my english is not thaaat good but i hope u will understand me, if not, just ask and im gonna describe
a couple of months ago i started to listen to a (for me) new kind of dubstep with a very specific type of
bass sounds in it.
When i started listening to dubstep my favorite artists where guys like rusko, caspa,
benga, lx one etc. etc. my aim lies on the oldschoolish form of dubstep and i enjoying it because of these awesome basses;
but then i learned the monsters which produce a very specific type of basses with a huge amount of spacey shit in it and multidimensional mid range sounds. i started to search for a "tutorial" or sth like this because i had no idea of sound design and could not imagine how to rebuild sounds like this so i came to the solution that those basses are made in reason's malström which is a grainwave synthesizer ( a mix of granular synthesis and wavetable synthesis )
quite interesting but i where working with fl studio ( now with ableton live ) and came to the result that there is no similar synth to create graintable synths.
i started to experiment and now after this glory text of memories i want to share my knowledge about those basses made in MASSIVE instead of malström.
actually im not able to recreate basses like those made from subfiltronik because i use a completely different daw and synths but im gonna show you how to achieve similar sounds which sound quite nice!
so lets start
At first open up massive with new patch!
it should look like this.
lets define those basses we want to create ... i hate the term riddim bass but actually this is the term the basses are used to declare -.-
acustic propertys:
- Multivoiced
- midranged freqs
- warping movement
- grained or distroted
- phased
- multidimensional
At first we try to create a special movement and try to achieve the first point, the multivoiced behavior
turn up the unison to at least 3 and activate the legato triller to be able to slide notes
turn on the Pitch Cutoff, the Pan position and the wavetable posi
to improve the movement and to activate it at first, we have to put some envelopes on the pitch cutoff parameter
the max pitch cutoff have to be at 0.10 ( if you turn it higher the sound gets messi )
set the wavetable position to ... hmm 1/6 from the right ( its not in the screenshot :S )
turn the attack of env 3 all the way up ( or at least quite up ) to we have a slight movement and automate !
the pan position will be automated with a slow synced lfo ( 1/1, restart on, pos off, pure sine wave( alternativly you can just turn it all the way left, that makes the sound very wide) )
experiment with the amount of voices in the unison and the starting points of the three parameters
now lets take a look at the oscillators
as you can see the, i only take a look at the first two oscs, the first one is more important, the second one is just for a little sub.
Envelope 1 has nothing special in it, just the attack it all the way right, therefore its really long
Envelope 2 has an attack which is quite in the middle (
) Automate the Pitch of the first osc to get another moving part and put a macro on the WT-Position, so you can be more dynamic.
I did not mentioned the Modulation Osc, but you can experiment with the Phaser but be carefull, just turn it up slightly so you dont mess up your sounds :S
Now the Filters:
some artists actually love the comp filter for those patches but i think its just too much distortion so i use the double notch in this case. experiment with the envs or just copy mine :S
With the filter we achieve another movement in the pitch, try to turn it off and you will see what i mean
The filtering makes everything more robotic as i think.
the effect section
is quite interesting too because of the dimension expander and the phase we use
the dimension expander stays at the default settings, the phase is configured like the picture shows.
the depth is quite important because it leads to another multidimensional character.
as you can see the multidimensional behavior is important ( for me )
now we have every point done exept of the distortion and the last lfo
the disto
is realized in the insert section, you can link a makro on every parameter or just put an envelope on it like i do.
The sine shaper and the parabolic shaper is good for disto, i like it better then the tubes in the effect section. in my opinion every tube sound the same
dunno why 
now the last point
the lfo automation
in the AMP section. just put a lfo to the sidechain of the amp mod. Use a pure sinewave because of the smooth movement and move it to the right, so the peak of the sine is in the middle of the box. i dont know how to describe but i like to configure my lfos like this, because you can easily hit a single "wob" sound with this config
FINISH
if you set up a new project you can try to slide notes very slightly so the sound gets a little bit different every tone ( wich does it anyway
) The result
Soundcloud
greetings Umea aka Subkontra
)
