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[canton]

From: Ed Colmar
Subject: [SUB60] Jungle bass strategies?
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 04:24:45 -0700 (PDT)

I've been hearing some beautiful crunchy bass sounds over the past few
years in jungle/D&B. Some sounds that seem impossible to reproduce.

I was wondering what strategies people are using to come up with these
results.

The closest I have been able to come is with wavetable based synthesizers,
but still seems lacking in some respects...

Is anyone using any affordable technology, or configuration thereof, to
make beautiful noisy bass tones.

-ed-


From: "Drew Campbell"
Subject: Re: [SUB60] Jungle bass strategies?

Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 15:17:23 -0700

you might try pumping your best bass noise through an amp and re record it
with a mic. some Crate amps have great distortion, real crunchy especially
over a real phat, full toned bass noise. the room and recording also put
some interesting changes in sound. or even for that matter you could try
blasting it out of a crappy boom box and maxing it out and then process it
... that might turn out interesting....

just shooting out ideas, just have fun with it

From: AndyW
Subject: Re: [SUB60] Jungle bass strategies?
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:01:23 -0700 (PDT)


i've been getting really good results with getting a couple slightly
detuned saws and sines going into a clipper module with the Nord Modular.
Then just put a 12db per octave LPF after that, and put lfos on
EVERYTHING, so the sound is really lively and always changing harmonics.
the key is have sub bass that sorta weaves in and out of the sound, for
that throbbing/looming quality.

if you've got a nord modular, take a look at the 'special-K' preset,
that's pretty much a great starting point.

i've also got a sorta okay sounding bass like that for my microwavext,
although I've had trouble getting those really banging virus type sounds,
cause the filters on the virus are just a little bit mo' fierce, and it
helps to have at least three oscs to play with and better distortion that
what the microwave xt come with.

andyw



From: R e i d | O d a
Subject: Re: [SUB60] Jungle bass strategies?
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:58:36 -0700 (PDT)


man, that's a great idea. i bet it would even sound cool to fucked up
things like cut slits in the speaker cones of different lengths and tape
strange things to the speakers. as the different resonant frequencies get
hit, they'll start to vibrate.

analog distortion is, at least to my ears, always superior to digital.

i also have some ideas about those bass tones. here dey is:

i've found that compressing the treble part of the bass tone takes away
fromt the richness of it. those trebly transients add so much to the all
encompassing feel of the tone, but if they get squashed, it sounds dull.
try running your bass tone through a multiband compressor with no
compression on the tops, and maybe the mids, too.

i agree with andy. TONS of motion, and the bass also has to be skillfully
manipulated. when the tone is such as found in modern dnb it occupies a
HUGE amount of frequency bandwidth. you can use subtle, or not so subtle
eq automation to freak the ear out as spectrums are pulled out and
replaced. i find that when folks take advantage of this it makes the bass
say, "i am in complete control."

i think one of the main things is to avoid too much reverb or delay. to
my ears they seem to smooth out crunchy sounds.

out of curiosity, do you have any examples of what you're talking about?
maybe you can record a snippet and post it somewhere. if don't have a
website i can post it somewhere for you.

-reid



From: R e i d | O d a
Subject: Re: [SUB60] Jungle bass strategies?
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 18:01:16 -0700 (PDT)

regarding distorting mic preamps:

the mackie 1202 preamps sound great when overdriven. to my ears they are
saying, "i don't wanna" while the audio is saying, "sorry, punk you're
gonna" lots of straining.

-reid

From: "Sebastian ."
Subject: Re: [SUB60] Jungle bass strategies?
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 19:06:38 -0700 (PDT)

I have successfully made bass sounds that not only come on
par, but are even heavier and gritier than the majority of
bass sounds using something rather unobvious...

I fire up a wave editor (be it peak, sound forge, cool
edit)
and I 'generate' the wave I am looking for.

Sine or square waves work well, triangles too. Cooledit has
some good options like tone over time, modulation and sonic
multiples to choose from. And then its just process,
process process, over and over until it sounds good. Port
it to your sampler and voila, instant extreem bass sounds.

