Sine Bassline

Having done a bit of research into the bass sound typical with producers like Dilla, that clean like sub sound, ive found a lot of people using a simple sine wave with a combination of low pass filters and distortion to emphasize the bass characteristics and specifically with the MPC, using a single manipulated Sine wave and 16 levels and programming internally..

Just wondered if any one has any experience and/or tips in using this method, or any other bassline tips as its something i still need to get my head around

Thanks in advance!

i just use a vst and trigger it frm the mpc, load up a sine wave, and then do as you mention. way easier than in the mpc
samplecraze has a tutorial about this, i think he posted the video here

Thanks for that, it easy to setup to trigger from the MP?

Anyone have the link for the vid?

mad easy
theres tons of videos in youtube on how to do it

a low pass filter will have no effect on a real sine wav bass sound.

mr_debauch wrote:a low pass filter will have no effect on a real sine wav bass sound.

well.. yeah :p on a pure sine, it will just make some notes more quiet.. which is not really 'no effect', no?
but on lots of synths, if you choose a sine waveform, the end result is only 'sine like', so its still interesting to try and see what an LP does. IMO

mr_debauch wrote:a low pass filter will have no effect on a real sine wav bass sound.

Agree

Personally I don't like using sine's too much, it's all about the square man lol

Although I guess some would say this bass sounds like a sine it ain't...good ol' simple Square with some portamento and low-pass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGnvtoPZIOw

Yes, when there are no overtones, there is nothing there to filter. But a distortion FX before the filter would add overtones to the pure sine signal (so its "filterable"). I didnt tried it but I think this could produce some nice sounds.

peace

what about filter envelopes...? perhaps using enough resonance on the bass with out it distorting as well.

AntonPD wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:a low pass filter will have no effect on a real sine wav bass sound.

well.. yeah :p on a pure sine, it will just make some notes more quiet.. which is not really 'no effect', no?
but on lots of synths, if you choose a sine waveform, the end result is only 'sine like', so its still interesting to try and see what an LP does. IMO

yeah on presets called sine.. I know exactly what you mean. I do filter those to cut out high end of those... but those synth patched are just called sine.

mr_debauch wrote:

AntonPD wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:a low pass filter will have no effect on a real sine wav bass sound.

well.. yeah :p on a pure sine, it will just make some notes more quiet.. which is not really 'no effect', no?
but on lots of synths, if you choose a sine waveform, the end result is only 'sine like', so its still interesting to try and see what an LP does. IMO

yeah on presets called sine.. I know exactly what you mean. I do filter those to cut out high end of those... but those synth patched are just called sine.

Right. A true Sine is only one frequency, correct? Thus it can't be filtered?

Jfalconcrest wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:

AntonPD wrote:
well.. yeah :p on a pure sine, it will just make some notes more quiet.. which is not really 'no effect', no?
but on lots of synths, if you choose a sine waveform, the end result is only 'sine like', so its still interesting to try and see what an LP does. IMO

yeah on presets called sine.. I know exactly what you mean. I do filter those to cut out high end of those... but those synth patched are just called sine.

Right. A true Sine is only one frequency, correct? Thus it can't be filtered?

yeah like if you put a LPF on it and you know the trick of automating the cutoff of the filter to get that bouncing effect? well it just cuts the sound on and off instead of wobbling.

Jfalconcrest wrote:

Right. A true Sine is only one frequency, correct? Thus it can't be filtered?

well, lets see:


if you have a bassline of only one different pitch played by a sine, there is no use in filtering it (but you can of course), because thats just a complicated way of adjusting its volume

if you have a bassline of different pitches, played by a sine timbre, id say 'try filtering it', for example, an LP filter (with the cutoff set to somewhere in the neighbourhood of the pitches) will lower the volume of the highest pitches more than that of the lower pitches. (but pay attention to resonance)
this is useful if you find the upper pitches too loud... (or the lower ones too quiet. adjust gain of course)
but you can achieve this by adjusting the velocity of the different notes too

this is all assuming 'pure sines'.
because of 'distortions' (and not necesarily conciously applied) its useful for example to try and see if you can bring out some 'boom'frequencies, by having a resonant filter emhasize the introduced harmonics. but this was about sub bass.. so that doesnt make sense :p

AntonPD wrote:

Jfalconcrest wrote:

Right. A true Sine is only one frequency, correct? Thus it can't be filtered?

well, lets see:


if you have a bassline of only one different pitch played by a sine, there is no use in filtering it (but you can of course), because thats just a complicated way of adjusting its volume

if you have a bassline of different pitches, played by a sine timbre, id say 'try filtering it', for example, an LP filter (with the cutoff set to somewhere in the neighbourhood of the pitches) will lower the volume of the highest pitches more than that of the lower pitches. (but pay attention to resonance)
this is useful if you find the upper pitches too loud... (or the lower ones too quiet. adjust gain of course)
but you can achieve this by adjusting the velocity of the different notes too

this is all assuming 'pure sines'.
because of 'distortions' (and not necesarily conciously applied) its useful for example to try and see if you can bring out some 'boom'frequencies, by having a resonant filter emhasize the introduced harmonics. but this was about sub bass.. so that doesnt make sense :p

you know I think I am going to mess around with that a bit later on... also another idea could be cool to try out is slapping some sort of doubler on it because some of them not only give a slight delay but a pitch shift also.. some shift as high as an octave up. then pop a filter on that!

yeah, you can use a synth with two oscillators, twice sine, only one is an octave lower/higher
that gives a more complex sound, still sinelike, but more ambiguous in terms of pitch

IMO