Automation in bass

[Invader Slim]

What do you like to automate to give your bass more movement? I just started doing this and the only automation other than rate I've used is a nice little sweep with a notch filter on the high mids and highs. I'm obviously going to experiment with other parameters very soon, but I'm just curious, what are some that you automate to get cool sounds?
Thanks guys! I've been putting a lot of time in and I'm almost comfortableenough with my work to upload my first track!

[Hertz]

Working on this myself, in Massive. I would really like more knowledge too. I have automating noise, feedback, as well as the Modulation osc above them. I always say it, but just experiment. Automate everything, you can always undo it!.. Also keep some sort of recorder open so when you do find some interesting shit, record it, and continue on!

[Invader Slim]

Yep, that's what I've been doing as well, keeping a track open to record any cool accident I create. But I've been automating parameters in massive for a while. I'm talking about external parameters though, like the notch filter sweep in abletons eq eight. Also, I've bounced my bass out to an audio track so that is another reason why I'm looking for other automations outside of massive knobs. Or am I supposed to do all automating before I bounce to audio? Just wondering

[Hertz]

oh I thought you meant in massive, not sure what else too automate besides fx and stuff in a daw. I use fruity myself. I'm sure there is a tonne more, don't know why anyone isin't contributing lol.

[lloydy]

Automate as many parmeters as you can to make it sound good then bounce to audio chop up timestretch add effects be as subtle as possible and you can make some monster sounds.
Check the old bill in space tune in my sig,listen for the the reece that comes in and out at the end of each bar,this is what i done to accomplish it and it sounds quality,loads of twist,width and movement.The patch i made in massive sounded terrible so for me its all about the post processing.

[benjam]

A good tip is to think about what sound you are trying to make and then look at the tools you have. Use your envelopes, LFOs, steppers etc to make deliberate changes and really think about what your doing to the sound. Its easy to get in a habit of throwing the same ocs, filters and fx on without thinking about what its doing to the sound. Dunno if that helps but i find I make better noises this way.

[Invader Slim]

Great! Thanks man! I haven't really messed with timestretch at all honestly. I will look up how to do so! And a quick Q. I can automate bounced audios can't I? Or is it better to automate before I bounce the MIDI? Thanks for the words of wisdom though! Anyone else have any tips they could share??

Automate as many parmeters as you can to make it sound good then bounce to audio chop up timestretch add effects be as subtle as possible and you can make some monster sounds.
Check the old bill in space tune in my sig,listen for the the reece that comes in and out at the end of each bar,this is what i done to accomplish it and it sounds quality,loads of twist,width and movement.The patch i made in massive sounded terrible so for me its all about the post processing.

[Invader Slim]

And Lloydy that Reese is super wicked dude! That's the kind of movement I want!! Good shit

[lloydy]

Great! Thanks man! I haven't really messed with timestretch at all honestly. I will look up how to do so! And a quick Q. I can automate bounced audios can't I? Or is it better to automate before I bounce the MIDI? Thanks for the words of wisdom though! Anyone else have any tips they could share??

If working with audio you will be able to automate whatever is on that track.So good example would be like to automate pan pot or volume fader.Once you start adding effects you can then start automating these to if thats what you want.
In all honesty normally i get most of my movement from the synth bounce this chop up and then stack up the effects to add even more movement.
If oncei've got the audio bounced and added effects i might only automate 1 or 2 parameters from there.

[Arvis]

I just check what sounds better when it's automated. It's often pitch of OSC slowly going up or down, some parameters of any filter and so on...
And after some distortion and compression I can get pretty sick sounds.

[outdropt]

Just started doing this and i recomend everyone give it a shot

Using ableton BTW

I come up with several bass sounds that i really like. Put all these bass sounds into a group. Mute the group and route a few audio instances to the group. Have your bassline play across a couple of diffrent patches. Then add some effects to each audio channel you just made. Change it up with flanger, amps, overdrive, saturation, and any other distortion effects you could think of. Get the bassline to have a unique quality on each audio channel

Now its all about playing with ON/OFF, volume, or dry/wet. I have been getting some crazy morphing bass sounds with this tequneque

[bassdubba]

FX of course, such as distortion, eq, lo-fi or bitcrusher type effect, and many other. In the plugin I mainly play with the oscillators and cutoff, If I want it to sound completeley different I would use different synth plugins/presets and like outdropt said, playing them on/off

[ZankUSA]

WT Position, LFO, Filter cutoff, res, pitch, w/e etc, vibrato, and just basically anything to give variation and that sounds nice!