Need help creating this bass sound

[Dabrenn]

My #1 problem with creating any sort of electronic music is my horrible lack of talent in creating sounds I enjoy, or recreating a sound that I hear. I just can't think of a sound, then make it.

This here is an example of a analogy bass wobble/synth that I love hearing, but can't replicate well. I can get close-ish, but not quite there. H8_seed also uses a similar sound in many of his songs, and I really enjoy it.

Here is an example of the bass I'm trying to recreate. (I can't get it to embed with a starting time)

skip to 2:45.



As for a Pony-example, here is a song by Icky and Whitetail which I absolutely adore, which uses the sound. (btw Icky/Whitetail, if you read this, I love you for this song, and I did pay for it <3)

skip to 1:30




So that's about it, Sorry about the long-winded post but if you guys could help me with that it would be awesome! I'm currently using Ableton Suite. The only paid VST I own is Massive (which I'm starting to thing was a mistake -_-).

[Raddons]

I layer 2 different synths (both in Massive) when I do this (not including the sub bass, but that's an easy one). The first one is for the lower frequencies and all it is is a detuned saw. All 3 oscillators on and detuned (I personally detune -.12, +.02, -.08). No filers or EQ needed in Massive, although I like to throw in a chorus and maybe a dimension expander if I'm feeling it. Then throw on a distortion. You can use whatever, but I like to use Poulin Le456 considering it's free and kicks all sorts of ass.

The next synth I do is pretty much the same thing, but I use it to fill the mid frequencies. Same thing as last time except use square waves instead of saw waves. I like to put the dimension expander on this one. I have no clue why.

There ya go. You can put you reverbs on however you want and such. Also if you are going to use a sub bass, I would drop an EQ in the first synth and cut everything below like 50hz or something.

And I never mess with the LFO in Massive for stuff like this. I always edit the lp filter's LFO myself.

edit: But I'm not the best to ask. LH could probably help you out way better than I can

[Lavender_Harmony]

Oh dear I'm being name-dropped, alright.

Firstly, you'll feel that way about Massive for a while, but trust me, it's not. Massive is a great synth, and it's not made for just wobbles. It makes pretty much everything, has some great VA technology that absolutely nobody uses which is a shame. Anyhow..

There are lots of ways to go about making this kind of sound. Like, the variations you can make are potentially limitless. Select one or two wavetables from the oscillators, mess around with the spectrum, make it Bend +, make it Bend -, turn on the mod oscillator, turn up the phase. Basically you want a nice, gritty sound like this:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/543014/Stage%201.mp3

Now you want to play around with the LFO, which makes the wobble. But don't just limit yourself to a low pass filter, thats the common mistake. See the little green box with LFO 5? clock that, set the rate to Sync 1 over 16, make sure the slider is set to the top, more curvy waveform, then start putting it in the first box of a few things. Try the intensity knob on the oscillator, try the phase in the modulation osc, just put it on a bunch of stuff, experiment. You can always remove it, so theres no harm in trying! I got this after a while, just by randomly putting things on the lfo...

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/543014/Stage%202.mp3

It's good, but it still sounds pretty weak. This is where the more intricate stuff comes in. Go to the voicing tab, turn up the unisono to 3 or 4, turn on the pitch but off and pan position, and move the sliders to the right a little each. Then on the far right of the plugin, turn on the internal EQ, play around with those settings, see what sounds you can create. Heck, try putting the lfo on the knobs and see what happens! You're trying to widen the sound and broaden the spectrum of it, make it more interesting. You can try some feedback, or on the insert effects the hardclip or sine shaper can be nice.

Now here comes the important part. At this stage, duplicate this channel, and put an EQ on the original, and cut out all the lows. Just remove everything below 100-150Hz, remove all the bass. I ended up with this:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/543014/Stage%203.mp3

Why remove the bass? Simply it removes muddiness, and lets you make something mroe pure and defined. But don't put just any old flat sub in there, thats boring and removes all movement from your bass. The key is to put a single wave, be it a sine or triangle, filtered saw, whatever, and modulate it the same way as the bass. So set up a sub, turn on the low pass filter, set up the LFO the same way as the other synth, 16th's, and put that on the cut off for the filter. The end result:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/543014/Stage%204.mp3

Sure it's not spot on, but thats the fun of recreating sounds. In trying to make it, you've made something unique, that has the same vibe, you've obviously taken inspiration from that sound, but you've made it your own in a sense.

[Artimeus]

http://howtomakeelectronicmusic.com/how ... -lead-bass

Check out this tutorial. It's not exactly what you are looking for, however, the concept of utilizing pitch bend envelopes as portrayed is very effective with other synths when created an interesting bassline. Also, distortion makes things sound so COOL.

[Dabrenn]

Thank you guys so much! I haven't had any time to test any of this out and it also has taken me awhile to get back to this site, been really really busy lately.

I need a lot more practice with massive, since, like I said, I have lots of trouble making sounds I want to make, so I'm sure that tutorial you linked, Artimeus, will help me out a ton, even if not with this particular project.

I'm sure I'll get it sounding like I wanted to, thanks again!