What bass techniques do you use?

Discuss the various methods you use in music production, from compressor settings to equipment type.
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What bass techniques do you use?

By elgranenfermo Sat Sep 06, 2014 9:31 am
Hi guys!!

I´m new here. I began making beats two years ago and I think that I´m going on the well way.

I have a question for all of you, because I think that could be interesting sharing the techniques that we use to get nice bass lines for our beats.

So, what bass techniques do you use in your beats? You find sample bass lines and chop and use them, you create your own bass lines with VSTs or you extract the bass from the sample?

Do you know more bass techniques that I didn´t quote above?

Particularly, in the mayority of my productions, I extract the bass line of the sample aplying HPF and LPF to the sample and rarely I make my own bass lines with midi piano and VST.

Thanks and 1L !!!
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Re: What bass techniques do you use?

By jibber Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:40 pm
- Low End Theory
- JV2080
- Records
- Bass guitar

The 2nd two options i usually sample one or two notes and put them on multi-pitch.

If you can play a little and have one, don't underestimate recording a real bass guitar, sadly, i sold mine.
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Re: What bass techniques do you use?

By Bugfix Sat Sep 06, 2014 4:19 pm
One more not listed is: take (with a sampler) literally any high frequency sound (does not have to contain any bass), loop it very fast, apply LPF, tune it if you need, go back to loop lenght options to find the timbre that suits, shape it with envelopes. Samples are short, take like 50-300kb.
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Re: What bass techniques do you use?

By Lampdog Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:26 pm
Bugfix wrote:One more not listed is: take (with a sampler) literally any high frequency sound (does not have to contain any bass), loop it very fast, apply LPF, tune it if you need, go back to loop lenght options to find the timbre that suits, shape it with envelopes. Samples are short, take like 50-300kb.

This method Brings back asr10 memories for me. I used to do this alot. Create my own bass synth sounds.
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Re: What bass techniques do you use?

By damien907 Sun Sep 07, 2014 11:41 pm
i usually use the low end theory, but sometimes i use my bass patches that i have sampled from vst's and put into my mpc, then adjust the attack/decay to fit the beat/tempo/sample.

Re: What bass techniques do you use?

By Phra*DOC Thu Sep 11, 2014 8:54 pm
I usually make beats with chops from one song only, so I sample the root note with a high gain, set cutoff to 20/30 and resonance around 2, and even if the sample is a normal one , if it has enough bass freq presence it becomes a beefy bass note. Then I 16 level it and lay down the bassline, and when everything is done I take the time to find an actual bass note that fits the beat, usually from another record, tune it like the 'root' sample and assign it to the same pad root sample used to be so it's now played in the beat. At that point I usually lower the resonance and raise cutoff freq since it's already a genuine bass note and I don't need to morph it into one

Re: What bass techniques do you use?

By dtaa pla muk Mon Sep 15, 2014 5:43 am
goes without saying, but few actually follow this rule. save yourself some time:

if you're adding bass to a beat you've already started and you've used a sample as your lead melody, break out a tuner and make sure your lead sample is in tune with your bass instrument.

if you're having trouble writing melodies on top of the sample you've chopped, odds are it's ~10-20 cents out of tune with your hardware and/or vsts

Re: What bass techniques do you use?

By JVC Mon Sep 15, 2014 2:48 pm
I created very low end pure sine wave monoral WAV files for my MPC-2000XL, using Sound Studio on Mac (I think it can be done with Audacity.)
I call it "MPC base"! (because it sounds very "MPC" to me!)
I've been using it for long time, very useful for 16 level.

(Shameless plug again, but) the base tone sample is used for the baseline:

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Re: What bass techniques do you use?

By damien907 Tue Sep 16, 2014 5:41 pm
i forgot to put when i make my bass from a vst or whatever, ill sample it for 2 or 3 octives, then i put it in my mpc, and i find the key of my beat, then ill assign only the notes that are in the key of my beat to a bass program, and then bang away.
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Re: What bass techniques do you use?

By damien907 Tue Sep 16, 2014 5:58 pm
Nym wrote:goes without saying, but few actually follow this rule. save yourself some time:

if you're adding bass to a beat you've already started and you've used a sample as your lead melody, break out a tuner and make sure your lead sample is in tune with your bass instrument.

if you're having trouble writing melodies on top of the sample you've chopped, odds are it's ~10-20 cents out of tune with your hardware and/or vsts


ive also had to detune my sample before so it fis with my bass.
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