giving body to my bass in reason

[slothrop]

One thing I find helpful is making sure the fundamental frequency is in about the right place. If you've got a complex bass sound, it's quite possible that one of your low pitched oscillators actually has a fundamental that's too low to be effective and is just wasting energy or that your lowest pitched oscillator is too high and you've hardly got any bottom end. It's sometimes good to use a much simpler bass patch to find out where in your keyboard range you'll get the best sound. So use a sine wave pitched as your lowest sub oscillator is pitched and check that the fundamental is low enough to give 'weight' but not so low as to do nothing.

I quite like beefing up the low end with sines anyway - it lets you mess around with the sound to get the mid / high end sounding how you like without having to worry about keeping the weight in the low end.

[drifterman_]

yh hugh is correct u can make some very powerful sounds in thor

very quickly 2

search thru the presets and see how it works then alter them till ur comfortable enuf 2 make ur own sounds

serious serrious sub can b made in thor

[dubstepusa]

i appreciate the feedback, some of the posts were pretty helpful

[xthewiddler]

use a scream 4 with the tape setting and mess about

also here is a free dubstep bass for reason

http://bikinieditorial.com/yoni/Combi/dubstepbass.cmb

right click and download

[chu]

even simpler-- low pass frequency down, resonance up.

This is the answer. But can someone explain in science and stuff why this makes some notes louder than others, or is it magic?

[nospin]

even simpler-- low pass frequency down, resonance up.

This is the answer. But can someone explain in science and stuff why this makes some notes louder than others, or is it magic?

the resonance boosts frequencies around the cut-off frequency.
if you play a bass note below the cut off frequency, it'll be at one volume,
but if you play a note right where the filter is boosting(right above the cut-off frequency), it'll be louder.
most synths will have a 'kbd" button or knob.
if you turn this on, it will make the filter act in relation to the notes you play, making every note equal in volume.

[lonecurrent]

another alternative solution to this problem is to sample a note and then put the sample into a sampler to have consistent velocity. further, this frees up some cpu. on the downside, it will add some aliasing during pitching etc - you likely won't notice though.

[futures_untold]

Wack a Unison device on it to phatten up the sound..

[Sharmaji]

even simpler-- low pass frequency down, resonance up.

This is the answer. But can someone explain in science and stuff why this makes some notes louder than others, or is it magic?

the resonance boosts frequencies around the cut-off frequency.
if you play a bass note below the cut off frequency, it'll be at one volume,
but if you play a note right where the filter is boosting(right above the cut-off frequency), it'll be louder.
most synths will have a 'kbd" button or knob.
if you turn this on, it will make the filter act in relation to the notes you play, making every note equal in volume.

yup-- via resonance you get a buildup @ the frequency of the cutoff-- how much it is and what exactly it does to the sound depends on the synth, or model thereof. so, if you're lowpassing your instrument at 110hz and have a healthy amount of resonance, the "a" in that octave will be pronouced, as will the A an octave below (@ 55hz) and the ones above, though to lesser degrees. different amounts/kinds of distortion will mask this, and different synths deal w/ the buildup in different ways-- some do have the "kbd" option, a bunch of teh logic synths let you mimic the old oberheim synths with a broader buildup around the area, etc.

or you can put in an eq after to mitigate the buildup if the sound is killer overall, but a bit absurd at that one note.

in general i'm all for getting cool sounds, but in situations where there's a ton of theory via parallel processing/compressing/distortion... i dunno, i look out from behind the decks and see what people are going totally crazy to, and it's usually a balance of a simple, lo-passed sub, some super distorted/compressed square-wave stuff, and/or a sample.

the big, involved stuff is part of mixing for sure, but in subtractive synthesis-- simple is almost always better. FM and wavetable stuff (maelstrom, etc) is a different story but if you dont have a nice, fat low-end with a low-passed square/sine/whatever-- it ain't the synth.

[abstractsound]

i know it doesnt necessarily solve the problem within reason.. but if you get some outboard toys to run your signal through that can help. ive got a few pieces of outboard gear that help make bass to rattle the windows by.

[psyphon]

use thor its better than malstrom and subtractor anyway, u have way more control and u can actually see whats going on properly.
I really can't stress this enough, some of the bass patches ive been producing have been seriously heavy and sharp.

Abso-fucking-lutely!