuck. Who is that? I enjoyed both tracks, really solid.

[PillowFight]

This is as closest i've heard to that SMANS growly texture. No dubstep tho.
https://soundcloud.com/phoark

He's clearly using massive and not using ohmicide, which would give u the closest SMANS texture, but that is some really nice production

[Augment]

Am I the only one that just didnt feel it at all?

[mthrfnk]

Am I the only one that just didnt feel it at all?

No, me too.

It sounds fucking horrendous on my monitors & sub. The fact that the whole midrange is completely mono is off-putting from the start. The distortion is overbearing too.

Having said that it sounds okay on my crappy laptop speakers where midrange sounds dominate and you lose stereo perception, depends what you're listening on I suppose haha.

[hookey]

Am I the only one that just didnt feel it at all?

No, me too.

It sounds fucking horrendous on my monitors & sub. The fact that the whole midrange is completely mono is off-putting from the start. The distortion is overbearing too.

Having said that it sounds okay on my crappy laptop speakers where midrange sounds dominate and you lose stereo perception, depends what you're listening on I suppose haha.

The same happened to me when I listened to SMANS, but then I heard it on a live PA and it was awesome (yes, i've seen Skrillex live, went with mates and enjoyed it).
Later on I figured the whole growl is basically mono. Big stereo midrange basslines sound like garbage on live scenareos.

Btw the other track (Radiossor) sounds great to me. Slick production on there, punchy kick and bass, sounds fat (im using headphones)

[mthrfnk]

Am I the only one that just didnt feel it at all?

No, me too.

It sounds fucking horrendous on my monitors & sub. The fact that the whole midrange is completely mono is off-putting from the start. The distortion is overbearing too.

Having said that it sounds okay on my crappy laptop speakers where midrange sounds dominate and you lose stereo perception, depends what you're listening on I suppose haha.

The same happened to me when I listened to SMANS, but then I heard it on a live PA and it was awesome (yes, i've seen Skrillex live, went with mates and enjoyed it).
Later on I figured the whole growl is basically mono. Big stereo midrange basslines sound like garbage on live scenareos.

Btw the other track (Radiossor) sounds great to me. Slick production on there, punchy kick and bass, sounds fat (im using headphones)

I'd agree about too much width/stereo can ruin some stuff, but at least SMANS has other elements filling out the stereo space, not to mention a very clear sub. The growls in SMANS definitely do have some stereo width as well, but the low end is securely centred for sure (probably done using iZotopes Imager) and to me it's still one of the best souding growl-based songs listening on my decent setup (as lame as that sounds).

Those phoark tracks are technically well made, its just the midrange to me has way too much upper frequency content and not enough clear low end, also because literally everything is centred it just sounds a bit shit to me (it would probably have sounded good like a year ago but meh).

[Augment]

Am I the only one that just didnt feel it at all?

No, me too.

It sounds fucking horrendous on my monitors & sub. The fact that the whole midrange is completely mono is off-putting from the start. The distortion is overbearing too.

Having said that it sounds okay on my crappy laptop speakers where midrange sounds dominate and you lose stereo perception, depends what you're listening on I suppose haha.

The same happened to me when I listened to SMANS, but then I heard it on a live PA and it was awesome (yes, i've seen Skrillex live, went with mates and enjoyed it).
Later on I figured the whole growl is basically mono. Big stereo midrange basslines sound like garbage on live scenareos.

Btw the other track (Radiossor) sounds great to me. Slick production on there, punchy kick and bass, sounds fat (im using headphones)

I'd agree about too much width/stereo can ruin some stuff, but at least SMANS has other elements filling out the stereo space, not to mention a very clear sub. The growls in SMANS definitely do have some stereo width as well, but the low end is securely centred for sure (probably done using iZotopes Imager) and to me it's still one of the best souding growl-based songs listening on my decent setup (as lame as that sounds).
Those phoark tracks are technically well made, its just the midrange to me has way too much upper frequency content and not enough clear low end, also because literally everything is centred it just sounds a bit shit to me (it would probably have sounded good like a year ago but meh).

The growl in SMANS and that growl is just not comparable imo. It's way too messy and sounds like it's straight out of massive with a parabolic shaper on 100%. SMANS growl will continue to be one of two growls I never think will be outdone, the other being the one in the San Diego VIP, by skrillex again. technically just fukin brilliant in my ears

[hookey]

Yeah, Skrillex is the don when it comes to growls, but these were pretty decent, usually most people just suck at it.

