Growling Bass

Deland01 · Post by **Deland01** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:04 pm

Any one know any good synths that make a growling bass kinda noise?

stutter · Post by **stutter** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:25 pm

probably more synth programming rather than a particular synth, unless you just want presets.

play with:
Source - whatever oscillators, triangle and square for example
->
Low-Pass Filter

Modulate Low Pass Filter - Filter Freq - with an LFO. Turn the LFO frequency fairly high, above 10 hz, play about and you should start to get a growly or brassy noise (as best I can describe it)

The choice of filter will make a lot of difference.

If you want a vst then I happily recommend RGC Triangle. Has a good sound, and free. Google it.

bleepsnbreaks · Post by **bleepsnbreaks** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 12:03 am

Yep, agree with stutter, its more about understanding the programming than a particular synth. You can get just about any sound out of just about any multi oscliator synth.
Can get some mean bass sounds out of operator, thats what I mostly use.
Can also use Predator, thats a great synth....
Chuck a saw on once oscilaor and a square on the other, play around with the mix between the 2.
I like to use a square wave alot for bass, becuase I like that kinda old SID kinda bass sound. get 2 square waves and slightly detune them for a big fat sound.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 6:10 am

Pretty much any synth bass into the right amount of distortion/overdrive can be made to "growl". Try some Saturator and some movement on the bass synth's filter cutoff.

forge · Post by **forge** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 6:16 am

yeah +1 for saturator - I've loaded Synths up and down almost nothing to them and tweaked the Hell out of Saturator - try the sinoid fold setting and the color settings

stutter · Post by **stutter** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:21 pm

can't believe I forgot to mention distortion.
Oops.

Here's another tip while you're playing, which everyone probably knows, but in case you're new to this it's useful, and p'raps other's will come up with better tips (my bass doesn't growl enough yet)...

- Create a couple of audio tracks next to the midi/instrument track. Set the instrument track as the Audio From on each of these, and set monitoring to In. You may also want to set the original track Audio Out to Sends only to if you decide you don't want to hear it later on...
- Create a third audio track, again set monitoring to In. Change the name of this to Bass Sum, or whatever you fancy.
- Set the Audio To on the previous audio tracks to the new track, which should read Bass Sum. On these tracks you can use EQs to split the frequencies up, then effect them differently - for example leave the lowest frequencies clean, higher ones can benefit from distortion, chorus, maybe flanger or phaser (and on and on the list could go) - these will add harmonic frequencies, thicken up the sound, add movement - all can make it sound bigger or more interesting. Use the volume of these tracks to balance the mix between them.
- Putting a compressor on the Bass Sum track is a good idea, controls volume spikes, and can glue it all together a bit.

That's pretty basic bass routing, but if you find that you're shaping presets or synth sounds with effects then a technique like this will probably help a lot.
Of course, if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, fair enough, maybe someone else will find it useful.

Deland01 · Post by **Deland01** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:47 am

All realty good advice and didn’t know any of what ppl have said.

stutter - Didn’t even think about doing that but it makes sense. I do loads of Graphic Design & you use the same principle but with layers of images to thicken up the images & add depth.

.

andydes · Post by **andydes** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:45 pm

Or if you're Live 6, you can do this in a rack.

Just set up chains with the eq and effects instead of adding tracks. Put the instrument infront of the rack.

Same effect, it's just a bit cleaner.

Of course you could also put different intruments in the different chains, if you prefer.

ghast · Post by **ghast** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 4:00 pm

you might also consider using a vocoder. i like prosoniq morph the best.

willnana · Post by **willnana** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 4:04 pm

The Microkorg can make this sound with sweeps or filters over it.

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 1:24 am

this thing can growl: http://nwrecords.com/racks.html
under the instruments - elektrokewt.

particle · Post by **particle** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 8:06 am

Waves RBass is a very heady plug in to add lots off beef to your bass w/o making it sound like shit...when you move the frequency fader to the 100Hz + range, it starts to really growl...but i still agree with everyone else here about making sure you do everything correctly during the sound design stage too. waves.com