Ableton Forum

Hey guys,

Since some time I´m trying already to reproduce this distinctive bass guitar sound Danger uses a lot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kfC-vHBNtE 0:29

Do you know how to make it? I tried synths, tried to record straight from my bass guitar and sampled the bass guitar and played around with different parameters. The results weren´t satisfying. Do you know how to do it?

Thanks,
Forpex

I guess you need to get the french nationality and eat lots of real cheese to achieve that sound

ok, I'm out

Maybe my computer is broken, but I don't hear any bass guitar (and I'm a bassist). Are you asking about that synth bass that doesn't sound at all like a bass guitar?

the sound you like is synth trying to sound like a slap bass. possibly an fm synth, or most likely, a sample of some eighties music,

OR seinfeld.

it's definitely pretty frickin' far from real bass guitar, most likely some FM synth, I guess you can get similar sound by tweaking Operator

Sounds to me like an old fashioned 1 sample midi sequence using some slap bass sample. Same way they used to make cartridge game soundtracks to save space. If you wanna makes sounds like that you should probably find anything that references old midi soundtrack production. You can get VSTs people have made to replicate the sound chips from games systems.

The others are right it is probably generated from some old fashioned FM synthesis. Doesn't sound like a raw pulse or whatever. Might be from a ppg, maybe?

Thanks a lot for your posts, boys and girls! It still sounds similar to a processed bass guitar to me.
I´ll try to produce something similar with Operator. Could someone recommend a preset to start with?

from me to you

http://www.zshare.net/download/99389781c9b733b1/

close enough hopefully

It's the classic DX7 sound 'Bass 1'

As heard clearly in Wish feat. Fonda Rae - 'Touch Me' from 1:10 onwards.

Stock, Aitken & Waterman used it on everything - including Rick Astley. The Rick Rollin' craze probably means that more people worldwide have been exposed to this preset that any other in history. Billions.

Are you sure you still want to use it..? Only joking, it is a cool sound.

Bound to be some samples out there as it's an extremely well known preset from one of the biggest selling synths of all time.

Otherwise, if you can afford it, FM8 vst. Reads DX7 patches.

PS You may struggle with Operator, as it only has 4 operators and the DX7 had 6. And direct copying of FM sounds is notoriously difficult by ear beyond a couple of operators.

Thanks a lot condra, that´s absolutely something I can work with!
thank you beatmunga for your very detailed answer, I´ll try out the Fm8-demo.