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sounds pretty stupid to me but heres the deal.ive seen many guys on youtube etc layering basslines to create one solid bass which in most cases consists of a low sub some mid stuff & highs modulated differenty etc etc etc. but i saw a dude layering the exact same resampled bass and each was processed differently (i think there were 3).. and i wonder isnt that a problem "mix-wise" beacause of the exact same frequencies ?

iv done this sometimes its not usually a good idea, but it depends how u eq it. just make sure u have good monitors and good ears to hear if its phasing. i wouldnt depend on this technique though tbh

if done improperly it can muddy up the mix, but if you know mixing and equing, splitting frequencies brings you results like say noisia reeses or say this


if you like moving basslines withe more going on than your standard lfo you probably are listening to someone using freq splitting and these techniques

yes i split my basslines every time.. I see a lot of people split their basses with filters eqs and stuff which i dont bother doing it may cause unwanted phasing some times. theres a nice freebie vst called fr33some its very convenient try it out. just put it in an insert (i use fl) choose the width of each of the 3 bands and output it in 3 sends or inserts. saves much time. anyway i probably wont try layering same basslines unless i layer 2 and pan them all the way right n left, i tried that once and it sounded quite nasty.

When I make basses I try and make the different parts in massive. You only really need one filter for a wob so I use the other to give it some weight.

Say you have OSC 1 going to filter 1 maybe with some phase modulation or something, to give it some interest (Add an insert 1). This might sound a bit thin so I normally add a square wave going to filter 2 with a bandpass filter (put your envelope or lfo on this as well so the sounds match). Get the filter sweeping the low mids. Then blend between the two, this will give you a grate wob and some weight and you still have OSC 3 to play with. Then cut out all the bass with a EQ and layer a sub.

Also I dont know why you would re-sample if your using massive other than to layer more than 3 waves. You can set the OSC to restart on key sync and move the phase about to get them phasing right.

Thats just one way to approach it, I hate working with audio.

You can do more after, like duplicating massive, HPF then add a stereo widener.

dubilly wrote:(i think there were 3).. and i wonder isnt that a problem "mix-wise" beacause of the exact same frequencies ?

2 of the same sound at the same time is +3db but it only sounds a bit louder, +6 db sounds twice as loud.

Light-Stories wrote:When I make basses I try and make the different parts in massive. You only really need one filter for a wob so I use the other to give it some weight.

Say you have OSC 1 going to filter 1 maybe with some phase modulation or something, to give it some interest (Add an insert 1). This might sound a bit thin so I normally add a square wave going to filter 2 with a bandpass filter (put your envelope or lfo on this as well so the sounds match). Get the filter sweeping the low mids. Then blend between the two, this will give you a grate wob and some weight and you still have OSC 3 to play with. Then cut out all the bass with a EQ and layer a sub.

Also I dont know why you would re-sample if your using massive other than to layer more than 3 waves. You can set the OSC to restart on key sync and move the phase about to get them phasing right.

Thats just one way to approach it, I hate working with audio.

You can do more after, like duplicating massive, HPF then add a stereo widener.

yeah i hate it too.. but the main reason i bounce audio clips is the cpu. i use ohmicide and it its quite cpu consuming and in most cases its more than one (different settings for the highs and and different for the mids splitted bands). plus i cant clone a massive 10 times just to change lfo shapes waveforms or filters which cant be automated of course so i record it through edison to audio so i can have various different instances of one bassline with one massive open. oh and i found a vst sampler i think its called disco dsp go check it out on youtube. you open it up and you can choose any soft synth through it and it converts it into a sample somehow so its basicaly the same with bouncing audio and then back into the sampler but without all the export or record and it saves you cpu. i think its free i havent tried it yet

I would say 95% of the time, layering bass lines on top of each other is bad practice. If you're using 6 Waves and 3 different instances of a synth to make something "massive" than you're overdoing it. Massiveness is most of the time perceived because of mixing and arrangement choices. A bass line will sound massive if it takes up the whole frequency spectrum, and isn't competing with any other instruments, not because of layering.

see i think you guys don't understand layering
to properly layer you split the eq so you aren't getting muddiness so they don't overlap each other freq wise
it's a processing and modulation technique

Yeah you def have to eq to layer if you want it to be purposeful lol.

Do you guys prefer to have your sub / mid layer with the exact same filter automation duplicated using their internal synth filters? Or do you layer your basses w/o the internal synth filters and then bus them together, automating a single external vst/daw filter over your entire bass bus once? I've only done it the first way but now that I think about it the latter would probably sound cleaner. How do you guys do it?

what i gen do is have say a sub, mid, high channel and the sub i gen use a sep synth (just sine wave) then i group them all into a sep buss at the end to blend it together with say compression, limiting effects to gel the sep bands back together

deadly habit wrote:see i think you guys don't understand layering
to properly layer you split the eq so you aren't getting muddiness so they don't overlap each other freq wise
it's a processing and modulation technique

nothing wrong with duplicating a sound and having different automations on each instance then bussing them back together.

If i spit i always have a low mid high but very rarely do it to be honest.Normally i just have a separate channel for the low end and then a channel for the mid/highs.Something i've started to experiment with recently is different processing on the mid/highs on the left and right channel.I read somewhere it is a technique used on neurofunk blines and have been trying it out,so far i have had some good results.
Also when splitting people talk about being careful you don't get phasing,goniometers on the master help to aid with checking for phasing issues.Logic has one built in within its multimeter and i have one on my master as a standard along with the gain plug to check my tracks in mono.

Also Mr bill done a vid where he used a reverse phase(i think) technique in live to split the frequency's.I did replicate it in logic so it isn't daw specific.

Huts wrote:

deadly habit wrote:see i think you guys don't understand layering
to properly layer you split the eq so you aren't getting muddiness so they don't overlap each other freq wise
it's a processing and modulation technique

nothing wrong with duplicating a sound and having different automations on each instance then bussing them back together.

yea but what i think some of the newer producers are suggesting is just duplicating, processing, modulating and layering without the freq split

Light-Stories wrote:You can set the OSC to restart on key sync and move the phase about to get them phasing right.

good tip for any1 who's never used that section, hardly any massive users that i know bother with this. its a good way of making your basses sound clearer/better.

Huts wrote:

deadly habit wrote:see i think you guys don't understand layering
to properly layer you split the eq so you aren't getting muddiness so they don't overlap each other freq wise
it's a processing and modulation technique

nothing wrong with duplicating a sound and having different automations on each instance then bussing them back together.

totally! You can get some lovely phaser/chorus type effects purely from the altered phasing of the waveforms if you've processed one clip and layered it in top of the dry clip. < good tip doesn't always sound good though, but sometimes...

Production is all about layering. Everything in basically every track is layered to a certain degree. Look at snares for example, they're always layered. Mid basses often are as well, especially the reesey stuff. It's an art that you will only get through practice however, learning how to EQ the right sounds, with the right effects chains, with the right compression on all of them together

Layering is a fundamental technique to me tbh

sunny_b_uk wrote:

Light-Stories wrote:You can set the OSC to restart on key sync and move the phase about to get them phasing right.

good tip for any1 who's never used that section, hardly any massive users that i know bother with this. its a good way of making your basses sound clearer/better.

you can make some fat reesses that way.