Ableton Forum

Hi Guys,

I've been doing production for a little while now, but one thing I really haven't mastered at all is how to get that fat kick + bass sound, heard on harder styles (dance, trance, hardstyle). I.e. bands like Pendulum.

I'm sure there's tutorials, but I scan YouTube frequently and they're all either too basic, or just not what I'm looking for.

What's the best practice to get that sustained, deep & phat kick and bass sound?

At the moment, I'll experiment with sample kick drums (most of which seem terrible or way to processed already) and mix in subbass (either taken from a VST or just a basic sine wave using Operator). I've experimented with attack delay, EQ'ing and compression, compression, compression + sidechaning... I just can't seem to get it sounding like they do

Does anyone have some tips or demonstrations about achieving that? I know a real bass is often used, but I'm sure that's not generally used. I'm particularly looking for anything technical, but any tips and help would be great.

Thanks!
Michael

one trick is to have a sine wave (low one, tuned to your song) that is gated by the kick drum. whenever the kick drum hits, the gate opens. you keep your kick attack but have a nice bass tone for the sustain. adjust the bass tone length by adjusting the release on the gate.

Thanks for that; been playing with it tonight, see that its going to make a difference. Just makes it feel a lot tighter.

Not that that wasn't bad, but does anyone else else have tips?

the "phatness" of your kickdrum relates very much to the phatness of the other sounds. once you try to fatten up everything, nothing will be fat in the end, cause there's no contrast.
1) look where your kickdrum's (or kick+sine bass) low harmonic is, and make sure no other elements (bassline?) use the same frequency >> EQ those.
2) look into sidechain compression to make your other tracks get out of your phat kickdrum's way (get the "pump" effect) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQnOQWLURFU