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hello!

sorry to spam the production forum with my frequent questions but how can you actually make bass sound "plucky" sort of if it was a picked string? get me? if possible, explain how to do it in massive, cause i'm making the patch on it. thanks

You use your envelopes. So - if you want to apply it to the volume - goto envelope #4 in massive, which is the default envelope used on the master. You want it so that:

- Your attack is quite fast and short
- Your decay - how quick do you want the pluck?
- Sustain - set around midrange, or at 0 if you want the pluck to completely fade out of existence
- Release - depends on what your sustain is set on, but usually just a little longer than 0, to stop any sort of clipping

mess with amp envelope settings

Shortish decay, medium sustain level, mid-short release, that way the initial thump will be louder/"plucked". Imitate those settings with filter envelope, then adjust amount/filter freq to taste. kind of more of a donk then a pluck. IMO the only way to get what you're after is



Preferably +

envelopes, that's what i thought! tried actually but didn't really nail it. not with the instructions you gave either i'm afraid. maybe i'm just butterfingers thanks anyway dude.

Maybe if you lower the initial amp level on the osc(s), your amp envelope will have more headroom to work with. If your pluck isnt pronounced enough, lower the sustain level some more, and adjust the decay setting again. Maybe shorter, maybe a little longer depending on why it's not working at the moment

yeah the thing is i've never really tweaked envelopes on synths before although i've twiddled sustain, attack, decay and such on a few vsti:s and have a bit of clue of what they do. but i still can't really achieve anything resembling a pluck in my tune. the sound i'm after is not really like electric bass at all, i'm referring to stuff like



and skream's mood 2 fuck /buffalo kut /whatever.. at least i recall it had this plucky bass

you get the idea.. i hope

I myself would like to know the answer to the op's question...Unless of course you've all answered it already, but I'm curious to see if that's the case given he supplied examples this time.

Just a guess, but i bet a lot of people sample

try messing with the waveform of the LFO, use a saw wave or similiar wave that starts up and goes down, and then mess about with the cutoff settings on the lfo and filter to make that plucky sound..

There was a Synapse Audio Plucked String VST on the disc with december 2010 issue of Computer Music.

I'll up it later on if you like.

listened to the cookie monsta tune...thats just a saw wave on the LFO surely.
theres a similar noise in datsik+excision - deviance...if thats the sound your after then use
a saw wave on the LFO, maybe linked to either a scream or lowpass filter depending on what youre after

Echoi wrote:There was a Synapse Audio Plucked String VST on the disc with december 2010 issue of Computer Music.

I'll up it later on if you like.

so you're not upping it then?

I listened to the track 'scanners' and the more plucky sounding bass line is done with the stepper in massive. Make sure you use the LED buttons under the steps of the row you are using. (this will make the plucky sound more expressionistic) use a fast decaying form on the steps and sync it. Also make sure the xfade slider of the stepper is 100% on the row you are using

thor_beatz wrote:I listened to the track 'scanners' and the more plucky sounding bass line is done with the stepper in massive. Make sure you use the LED buttons under the steps of the row you are using. (this will make the plucky sound more expressionistic) use a fast decaying form on the steps and sync it. Also make sure the xfade slider of the stepper is 100% on the row you are using

This. I've made a couple of plucky sort of basses before with the stepper. Don't forget you can add an envelope to anything in massive. Usually I'll do something a bit stepwise like this.

1. Make an interesting sound with the oscillators.
2. Adjust envelope 4 so the attack is pretty fast and the decay is a bit longer. A trick for this is to increase the release so it resonates a bit, but then make it monophonic so the release is stopped when you play a new note.
3. It should sound similar to what you wanna hear. Now add envelope 1-3 to the filters to add some interesting movement.
4. For extra movement add an envelope to the wavetable positions, phase modifier, noise generator, effects... almost anything.

If the envelope doesn't work you can do the exact thing with a stepper, assign the stepper to any of those parameters. Use a downward sloped saw or exponential waveform depending what you want it to sound like.

great! thanks a lot! now i only need to find the stepper any clue where it is?

topmo3 wrote:great! thanks a lot! now i only need to find the stepper any clue where it is?

it's under one of the LFO's. By default lfo 8 is set up as a stepper, but you can change any of the LFO's 5-8 into steppers/performers by going into the top right corner of the lfo window pane and choosing stepper or performer instead of lfo!

maybe also watch my video tut and download the presets: http://www.humanworkshop.com/index.php? ... s&item=152

It's always nice to see the drag n drop actions etc, if you have not really worked with massive before.