Apr 27, 2012 08:01 am Bass is a tough thing to control...have you tried a compressor/limiter combo on the sound to control volume at all?
Need help on bass sound
Posted on Apr 27, 2012 04:57 am
Bharathram
Member Since: Oct 11, 2011
Hi
I am a beginner in music production .I am looking for a smooth bass sound for chillout tracks. I tried all the bass sounds from the instrument racks of my VST's . Is it something that I should program it myself. I use ableton for all my mixing and sequencing. I have absynth and sampletank VST's . Can you please suggest some reading materials or tutorials on this.
Regds
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Apr 27, 2012 08:01 am Bass is a tough thing to control...have you tried a compressor/limiter combo on the sound to control volume at all?
Apr 27, 2012 08:34 am What dB said! =)
For my own mixes, I've got a HPF, an EQ, and compressor on the bass track. In addition, I'm also sending the bass guitar to a BUS with the kick drum and squishing the crap out of the bass/kick combo with another compressor. Then, fade that BUS into the mix to give the bass/kick a lil umph.
There's a video series on youtube from "recordingnation" (something like that). Its something like 30 tricks in 30 days.... really good stuff to watch since you're just starting out. It's helped me tremendously.
Apr 27, 2012 10:49 am I have not used compressor on the bass track . I generally use a EQ only . Also I am actually not using the bass guitar. I am using the software instruments .
To be precise I am looking for something smooth like the one on this youtube video (the bass track that starts at 1.15 min)
Apr 27, 2012 08:16 pm not sure i can make it out there bro. im thinking i might able to hear it syncopating with the kiick drum is that it? Is that even bass?
sounds like theres proly alot verb and/or delay on it to sit it right back in the mix. I cant make it out too much on these speakers.
Apr 28, 2012 03:10 am I can hear it fine on the cans. And you can hear the bass better around 3:15 to 3:20-ish.
It sounds almost more like a synth bass pad than a guitar-like bass. It's very low octave, maybe around 40 to 50hz-ish I think, so smaller speakers might not pick it up as well.
To me, like I said, it sounds more like a bass lead or pad kinda synth sound rather than a guitar like sound. So, you could play around with some subtractive synthesis based VST, and try to recreate the sound. (I don't know WHICH VST synth, but there are a number of good free ones to try, Synth1, Tryelle Nexus6 V2, Alpha-Ray [which you have to pay to unlock the effects section, but otherwise free] and maybe some of the TAL stuff)
Play with a low pass filter with mild resonance, play with the oscillators a bit see which combination of wave forms gets you close to that bass sound, and then try tweaking it a bit. Might need to adjust the cutoff on the filter (I'd say put it around 200 to 250hz, but possibly lower) with the reso about 1/4 the way up, then adjust the envelopes so the release is a couple hundred ms, and maybe a slightly soft attack. Starting with a bass patch that is close to the sound you want, and then tweaking/fiddling with the filters/etc. can probably get you close to the sound too.
To me, the bass in the posted track is more smooth and paddy than punchy. But it's not muddy, just very deep. But yeah, sounds like more of a synthy bass to my ears at least.
Apr 29, 2012 02:15 am Hi thank you so much for the advice. Based on your suggestions I tried different combinations of LPF,release and attack. With LPF cutoff at around 310 hz it comes very close to this and when I syncopate it with the kick drum(as dematrix mentioned) it sounds really the same.
Thanks again for the help. This forum has always been very useful to me
Apr 29, 2012 04:38 am Great. Glad you could get the sound you were looking for. :) And yeah, always glad to try and help out. That goes for all of us here really. I'm certainly no expert, so it's always good to have a go-to for questions and issues. :D
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