So, let's start by saying I'm new to the forum and if this has all been beaten to death somewhere in the threads, I apologize, but I couldn't find anything.
So, I need help with my basslines. I trend towards the darker stuff. I Don't necessarily need help with my sound design, I'm pretty happy with my sounds. It's getting good patterns out that really has me frustrated. I understand automation on a filter cutoff and that. But I just can't seem to get a handle on a tune like, anything by spor or ewun for example. I know they're using more than one bass, and switching them up and all, but I can't figure out exactly what they are doing.
I feel like if I could just see the sequencer and catch what each bass is doing, i.e. pattern, and automation, I'd have it. Again I know how to automate the cuttoff to arp a reese and lauyer it over a sub bass. that's not the whole story though and I'm stuck.
Thanks for taking the patience to read all that, and thanks for any help anyone may be able to lend.
creating sounds is one thing, making harmonics out of your sounds is "making music".
If you don't have a musical mind, i'd suggest to look for another hobby instead of music...
A lot of people -think- they *can* make music, because they have all the equipment... and understand the equipment. But that's simply not enough. You can not make music if you can't make/understand music, simple as that. If you do, it results in shit, time after time,... unless you're very lucky
Become a sound engineer if you like the technical side of making elektronic music...
I learned A LOT by playing akoustical instruments and effectively "play" music, this gives you a very musical ear and perspective, so I don't need to be that "analytical" when I create a tune: I create a sound, and play it, nothing more.
So maybe you could play a bit of instruments to get that "natural" inspiration...
/e: bass IS sound
This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Saikonutta: 04-07-2009 11:45.
Originally posted by Saikonutta
creating sounds is one thing, making harmonics out of your sounds is "making music".
If you don't have a musical mind, i'd suggest to look for another hobby instead of music...
A lot of people -think- they *can* make music, because they have all the equipment... and understand the equipment. But that's simply not enough. You can not make music if you can't make/understand music, simple as that. If you do, it results in shit, time after time,... unless you're very lucky
Become a sound engineer if you like the technical side of making elektronic music...
I learned A LOT by playing akoustical instruments and effectively "play" music, this gives you a very musical ear and perspective, so I don't need to be that "analytical" when I create a tune: I create a sound, and play it, nothing more.
So maybe you could play a bit of instruments to get that "natural" inspiration...
/e: bass IS sound
You might want to read my thread more carefully. I didn't say anything about needing to learn to play an instrument. And if you think folks like spor or limewax or noisia, (etc) are just whipping up a quick patch and hitting a few chords on their controller I'm afraid then that you're the one who may want to pick up a new hobby.
I'll clarify; I'm trying to make bass patterns, similar to what you would hear in ANY tune by the above mentioned artists. Not how to hold down keys on a keyboard, and not how to create a reese... What I'm trying to nail down is all of the subtle automation on the filters and FX. As well as when each different bass is playing.
If someone had a good techstep or other dark tune of their own and maybe had some screen shots of which basses are playing at what point in the tune, and when the filters, phasers, etc are automating, that would probably fix me right up.
I would post some of my own work, but my bass parts don't so ANYTHING like what I want them too. they have movement from LFO's and env and what have you. And I automate simple things like a bp/lp filter modulation as an arp, or fade-in fade-out, but nothing special.
Again thanks for any advice, but if all you have to contribute is a bit of arrogance don't feel as though your required to post. I'm just looking for some tips.
/e: and read my post too: did I say those producers work like you now just described? I said They make their sound, and than "play" MUSICALLY with that sound. I didn't even mention a time aspect. IT'S HARD WORK.
But,
you know better i suppose...
/e:
quote:
...but nothing special
there, you say it yourself, so why don't you simply create something 'special'?
automating some parameters shouldn't be a problem for you? And do this musically either?
And if you can't recognize certain effects/synthesis, i suggest to learn to know them and how they sound. not many will show you their kitchen secrets...
This post has been edited 6 time(s), it was last edited by Saikonutta: 04-07-2009 12:53.
Originally posted by Sesh9
So, let's start by saying I'm new to the forum and if this has all been beaten to death somewhere in the threads, I apologize, but I couldn't find anything.
So, I need help with my basslines. I trend towards the darker stuff. I Don't necessarily need help with my sound design, I'm pretty happy with my sounds. It's getting good patterns out that really has me frustrated. I understand automation on a filter cutoff and that. But I just can't seem to get a handle on a tune like, anything by spor or ewun for example. I know they're using more than one bass, and switching them up and all, but I can't figure out exactly what they are doing.
I feel like if I could just see the sequencer and catch what each bass is doing, i.e. pattern, and automation, I'd have it. Again I know how to automate the cuttoff to arp a reese and lauyer it over a sub bass. that's not the whole story though and I'm stuck.
