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Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:19 pm
by Baish012
I was wondering if anyone had any advice on transitioning between bass wobbles. For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJh3EzE6xyU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moH7rvdI_sw
The thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is when to exactly, timing-wise, transition between bass wobbles. I assume there must be some sort of theory behind this.. Any help would be appreciated!
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:25 pm
by Mike145
This is what ive been having trouble with too... I can make synth sounds that i like, but when i try and put a bunch together to dirty it up it can sound awkward going from one sound to the next
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:28 pm
by Baish012
Yeah, that is the exact problem I am having
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:31 pm
by LordBid
Its all about practice, If you want to wobble like the pros listen really closely to some tunes and think about what they are doing. It all has to do with groove and melody. There is no correct answer to your question, its mostly that you need to spend some time working on arrangements.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:31 pm
by Echoi
Baish012 wrote:I assume there must be some sort of theory behind this..
There is, and its quite complicated.
Are you ready?
If it sounds good, use it, if it sounds bad, start again.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:32 pm
by Genevieve
Let me put it like this. All these producers started writing tunes with likely only one bass sound, then they got comfortable enough in their writing to expand on that. Much like most guitarists write tunes with only a few power chords before expanding on that.
Basically, there's no theory. Just getting a feel for things and right now, you don't really have a feel for it and you only will by continuing to try until you get something that sounds good. At first it's all trial and error and with time, this'll reduce until you have a natural feel for it.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:44 pm
by moki
Set your LFO to retrigger on every note yo.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:01 pm
by FSTZ
moki wrote:Set your LFO to retrigger on every note yo.
emphasis on the "yo"!
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 3:13 am
by th@-pu$$y
Echoi wrote:Baish012 wrote:I assume there must be some sort of theory behind this..
There is, and its quite complicated.
Are you ready?
If it sounds good, use it, if it sounds bad, start again.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 3:29 am
by Mannyyyyy
i kinda have the same problem. do you guys know anything good to read on arrangement or is it just a hit and miss and keep trying?
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 3:53 am
by Dreadfunk
One thing that really helped me was to separate my sound design process from my arrangement process a bit.
Make a whole crap load of sounds with different midi notes and different patches, and bounce them all to audio, THEN chop them up and arrange them how you want. It may sound limiting, but it's really not. You can get as detailed as taking a single wob from one patch to accent something else. The possibilities are endless.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 5:51 am
by MexicanKangaroo
Dreadfunk wrote:One thing that really helped me was to separate my sound design process from my arrangement process a bit.
Make a whole crap load of sounds with different midi notes and different patches, and bounce them all to audio, THEN chop them up and arrange them how you want. It may sound limiting, but it's really not. You can get as detailed as taking a single wob from one patch to accent something else. The possibilities are endless.
this.
Also, I rarely ever use an LFO unless it's a quick one shot break from my track. Personal preference I guess, but I've found that using envelopes on certain parameters gives me much more control over my sound design and the melodic aspects of tracks (even if it's brostep). I've found that's it's a lot easier when combining wobbles, particularly when assigning a few envelopes to cutoffs to prevent muddiness and clashing frequencys (really good when beefing up a midrange bass).
Plus, even if I wanted to create an lfo feel, draw out a series of MIDI notes in sequence and just adjust the ADSR of the envelopes to your liking.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 5:41 pm
by Dr Bloodnugget
Could always try panning synths against each other. Work on how your drums link bars etc as well. That really helps.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:15 pm
by bassinine
MexicanKangaroo wrote:Dreadfunk wrote:One thing that really helped me was to separate my sound design process from my arrangement process a bit.
Make a whole crap load of sounds with different midi notes and different patches, and bounce them all to audio, THEN chop them up and arrange them how you want. It may sound limiting, but it's really not. You can get as detailed as taking a single wob from one patch to accent something else. The possibilities are endless.
this.
Also, I rarely ever use an LFO unless it's a quick one shot break from my track. Personal preference I guess, but I've found that using envelopes on certain parameters gives me much more control over my sound design and the melodic aspects of tracks (even if it's brostep). I've found that's it's a lot easier when combining wobbles, particularly when assigning a few envelopes to cutoffs to prevent muddiness and clashing frequencys (really good when beefing up a midrange bass).
Plus, even if I wanted to create an lfo feel, draw out a series of MIDI notes in sequence and just adjust the ADSR of the envelopes to your liking.
yeah, it's taken me about a year to figure out that this is the way to do it. not use a repeating lfo, just use an envelope and repeat the individual note if necessary.
i recently have been working on one note at a time, bouncing to audio, and then putting it into a drum rack (could use an instrument rack with the velocity of the midi note dictating which sample to play if you have ableton). for example, if the song is in G - make like 10 samples for every note in the scale that you want to use. then work in the drum rack laying them all out, allows for more flexibility and creativity. since you're less concerned with the melody and order of the notes - and more concerned with how it sounds.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 8:27 pm
by Dreadfunk
I still use LFOs, you just have to be not afraid to completely slide the audio around, change the start time, time-stretch, whatever.
Really easy to do in Live.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:25 pm
by Mike145
its definately gotten easier for me lately, but ive found for me the best way is to work in midi until i have a bassline that im pretty happy with, then putting it to audio after and fucking with it more. I love all the things you can do with audio. but hate how you cant change the sound/note itself once your in it.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 12:49 am
by p3rt2k8
moki wrote:Set your LFO to retrigger on every note yo.
how do you do this on reason? Anybody know?
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 12:53 am
by fuzz_2k
Dr Bloodnugget wrote: Work on how your drums link bars
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:21 am
by rhek
Only trouble I found is when using triplet synced LFOs
EDIT (For example).
I use a Virus for pretty much all my synth sounds, the way it works (and I havent found a way to change this) is it doesn't retrigger the sync value from the begining of each note played. i.e
- Placing a 1/2 synced LFO on the 4th section of a bar you only get the second stage of the filter (or whatever parameter you've assigned) movement coming through.
Does that make any sense? That may well be a fukin terrible explanation
.
What im saying is this may be the case for whatever synth you happen to be using so watch what point you are changing you LFO rate, it may be best to render your bassline with different LFO sync rates and then splice the audio together, long winded I know but it'l sound much tighter.
Re: Transitioning between bass wobbles
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 4:34 pm
by FSTZ
rhek wrote:What im saying is this may be the case for whatever synth you happen to be using so watch what point you are changing you LFO rate, it may be best to render your bassline with different LFO sync rates and then splice the audio together, long winded I know but it'l sound much tighter.
this works for me too