Getting a good bassline in a track.

SteveDon

Thought id start a thread to get some discussion going on this forum, as its pretty dead apart from the post your tracks thread.

Anyways how do you guys go about getting a good bassline in a track?

One technique that has served me well is that of using kick samples to make up your bassline.

I used this technique for the last two tracks i posted up in the post your tracks thread.

Typically what i would do would be to stick my main 4/4 kick in. Then load in kick samples, usually turning up the attack on said samples and perhaps a spot of eqing and other efx and stick them in different places in the gaps between my main kick. If you use more than one kick for the bass line itll give the bass a bit more variety than just loading a bass instrument and playing the notes.

You can also stick these kick samples off kilter a bit, maybe 1/64 or 1/32 behind where it would be on a 16th grid to make it even more flavoursome.

What do you guys do for basslines?

Logical Fallacy

Most of my basslines are built in two ways

The method you mentioned, building them from kicks (normally clean 808's,909's and EQing, effecting as required)

or

A simple sin way either bare or with a square or saw on top of it. The square or saw will normally be eq'd away from below the most prominent range of the sin, normally around 60 to 80 Hz. The top wav will then be effect with reverb, delay etc...anything that generates the right timbre and body for the track.

eoin5

I like a good mix of sustained and staccato bass notes in the dance stuff I've done (bass guitarist here) so its an attack heavy sound with plenty of modulation messing for longer notes.

seannash

Audiorealisms ABL

All i really need

krd

Tapping my finger on the table top along to a kick and then more or less randomly hitting some bass notes to the same rythm. I can't do that on daw - because I'd have pencil in the notes.

On my MC505 there's a "rehearsal" mode in the recording. Setup a one or two bar loop - tap out a bassline and if it's going well, hit the record again, that takes it out of rehearsal and records the bassline.

It's very hard to get anything good from penciling in stuff.

Android 666

krd wrote: »

It's very hard to get anything good from penciling in stuff.

That's just crazy talk!

electrogrimey

The main problem I have is getting depth from simple sin basses. Like in this at 1:25. It sounds so simple, yet has so much warmth and depth. Is that all down to hardware and expensive plug-ins, or are there technical ways to do it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL0pTo9Z_XU

Anima

It sounds like more than just a sine wave I think. Could be some mono chorus/flanger on a sinewave/triangle with slowish portamento between the notes. Sounds like there is some kind of movement happening anyway. I'd say its easy enough to reproduce on most softsynths.

I find with those kind of basses, it's important to get the compression right. It's to do with the way our ears hear low frequencies, a few db drop in the signal can be a big drop in the perceived loudness. So its important to keep the levels very steady (i.e. squash it).

krd

electrogrimey wrote: »

The main problem I have is getting depth from simple sin basses. Like in this at 1:25. It sounds so simple, yet has so much warmth and depth. Is that all down to hardware and expensive plug-ins, or are there technical ways to do it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL0pTo9Z_XU

That's more than one bass. Or more than one oscilator. Sounds nearly like a real fretlesss electric bass guitar. In fact listening to the thing through, it might actually be a real bass guitar.

See if you have a fretless bass preset on something. Then tweak the resonance and cutoff to see if you can get it sounding smother.

krd

Something I've tried recently. Get your bassline - double the track. Hard pan each bassline, one to the left the other to the right. Then slightly tune one off. Instant bigger bassline.

Standman

electrogrimey wrote: »

The main problem I have is getting depth from simple sin basses. Like in this at 1:25. It sounds so simple, yet has so much warmth and depth. Is that all down to hardware and expensive plug-ins, or are there technical ways to do it?

As Krd said, that bassline is made using more than one oscillator which gives more depth to the sound. I had a crack at it using the Arturia Minimoog VST.

I used two Square waves - one turned an octave higher with slightly less volume - and a triangular saw, with cutoff turned down to around -2.




To get the glide effect or fretless bass sound (whatever it's called), I adjusted the pitch on the bassline with automation in Ableton Live.




I'd imagine you can get the same sound using any vst with multiple oscs.

I tried to upload the audio to soundcloud but I'm using mobile internet & it doesn't seem to be working for me.

Hope that helps anyways!

ICN

Hey Steve / Lads,

I've been fkkn around with Kicks as a "Bassline" too. Interested in what you do exactly?

A fella I was talking to was saying that its cool to layer something up from the Bass Kick root , like a square.. a 5th or 7th above.. Chord like. Tried it.. sounds pretty sweet.

Just wanted to know if you tend to stick another layer on top of the bog standard kick.. or do you think it works simply on its own / functions without layering?

krd

ICN wrote: »

Hey Steve / Lads,

I've been fkkn around with Kicks as a "Bassline" too. Interested in what you do exactly?

The basic way of doing it, is loading a kick sample into a sampler, and giving it a long attack. 808 kicks work really well but you can get surprising effects by switching kicks. It's a little hard to control as you really don't have much of an idea what note the kick is playing. But you can experiment with the tuning

A fella I was talking to was saying that its cool to layer something up from the Bass Kick root , like a square.. a 5th or 7th above.. Chord like. Tried it.. sounds pretty sweet.

Just wanted to know if you tend to stick another layer on top of the bog standard kick.. or do you think it works simply on its own / functions without layering?

I've been listening to a lot of radio recently. Chart stuff - y'know - Bruno whatevers dance remixes and the like. The kicks in themselves sound very small and pretty weak. But there seems to be lots driving the tunes in the bass. The basslines in themselves may sound like nothing on their own but when combined with every they really drive the tracks.


I'd catch a grenade for you, like f'. Too much cheesy music will turn your brain to cheese.

tempteh

krd wrote: »

In fact listening to the thing through, it might actually be a real bass guitar.

sounds like that to me as well, but the glide between the notes is so unreal for the live play IMO, maybe real bass guitar sample notes in sampler with a glide on top

most of the basses out there are simple wave forms with not much modulation, but to get the real good sound of them they are maximized with the plug ins IMO

krd

tempteh wrote: »

sounds like that to me as well, but the glide between the notes is so unreal for the live play IMO, maybe real bass guitar sample notes in sampler with a glide on top

most of the basses out there are simple wave forms with not much modulation, but to get the real good sound of them they are maximized with the plug ins IMO

It could be a real bass. Some bass players - especially the fretless ones can be pretty spot on. There's also a sound at 16 sec on the Jamie Woon track that I'm nearly sure is a guitar. (if you turn down the volume on an electric guitar - strum a chord than bring up the volume it gives a particular kind of sound)

Listening to the track again I think it's a real strong possibility the bass is a real bass. Some of the hi-hats sound real too - though it could just be multisamples