So basically i’ve made a few dubstep tunes now and the bit i’ve struggled most with is making the bass! i was wondering if the people of dubstep forum had any good articles i could read to educate myself better, or generally any tips when it comes to making a subby dark bass im currently using fl studios and plugins such as massive and serum.
respect, jack.
play with knobs, make basses out of stuff that shouldn’t be a bass.
I once made a bassline out of a hi hat!
Edit: sounds out of context what I said but the bottom line is just experiment
thanks, most of the time when i completely try random stuff i cant even get a sub bass to happen
sub bass = sine
I’m sure this has all been covered elsewhere in this forum, but obviously people are still seeking answers and struggling right here in this thread, and I wish I would’ve known about these things when they were first available, instead of banging my head against the wall for half a decade, still just barely hitting market-ready sounds, when such a simple and quick solution can get your sound palette up to professional levels, and let you start getting into advancing the genre and making more elegant and creative pieces of music, instead of fiddling with knobs night after night, year after year, just hoping to accidentally hit the magic combination to create that hit-making sound.
Admittedly, I did not read every post on the above-suggested thread from the old forum, but I did scan them all and paid increasing attention as I neared the the last of the 13 pages, and it seemed dated.
The best stuff I saw was the Datsik synth setup using NI Massive, which is what I was using for some of my first Dubstep Tracks that I felt illustrated my first successes with the sounds we hear in many hit tracks, as well as complete control and manipulation of the growl.
Massive can definitely provide you with the toolset to get those sounds, based on it’s unique dual filter setup and macros allowing you to use step sequencers and waveforms to control the automation of knobs anywhere in the instrument, allowing you to shape the sounds by simultaneously manipulating a number of knobs in unison, creating the ability to manipulate your growl. And the the oscillators provide the ability to (and this is the real key to the sound) change at which point in the waveform the sound is initiated, and alter it on-the-fly while it’s playing.
I got to really depend on Massive and learned it inside and out, eventually completely abandoning preset packs and how-to videos. But it took time and ambition to master that setup, and still left the need to learn all of the other facets of production.
As of a couple of years ago, those key elements that allow such extensive manipulation of synthesis have been improved on significantly in other VST’s on the market, and their UI’s and workflows simplified. Thus the items truly responsible for the explosion of sound we’ve encountered.
Cymatics was on of the first teams to publicize the keys to this; give away tons of free patches/presets and, most importantly by doing so, give you the answers regarding what tools besides Massive are out there upping the ante…
Short and sweet, it’s VSTs like Serum, Spire, Gladiator2, Loom and Sylenth1, many of which have DEFAULT presets/patches that immediately show you the power they have to provide commercial quality dubstep sounds. And with little effort (or a subscription to Splice) you can obtain large numbers of patches/preset directly from big name producer’s projects and toolboxes.
Hey, in a world where nobody pays for music, getting royalties for selling your presets and samples is one of the only ways to actually get paid. (I hope nobody here is trying to learn any of this for money btw… LOLz)
My synth list is ordered based on power to create commercial dubstep sounds btw, and Serum is even available by “rent-to-own” model through Splice, paying (i don’t remember exactly how much), but like 10 or 15 bucks a month until you pay off the WHOPPING $200 they want for it. You don’t pay a penny more for interest or service charge for the rent-to-own model. It’s the same price as going directly to Xfer Records and buying it outright, and you can even “pause” your subscription if you’re tight one month, without losing any credit towards owning it.
Serum takes “almost” all of the power of NI Massive (except the robust routing capabilities, which it elegantly and effectively masks through it’s macro system) and then adds the game-changing ability to draw, save, and upload custom waveforms. So instead of starting with your traditional oscillators and using layers of subtractive synthesis to mis-shape them into the gnarly and perfectly imperfect waveforms that we love to growl out with, you can jump right to the finish by loading in nasty nasty waveforms from GO, then still have all of the same power and control to manipulate them as far as you’d like in addition. Gladiator 2 and Loom also have user-definable waveform capabilities, with Gladiator 2 really ultimately having the most waveform flexibility, but lacking in workflow, automation and routing, preventing you from having fluid control over your growls.
Loom suffers from the same workflow and routing deficits, as well as being very non-intuitive or industry standard with its UI design, but excels in other areas, such as vocoding and multi-parameter oscillation that is great for pads and FX.
The other NI legend, Absynth, which has been out for probably 10 or 15 years now (version 5 is dated, but still current, I believe), has had user-definable waveform capabilities, and even “drawing tools” for generating your own right in the VST’s interface. But it suffers a great number of other pitfalls, among them being a dirty and weak synthesis engine, which totally kills any reason to look further.
Hope this helps at least one person to save them the time that I have wasted by constantly asking the wrong questions when it came to creating these sounds.
Enjoy!