Tips for a clean bass sound? Best VSTs/Synths for bass?

[Dhak]

I've been finding myself getting frustrated trying to get a super clean and deep bass sound. It's especially annoying when I have an awesome sounding kick drum with a nice fat sound that gets muddled in with the bass. I am not asking for anyone to repeat basic info. I know about basic sidechaining, filtering, eqing, I guess I am looking for more detailed resources that deal with this matter.

I know that as a new producer this can be one of the hardest things to get right. I'm about to order a book called "Mixing secrets for the small studio" that got awesome reviews on amazon, but am looking for other resources dealing specifically with bass and the kick drum-bass relationship.

Examples of the type of nice clean bass i'm looking for would be anything by Pantha Du Prince, or this song comes to mind as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z-qmm3rcas The bass kicks in around 30 seconds or so.

As a rule do most people use multiple tracks for bass? As in, a "top bass" with the low frequencies cut out, and a "sub bass", or is this circumstantial and one track is often enough?

Secondly, a nice bass sound stems from exactly that-a nice bass sound. I'd love to have some nice hardware but don't really have a lot of money to spend. So what are some of you go-to VSTs for nice bass sounds? I don't mind crafting something from scratch, but prefer to find a pre-set that is close to what I am looking for an then put the final tweaking on it to get it exactly how I want. So good pre-sets would be a plus.

Thanks!

[antarktika]

Trillian seems to be the go-to for a lot of people, and pretty much exactly what you describe, not cheap though:

http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/trilian.php

I use either Kontakt (for real world sampled bass) or Massive (for heavily synthesized sounds) but for realistic bass, I hear Trillian is amazing.

[be tonal]

If your kick is big don´t use a bass like that in the example. Maybe you can get it to work with eq/sc etc., in my experience it´s better to mix and match accordingly. Small kick - big bassline and vice versa.

[jpga]

Pick up ableton's Operator and you got a friend for life!

All the best,,

Jp

[alien factory]

Rop Papen - Subboom Bass !!!

excellent...

[simmerdown]

operator

and

itchy synths Subsonic (free)

your example is not what i would think of as clean, or particularly 'subby'

[Fzang]

A simple square wave made with Analog and an Amp for brightness and slight crunchiness gets pretty close to the sound used in the song.

[icedsushi]

your example is not what i would think of as clean, or particularly 'subby'

Exactly what I was thinking.

The bass synth in the example sounded "analog" (hardware or modeled) with a slight overdrive/distortion to it & plenty of harmonics. The description (super clean & deep) doesn't really match the example at all. Could be that this idea of super clean & deep being in mind is why the OP is frustrated not able to acheive that type of sound.

But as far as the example goes, it sounds very "Moog" to me, a Moog type plugin synth with some saturator or ohmicide was the first thing that came to mind. It seemed a little more dirty & analog than what you would be able to achieve with operator by itself.

I also think that not being perfectly in tune is part of what gives the example some of it's character. Try detuning the oscillators so that the pitch is slightly off center or maybe even automating the the tuning of the synth (?) by a couple cents to mimic the imperfections of analog, just an idea.

[mholloway]

I started using Sylenth1 for all my basslines because the per-oscillator unison abilities result in a huge, punchy sound that I can't replicate on any other softsynth I own, except probably Omnisphere (I just prefer sylenth for this). Check it out if you haven't.

-M

[ciw]

For the kind of bass in your example (and most other kinds) Massive is pretty good, and also has a preset library that allows searching by tags which helps find the right thing pretty fast.

To layer or not to layer, that depends on the genre. Breaks/dnb/dubstep type stuff generally yes; but some other genres no.

Probably the most important things for a clean bass are

1. highpass everything else(*)(**) as high as you possibly can without losing quality, with a steep cutoff like 18 or 24db/oct;

2. set your bass synth to mono mode so notes can't overlap, make sure there isn't lots of delay on it, and turning down the release time might help too

3. many basses need an eq cut around 300-400hz, about 100-200hz wide, to remove some mud

4. low bass in mono (if you want some stereo components this might be a reason to layer; the upper channel can then be in stereo)

(*) even if you think it has no bass freqs - all the little bits add up

(**) with the possibly exception of the kick, if you want a low kick. If that's the case then you also need to figure out how kick and bass interact. Kicks that last too long are a common cause of muddiness; shorten the kick sample/note length/release time or whatever controls that.

[Dhak]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Regarding my example not matching my description, I guess what I meant by "clean" is not the actual bass sound itself but rather how clean and smooth it fits in with the mix. I don't hear any mud in the lower frequencies of that example. It sounds nice and smooth That's what I mean by clean. Maybe i'm looking more for mixing advice as opposed to actual bass sounds, although they are both vitally important.

Has anyone had any experience with the book "Mixing secrets for the small studio" by Mike Senior? It got awesome reviews on amazon.

[ciw]

Read and experiment, experiment, experiment.

But if you're still not getting the results you want there is no substitute for hands on experience. Can you get someone who you know can produce the bass sound you want, to show you? Even pay for a lesson if needed? You've spent money on your equipment, now spend some money on yourself...