Seriously, this is the best way to go. Want a sub bass like
you have never heard before? Sine wave, 3 seconds long,
30-60 hz setting (add any other mods as wanted)

DnB is typicaly a square, but saws work, and combining
waves works well too... experiment expiriment.

non of my synths come even close to what you can make in an
editor. If you want proof, come over some time and i'll
show you some of the killer bass tones I've made over the
last 6 or 7 years.

Ok, bye.

s.


Subject: Re: [SUB60] Jungle bass strategies?
From: Ed Colmar
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 07:56:04 -0700 (PDT)


Hi < 60

The actual sounds I am describing are the virus/no uturn sounds that are
nearly patented these days... Not that I'm looking to dublicate them, but
more to widen my available processes.

Thanks for the ideas... Curious about Sebastian's technique of building
the waves directly in a wave editor... This is similar to what I have
been resorting to lately... Could you describe a bit more in detail how
you're doing it? I'm imagining an extremely tedious process of building
the wave one cycle at a time. Doing what wavetable synths do, but
manually...

Distortion... Yes I love it especially analog, even harmonic
distortions...

Though in this particular case, It seems like the distorted sound is only
a part of it... Perhaps there is some creative layering going on here...

The reason I say this is in my experience, overdriving a signal reaults
in more upper harmonics, and therefore less lower harmonics, which leads
away from "the bass sound" we're talking about....

Anyways... I appreciate all your input... Let me dig around and see if I
can find an actual audio clip for you all to check...

-e-





From: R e i d | O d a
Subject: Re: [SUB60] Jungle bass strategies?

ed,

one interesting charachteristic of sound is that two sounds which posess
the same amplitude envelop are indistinguishable from one another and are
percieved as one sound. maybe you can try to work on the upper textures
and the bassy part seperately, then combine them as one of the final
steps. then you can play them as single sequential notes.

-reid



From: "Sebastian ."
Subject: Re: [SUB60] Jungle bass strategies?
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 17:00:19 -0700 (PDT)

It takes me just as long on a synth to make a good sound,
and in my experience the results aren't up to par as
building it yourself. So making it yourself in the end
"faster" cause you can't get the same results form
outboards or softsynths.

it really isn't that mysterious. Like I said, fire up a
program (cool edit has my favorite options right now
still), choose wave type, say a square, choose frequency,
modulation, frequency change over time, harmonic multiples
and hit enter. Once you have a core sound try out different
effects until it sounds interesting, then accept the change
and then proceed to add/process it again. I tend to move
between parametric eqs, reverbs, picth shifts, envelopes,
distortion... or any other effect I have at hand pretty
much back and forth. sometimes I might even hit record on
the audio ins on the sampler while I am making live edits
to the loop in the effect preview box (since no plugins can
as of now be automated inside a wave editor). Gated reverbs
work, sometimes I also then run the final sound through all
my outboard racks to add more depth, width and final eq.

there is no layering of waves in what I am talking about,
though that is certainly possible. Creating a tone that is
30 hz and then slowing it down a further 500% can make some
interesting sounds too. Or taking a small loop from the
larger wave and then recreating an entire wave, reverse it,
envleope, more para eq...

like I said, its all about experimenting. I don't have a
"formula' I can tell you to follow cause I don't follow
any. I just follow the next required steps that are needed
to keep it going.

the "process" is "tedious" if the "process" isn't
enjoyable. I remember a good artist once told me that:

"To be a great artist one must make art to enjoy the
process while remaining continualy unsatisfied with the
results."
=)

s.

[canton]

(Contributed by "contagious")

I know you guys have covered about every base (no pun intended) on this issue already, but my technique is quite simple and works quite well.

Get a regular organic-sounding bass sound, run it through a guitar amp (I know someone suggested this already, I have a crate too and it work well), with a reasonable amount of distortion.

Run that distorted bass sound (now with fizzy top-end) through a low-pass filter to take off most of the really high end stuff and add all the chorus you can get. This really widens the sound.

What I tend to do to put back some of the sub-bass is just duplicate the bassline with a plain sine-bass.

Just to add a little extra, you could link an LFO to the volume and/or pitch (just slightly), with the oscillations slowing down or speeding up as the note is held. This works really well on bass-dives where the other sounds drop out.