Thanks for taking the patience to read all that, and thanks for any help anyone may be able to lend.
EZ
So you basically say you know how to make sound and you know your daw.
If you believe that "using more than one bass, and switching them up and all" is the whole magic then you're not quite there yet.
So you also know how to split up a bass into 3 layers and treat them differently?
You also know how to bounce and reprocess dozens of times?
You also know it might take 50 or even 100 samples of basses doing all kinds of crazy shit and a lot of puzzling to fit it all together and keep the overview?
Then you ask for the holy grail of dark bass stuff. Of course you can't figure out what they are doing because they did a lot of things in different steps of the porcess to the sound before you could hear it. What are you expecting to get as a reply on here? Exact details of how to automate which filter and when to drop which nasty reese? Common.
You can buy a songbook on Prince or ZZ Top maybe, but then again that is classic musical notation which can be copied. The proces of making dirty basslines can't be written down with musical notation just like that.
So you are basically on your own, just like everyone else; read some more, search some more, read even more, try try try and keep at it. If you expect to get everything in life on a silver plate it's time to wake up. There have been countless requests from people asking how to sound like producer X or Y which is a pretty dull idea by the way, to sound just like someone else.
And please drop the attitude. You were asked to give some sample of what you are capable of in order to pinpoint some aspects that need a different approach, but you chose to ignore the request. Someone tries to help you but the answer doesn't satisfy you (no silver plate) so you call him arrogant, how very kind of you. Saikonutta is a respected member of this site who has proven his musical abilities to the community.
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ez there man, artists such as spor, noisia, teebee, calyx and so on with all those complex basslines didn't come up with the techniques overnight, it take a lot of time to build up to that level, if ur already comfortable with synthesis then i would suggest experimenting a lot on the processing side of things.
resampling is one way of injecting a whole load of movement into ur basslines, try to get familiar with all the different types of filters, start off with the same sound, twist n turn it in different ways and choose the best bits to "stick together"
there is no one way of doing this, there are loads of different techniques i've seen different producers use, its all about experimentation, can't stress that enough really
look, i really didn't want to start arguments. I certainly didn't mean to sound as though I have an attitude, in fact that one is a little surprising, the downside (one of many) of communicating online, you can't hear the tone of a person's voice.
I believe I did not ignore the request to post my work, I addressed that in my above post, saying it was inferior and nothing could be gleaned from it. Also, I didn't respond negatively to the gentleman's first reply because it was "not a silver plate" but because it was unrelated to my question, which I then clarified in case I had been unclear.
As well I don't think I ever said anything to the effect of what your post says first which is effectively that I know all the steps, in fact I believe it to be rather obvious that the reason i started the thread is that i Do NOT know all the steps, and so even though you were attempting to lambaste me I appreciate what you've written as it will be helpful.
Anyway I can see I'm not going to get anywhere here. Thank you very sincerely to the last gentleman for his advice. As for the other two, sorry to have invaded your little world here. I'm sure your both very respected and accomplished producers and I clearly have no place at your table, just let me know when the next album is due to drop and I'll be sure to pick it up and just drool all over it's musicality. Forum dwellers are insane.
Originally posted by Sesh9
As for the other two, sorry to have invaded your little world here. I'm sure your both very respected and accomplished producers and I clearly have no place at your table, just let me know when the next album is due to drop and I'll be sure to pick it up and just drool all over it's musicality. Forum dwellers are insane.
Mate, it's precisely comments like these that make people think you have an 'attitude'. Look at your comments from an outsiders viewpoint and surely you can see that, right?
__ MySpace | Soundcloud | Drumnbass.be | Facebook "It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." Carl Sagan
A few basic tips I've picked up in trying to capture the neuro sound:
1. Observe real life sound. Notice how nothing is constant, there are always elements of dynamics, sweeps from high to low sounds. Listen to vehicles and how they create sounds similar to the ones you want to make- motorcycles, trains, muscle cars.
2. Develop a feel for dynamics. When I first started producing neuro I thought there was a process and went searching for it, as you are. I also thought that I could get my result by band passing, high passing, etc... for me a lot of filter units cut out too much of the frequency spectrum to still have a chunky sound (except notch filtering.) The key really is to add a distortion unit or effect and turn knobs to see how they affect the sound. You may notice that a parameter can add crunch or thickness to the sound, so you might automate it so that the bass hits with crunch in the attack and then drops into the thickness. After step 1 you will have a much better feel for when and where to apply certain types of effects.
3. Repeat with distortion/automation until you are satisfied with your sound. Also you may notice that a lot of producers pitchbend their notes. This is a great natural way to get some shifty sounds.
You asked to see the sequencer- here is a screenshot of the fourth bounce from my newest bassline.
Processing this bass took me one and a half weeks- there really is no way to do this besides really monitoring every change and carefully tweaking every parameter.