PS:Listening to UMF TV Live now watching Ultra Fest... these 2 tracks and a couple producers on this forum are far better than most of the shit im hearing. How can such shit get signed and promoted to these levels is beyond me.

[mthrfnk]

Yeah, Skrillex is the don when it comes to growls, but these were pretty decent, usually most people just suck at it.

PS:Listening to UMF TV Live now watching Ultra Fest... these 2 tracks and a couple producers on this forum are far better than most of the shit im hearing. How can such shit get signed and promoted to these levels is beyond me.

If it's moderately commercial i.e. most generic loud/agressive house and dubstep music, it gets signed
I've been watching it too, and there has been a fair bit of crappy music hah.

[AntidoteWasTaken]

I feel like there is so much information in this thread that maybe someone who has been "along for the ride" would care to summarize what they think is best. I'll try my hand at it first anyways.

To me this is what I feel really defines a growl.

For one, too much distortion lead to a harsh, rough sounding growl that just isn't pleasant.
Too little distortion or not enough harmonics is also bland and not exactly desirable, but it seems its better to go under then over.
Simple seems to be better. Crazy wave forms and using 3 OSC with a whole bunch of effects (to me atleast) seems to result in a less unique sound.
In my opinion, I feel that properly using the filter really makes or breaks the sound. For example you can take almost any WT in massive, put it to bend mode (+/-/+ or -) and then just doa good job on filtering, and you can end up with a decent growl not too far later.
And lastly using a vocoder or vocodex over top of the growl is just magic most of the time. For me, It seems I can just take a decent bass, slap a vocoder over it of me just making vowel-y bass sound with my mouth, and BAM and its 5x better

These are just my observations but I feel they're pretty accurate, but also subject to change.
Let me know what you guys think

[mromgwtf]

For me, It seems I can just take a decent bass, slap a vocoder over it of me just making vowel-y bass sound with my mouth, and BAM and its 5x better

You meant 5x worse right?
All a vocoder will do, is it'll make your signal sound muddy as shit.
Never use a vocoder.

The rest you said is right.

Crude/Sonic/Scrap-yard/Carbon (Mostly digital wavetables + analog wavetables from the bottom) ----> Bend mode ----> Double notch filter ----> Bandreject filter ----> Sine shaper ----> Parabolic shaper ----> FX like chorus etc. ----> Done

[Maxxan]

You meant 5x worse right?
All a vocoder will do, is it'll make your signal sound muddy as shit.
Never use a vocoder.

You really think so though? I'm not saying you're wrong, a lot of your growls are dope but sometimes I think that a vocoder can really beef up the low/low mids and make a sound really round and thick. I never use a modulator though, just run it straight through Vocodex and mess with formant, band width and # of bands and then usually freq split before that so I can keep the high end from the dry signal and blend them both so it doesn't get muddy like you say. I think it can definately smooth things out sometimes, but otoh my growls aren't the punchy in your face-type so I guess maybe it's just different styles.

I don't think you should overlook completely though, it can be pretty cool IMO.

[Augment]

For me, It seems I can just take a decent bass, slap a vocoder over it of me just making vowel-y bass sound with my mouth, and BAM and its 5x better

You meant 5x worse right?
All a vocoder will do, is it'll make your signal sound muddy as shit.
Never use a vocoder.

Well aren't you a tnuc. What's good and bad depends on the subject and the subjects opinion. You make it seem like you have the definite answer to a perfect growl and the way to get it, but the reality is that there is no set-in-stone way to a perfect growl from any startpoint. A vocoder can make a sound sound better, if not to you, to someone else.

[hookey]

So how did Skrillex (a guy that was making pretty meh sounding music before Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites) came up with one of the sickest sounds ever in the genre? (why talk about other growls? the rest all pretty much suck)
I mean the leap in sound production from My Name is Skrillex and Scary Monsters is huge.
You need to know what you are doing in FM8 to come up with that stuff, not just experimentation. If you were to aimlessly tweak parameters for years you wouldn't come up with shit because that stuff is clearly fine-tuned, specially the San Diego Vip one, it's just too clean sounding. How can he articulate these vowels without creating nasty resonances?
The SMANS one is heavily distorted sounding but still works. If I try to use Ohmicide or similar the sound signal goes to hell and starts sounding like a fuzzy electric guitar. Fuck this is unsettling. Ive been trying this for ages and im still not getting close. There is something that we are missing.

[Augment]

Not really about the growls but interesting nonetheless