"High presence" euro bassline

[Masterpace]

Hi guys! I'm currently programming patches on my TI for new demos. My music is eurodance oriented and I'm looking for those high energy, high presence, euro mono basslines. Many eurotrance artists are using them in their tracks. "Vegeance Ultimate Bass" sample CD has exactly the kinds of basslines I'm looking for. Now, you've got the picture.

A few questions...

-Can the Virus reproduce those? I'm trying to layering a pulsing oscillator with a detuned "metallic" wave from the wavetable, along with the sub oscillator cranked up to the max, some analog boost, rectifier filter saturation... I can get some almost o.k. result but to me, the sound is too gritty.

-Could I get some guidelines (or "cookbook") to get that kind of bassline? That includes how to use EQ and compressor.

I have a few general questions...

-What's the difference between the triangle sub oscillator and the square one? Which one should I use to get the most of low end?

-I've tried experiencing with the compressor (digital one). How can the compressor be used? Which settings would work great?

I know, those questions may sound basic for some of you. However, whatever hints I can get can help me out a lot!

Thanks in advance!

[Timo]

Hi, welcome,

Do you have an audio demo of what you're trying to achieve?

Nick (The Girl Next Door) from the forums has programmed a whole bank of basses and they were fairly euro-oriented, with arp's and stuff.

Free for download either from his forum: http://www.thegirlnextdoor.de/Virusforum.htm
or from Access' site: http://access-music.de/support.php4

Vengeance (Manuel Schleis) actually made soundsets for the Virus before also moving on to other synths and doing recorded sample-sets.

http://www.vengeance-sound.com/eng/indexFLASH.html

The sub-oscillator is an extra waveform that's ALWAYS placed, I think, 2 octaves (-24 tones) below oscillator 1. You can't alter the pitch any other way in that aspect.

Tri waveform is similar to a sine wave, but just slightly more "plummy". Good for sub-basses where you want to feel it more than hear it.

Square is more hollow, good for making patches thicker and ballsy, adding more mid-low frequencies for a guttural effect. Or for making really evil D'n'B basslines.

There's not much else to tweak that aspect really. Whack up the sub oscillator volume, see which waveform (sq or tri) compliments the patch, and then decrease the sub level until it sits ok.

I think Euro-bass usually sounds cleaner though, stripped of really low freq's as they're left to a different sub-bass patch or similar.

[Masterpace]

Hi Timo! Thanks for your input.

Indeed, I've downloaded some banks from The Girl Next Door. That was a few months ago. However, I could only find one patch close enough to what I was looking for at that time. After some tweaking, I could get a nice patch.

The kind of basslines I'm looking for can be heard on the Vengeance Ultimate Bass sample CD. There's a demo on Vengeance website (http://www.vengeance-storage.com/www...ass%20Demo.mp3). Anyway, it's in the "sample cd's" section.

Do you have any idea how to get a good "draft" of such basslines on the Virus (TI)?

As you know, that kind of euro bass has high presence (amplified mids). In order to have a stronger output on a typical subwoofer, which one of the tri or square sub oscillator will be the most powerful?

Thanks again!

[Masterpace]

Maybe should I be more specific. Starting at 1:30 (one minute 30 sec.) in the Ultimate Bass, is the kind of bass I'm more after. How can you get something close from the Virus? Thanks.

[IamEvil]

slightly distorted pulse/square wave sound with slow filter attack + some rez and compressed to hell

that should be pretty close

[flipside]

I don't have the virus in front of me right now, but try setting both osc 1 and sub osc to square, experiment with the level of the subosc in relation to osc 1, and you could also try setting osc 2 to +7 semi, and mix it in, being careful to let osc1 be the dominant. Try the digital distortion, and see what's best of doing it at the filter saturation or in the effects section.

Also, try this: set the sustain slope to its maximum negative setting. Set attack to 0. Now, try setting a balance between decay, sustain and release to make the sound the length you want it to be.

Oh and try and set Osc Init Phase to 32.

This in combination with the amp envelope makes it sound almost like a sample

Sorry if this sounds somewhat vague, I can make some examples later today.

Best,
Alex

[Masterpace]

flipside, I'm going to try a few of your settings tonight. I'm currently at work! Tell me, a square is a pulse with 50 % width, right? I'm using a puse around 65 %. Is that o.k.? I find it gives a more "buzzing" effect. As for oscillator 2, would you use exactly the same waveform but with 7 semitones above? What about FM? Is that required and how could I use it? I forgot about the negative sustain slope. It helps cut off the bass quickly even though the key is pressed so that's a good one. Oscillator init phase to 32? Quite interesting. I will try it also. Regarding the compressor, I could get some nice compression from my onboard digital compressor on the console. I use heavy compression though (10/1 ratio, null attack, hard knee, few ms release, high output gain). It definitely pumps the "oomph". There's just one slight problem though: a few spikes don't seem to get compressed at all and because of the output gain, they just get bigger. Any idea?

[Masterpace]

Alex (flipside), you made my day! I've modified my patch to more or less match your settings and the result is impressive to my hears. A few notes:

-Using a bit of digital distorsion really helps.
-The filters should have some high rectifier saturation.
-Using a quick negative slope on the filter enveloppe makes the bassline much tighter, less muddy.
-For some reason, boosting the signal send to phaser gives a lot of "body" to the bass and makes a huge difference. I don't know why though.
-Using proper EQ and a lot of compression and voila!

The only thing I would like to change is that there's a slight buzzing sound in the background. It's like detuned and can be heard on lower notes. Increasing the initial phase (from 32 to 36 for instance) gets rid of it but alters tonality (bass is higher pitched). So, I prefer to keep it 32.

Any ideas?

[Masterpace]

Alex (flipside), you made my day! I've modified my patch to more or less match your settings and the result is impressive to my hears. A few notes:

-Using a bit of digital distorsion really helps.
-The filters should have some high rectifier saturation.
-Using a quick negative slope on the filter enveloppe makes the bassline much tighter, less muddy.
-For some reason, boosting the signal send to phaser gives a lot of "body" to the bass and makes a huge difference. I don't know why though.
-Using proper EQ and a lot of compression and voila!

The only thing I would like to change is that there's a slight buzzing sound in the background. It's like detuned and can be heard on lower notes. Increasing the initial phase (from 32 to 36 for instance) gets rid of it but alters tonality (bass is higher pitched). So, I prefer to keep it 32.

Any ideas?