Originally posted by Phalanx
A few basic tips I've picked up in trying to capture the neuro sound:
1. Observe real life sound. Notice how nothing is constant, there are always elements of dynamics, sweeps from high to low sounds. Listen to vehicles and how they create sounds similar to the ones you want to make- motorcycles, trains, muscle cars.
2. Develop a feel for dynamics. When I first started producing neuro I thought there was a process and went searching for it, as you are. I also thought that I could get my result by band passing, high passing, etc... for me a lot of filter units cut out too much of the frequency spectrum to still have a chunky sound (except notch filtering.) The key really is to add a distortion unit or effect and turn knobs to see how they affect the sound. You may notice that a parameter can add crunch or thickness to the sound, so you might automate it so that the bass hits with crunch in the attack and then drops into the thickness. After step 1 you will have a much better feel for when and where to apply certain types of effects.
3. Repeat with distortion/automation until you are satisfied with your sound. Also you may notice that a lot of producers pitchbend their notes. This is a great natural way to get some shifty sounds.
You asked to see the sequencer- here is a screenshot of the fourth bounce from my newest bassline.
Processing this bass took me one and a half weeks- there really is no way to do this besides really monitoring every change and carefully tweaking every parameter.
Thanks for that, I have just stolen your bass sound
You lot forgot the golden rule of dotbe.
#1 - The first rule of basslines is, you do not talk about bassline
#2 - The second rule of basslines you DO NOT talk about basslines.
#3 - If someone says stop, goes limp, taps out, the bassline is over.
#4 - Two bass sounds to a bass.
#5 - One chord at a time.
#6 - No bass, no song.
#7 - tracks will go on as long as they have to.
#8 - If this is your first night at dotbe, you have to fight, or be polite!
__
This post has been edited 3 time(s), it was last edited by brucifer: 04-07-2009 23:46.
Originally posted by Ghost
post some examples of what you have created so far, then post up a couple of examples of tracks that you'd like to sound like.
Then it might be easier to say what needs to be done to your current sound to get to the next level.
im currently on level 2 for basslines and am a private in the field, im going for level three but its quite trickky you know
, when i get there i get a bassline bonus wich i can use in my next tune to help me get to level four
I believe (and I guess Halph would back me up) here that in order to create dark sounding, atmospheric, techy basses, you really need to follow the dissonant frequencies of sounds. You can achieve this by following the chromatic scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_scale
try loading some sound into your sequencer, then lowering its' pitch quite a bit (until it gets in the bass zone) and then, making it loop, reprocessing it and similar. Might help you, although I never tried it (I am only imagining).
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Originally posted by Ghost
post some examples of what you have created so far, then post up a couple of examples of tracks that you'd like to sound like.
Then it might be easier to say what needs to be done to your current sound to get to the next level.
im currently on level 2 for basslines and am a private in the field, im going for level three but its quite trickky you know
, when i get there i get a bassline bonus wich i can use in my next tune to help me get to level four
To get to level 3 you need to travel to the forest of warp in the kingdom of reece and fight the low end rumbles to increase you exp points.
Once you battle enough of these and get to level three one of them will leave behind the key to lost city of hoover where you will unlock level 4.
Once you successfully found the lost city, use what you now know about bass in your next tune and this should help you defeat the master of Thor and his minions of massive.
Personally I just looked on the internet until I found the quick guide to bass and I just beat the game in a few days. Left me with an empty feeling inside though.
1 - Create a MIDI-note or pattern with a synth (or chord if u want to) with a low pitch, BASS) Preferably a Saw or SQuare, they contain loads of harmonics to "play" with (or give it dynamics). If you have more than 1 oscillator you can 'mix' or 'add' or 'subtract' or whatever, depends of your synth...
2 - Give it some harmonics and dynamics by applying envelopes, LFO's or other modulations: filters, harmonics, voices, pitch, volume... etc... Being creative in how you modulate (like modding cutoff frequency on input velocity for example) gives cool results sometimes... So you can mod just by placing a different velocity... Just make sure it contains enough 'harmonic information' and proper dynamics to keep the bass/reece (note, chord or pattern) interesting and useable when you will process it later. (when you would apply a certain filter for example, or layer it with a beat ). Also keep in mind you can "fake" bass sometimes, but that's out of the range of this subject...
consider a bass with 'no' harmonics "sub" for convenience...
3 - Add fx and master if needed
4 - Record result in a new (audio) track
5 - Now you have an easily editable fat wave you can process straight away in your sequencer, or put it again in a sampler, and layer it or process or whatever.
6 - Repeat?
/e: don't forget to save your patches
/e: save MIDI too
This post has been edited 7 time(s), it was last edited by Saikonutta: 05-07-2009 20:01.
, when i get there i get a bassline bonus wich i can use in my next tune to help me get to level four
