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Hey guys. I kinda have a question that probably seems stupid, but I have this sound here that I'm messing around with
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and while it's all fun messing around, it kinda sounds.... flat. Even though I barely used distortion and little EQ, the roar doesn't have enough.... well roar. I don't think the issue is with the synth, it's plenty growly originally. I was wondering if there was any technique or effects that could add the very needed low-end growl. Thanks a bunch!

idk i wouldnt really consider it much of a bass though. its def a bit higher up. sounds like a dinosaur roaring. does sound cool though ill give you that. if you cant figure out how to give it more low end i would just eq it more and use it as an intro effect. i think it would be really sick if you sampled some big stomping foot steps of like godzilla or something of that nature and then used that sound. with some other fx and some properly chosen pads you could really portray a nice atmosphere of dinosaurs or godzilla, then follow it up with a heavy drop. thats what i would do with it anyway..

if you do decide to do that pm me the WIP

too much reverb. you could just put reverb on the tail and just reverb the highs. You could try to sweep in the lower end with a notch filter and add some distortion on it... That`s a sample, right?

What synth are you using?
It sounds really muddy and I don't think piling effects onto it is the solution. I think you need to go back to your synth and tweak the patch until you get closer to the sound you're actually looking for. If you want more low end your either going to have to play your bass in a lower octave letting the lower frequencies through if you're high passing or layer a low octave sine wave under the bass.
As far as processing to get growliness less is more. Get a really powerful patch programmed and then add subtle distortion, chorusing etc. Consider splitting your sound into 3 frequency bands to give you more control over your sound processing and maybe resample. I can't stress enough though that the most important thing is what's coming out of your synth, no amount of processing will make a bad sound good.

Sumo VST. Play around with that.

EQ, Overdrive, Bass Boosters...

Do these before the reverb. And turn up the low cutoff frequency of the reverb

slightly OT but do you do your sound design in the mix with your beat? because ill have a patch that i think is shit that sounds much better once thrown in. Also opening another copy of the synth and trying to recreate the sound you just made could help pinpoint any issues.

add a sub oscillator to the patch, run a parallel format vowel filter(just a little), less reverb, multible parallel distortions for different frequency bands

Nice lil noise you've made there! Bear in mind nothing will sound phat until its got a sub under it

try sharp notch filter in the low mids early in your plug in chain, helps if its automated for a little movement. also eq boosting here and there will help too... at the end of your chain try some hard limiting as well.

Tone the reverb down a bit, then boost he 100-200hz range a bit. Bounce that to audio, now make a copy of your newly bounced audio and pitch it down a good amount where it just has rumble, and layerthat on your original sound.

lyons238 wrote:idk i wouldnt really consider it much of a bass though. its def a bit higher up. sounds like a dinosaur roaring. does sound cool though ill give you that. if you cant figure out how to give it more low end i would just eq it more and use it as an intro effect. i think it would be really sick if you sampled some big stomping foot steps of like godzilla or something of that nature and then used that sound. with some other fx and some properly chosen pads you could really portray a nice atmosphere of dinosaurs or godzilla, then follow it up with a heavy drop. thats what i would do with it anyway..

if you do decide to do that pm me the WIP

That actually sounds like a perfect way to use this! I'll try to work on something there

And thanks for everyone for your replies, every one of them is useful to me I'll try all the different techniques mentioned here, and if I manage to make it better i'll post the result, maybe in a new song

Thanks again!

Eridu wrote:too much reverb. you could just put reverb on the tail and just reverb the highs. You could try to sweep in the lower end with a notch filter and add some distortion on it... That`s a sample, right?

Nope it's a synth I made with massive, with added simple eq and light distortion

sorry for double post

Look up berrtill distortion VST

stefevr wrote:
Nope it's a synth I made with massive, with added simple eq and light distortion

nice, it really sounded like a sample to me... you got that by modulating the wavetables? Willing to share some more?

(just asking, i dont mind if you keep your tricks to yourself..)

Eridu wrote:

stefevr wrote:
Nope it's a synth I made with massive, with added simple eq and light distortion

nice, it really sounded like a sample to me... you got that by modulating the wavetables? Willing to share some more?

(just asking, i dont mind if you keep your tricks to yourself..)

Though, it would make him a proJEWcer

I may be wrong, but cant u just layer the same sound an octave lower?

don't layer with same sound ... i believe that would be nothing but mud an octave down. but yes the trick is to simply layer. Work on a second layer to that sound and layer them, possibly compress them on a bus for some glue..

Bu yeh work on a low end growly bass that plays the same note and same articulation as that sound, layer em up. thats all really
Mybe distorted squares, saws, or triangles.

Also yes please high pass the reverb. There hsould be EQ/dampenng/filters on the reverb, unless u used massive's im not familiar with massives verb

Yeah, i didnt mean the exact same sound, but maybe a simple version of the sound.. If u get my point?

A sub, for one.
Layer a lower bare version of it.
Re do the sound itself without effects and then effect it again.