Bass

[reticent]

So I've made a chord progression in Sylenth.. now in order to make a sub bass (or that bass sound underneath the chords) can I simply just record the same notes, from the same synth (same sound) but bring it down a couple of octaves.. or should I create a whole new bassey deeper sound and just use the same notes?

Thanks!

[infernal.machine]

Use a pure sine wave underneath your chords. And most of the time you have your sub play the same notes, but don't limit yourself.

[vitalispopoff]

subbas may follow the chords but it's line also should also be as simple as possible - You may want it the lowest possible frequency and this limits to 2, sometimes 3 notes.

The sinewave is good choice if You want sub following the pad chords, as it give a fat base and groove.
You may try going for the square wave with agressive LP filter on it - just to let through the first three harmonics of the sound - this makes the subbas more likely to be heard even on soundsystems that don actually play the lowest frequencies - well known psychoacoustic exploit

[ian_halsall]

try it both ways!

experiment

sub bass is usually square or sine wave or something in between (2 mixed)

try copying your chords and just deactivate the higher notes

you may need to lengthen your notes to fill out the space

compress it off the kick using a sidechain perhaps

or you could - god forbid actually play along and when it sounds good - record it

[vitalispopoff]

almost forgot:

when working on the subbass - remember to make the osc envelope a bit softer: smoother attack and a bit longer release.
Lower frequencies are actually longer waves, so they need it unless You want Your subbass to click on each note on.

[ian_halsall]

or if your synth supports it you can force the oscillator to restart on note

Massive can do thi

[bastien]

or if your synth supports it you can force the oscillator to restart on note

Massive can do thi

There's a sine wave Simpler preset in the Live 7 Legacy pack - it's under Spectral. TBH it does a better sub layer than any synth I've ever tried!

(it does start with a click though, but you can low-pass that out if you don't want it)

[ian_halsall]

I always say this but I used to use the sine wave that came with my akai s1000.

If I remember rightly (and I usually do) you had to boot if of a 3.5 floppy which had the o/s and the sine wave.

It was a bit clicky as well.....

[reticent]

yeah but how do you make a sine wave sound "loud" or "thick"? I guess this is done when you start mixing?

[ian_halsall]

turn up the volume, compress it off the kick drum - stuff like that.

play a good bassline that goes with your drums etc..

[Rinsemeister]

sine wave that came with my akai s1000.

Dem wuz dem dayz.......

[beatmunga]

Not much point in EQing sine waves remember. They have no harmonics to filter in or out, just a pure single frequency. You will only be changing volume, not timbre - as they have no timbre.

Still, my 13 bit S950 sine wave had way much more character than your pristine 16 bit S1000 one...

[Rinsemeister]

Not much point in EQing sine waves remember. They have no harmonics to filter in or out, just a pure single frequency. You will only be changing volume, not timbre - as they have no timbre.

Still, my 13 bit S950 sine wave had way much more character than your pristine 16 bit S1000 one...

Yeah, I can't remember what bit rate my S900 was. Bitch to get a zero crossing though.

I don't think my S700 had a tone generator. Silly fookin' discs.......

[reticent]

So the bass on this track:
https://soundcloud.com/fuckmylife/yay-cubase

is a pure sine wave? Sounds harsher.. not the chords but the underlying bass

how is this achieved?

Thanks!

[vitalispopoff]

there is no subbass - the intro is made of two pads (melodic solo and probably a bit tuned saw wave) all the sub would be in freqs that are actually occupied by bass drum, which is btw overcompressing all the rest. classic of the sound slaughter.