Lavender asking for sound design help? What is this madness?

[Lavender_Harmony]

The main bass sound. It's a legacy sound from the days of breakbeat, and my repeated attempts to recreate it have failed, I wonder if you peeps have an insight? I'm not looking for an approximation, because it's a sound which is highly used, there must be a method... >.<

[prettiestPony]

The one we hear from the very start? Well, you probably already know this, but it's surely from a genuine electric bass rather than a synth. So it's down to some combination of distortion/overdrive/saturation and flanging, couple with the unique characteristics of that particular bass.

Or so I'd think. Do you have any other examples of the sound we could hear for comparison?

(Also: awww, I feel nostalgic now. Big beat / breakbeat was totally my favorite EDM genre in high school.)

[Lavender_Harmony]

No, after the vocal where the actual synth kicks in.

[Orange]

Before I read your latest comment:
Regardless of it was made by a bass or a synth, it's elements are rather simplistic.

There is a clear noise at the start (be it white noise or a pick-against-strings), which is easily replicated with a sharp white noise spike at the start of the noise, which quickly dies away.
Following that, is a near-sine-wave sound, with a few (though very little) harmonics. This is easily replicated with a low-pass filter, triangle wave, or sine wave.

Now, from a synth design perspective, this would be, in my opinion, considered to be 2 separate synths. The one stated above in constantly playing the riff, while a second synth comes in (in this case every time a G is played)

This synth is also rather simple, it has a slowish amplitude envelope, giving it a fade-in, or 'reversed' feel too it.
It has lots of harmonics. I don't know how else to say it, but I replicated it well with the use of the formant filters built into Massive.

From what I can tell, past that, there are lots of other effects going on with it that give it the vintage, space-age feel. Aaand this isn't... what.. derr
After I read it:
Awesome. Let's start over =D

This sounds a lot like a 303 bassline. I can hear a few layers to it, so let's dissect it!

There is a very clear white noise that is constantly playing in rhythm of the bass. It's also rather loud.. hmph.

We can hear a clear, constant bass sound coming from it, with a nice amount of harmonics. It doesn't seem have very much low end as the average bass, quickly guessing, they probably shaved off the bottom end a bit. This may or may not be correct. Try replicating this bass tone best you can.

And there is a second, much higher, 'resonant' tone too it. I can't tell for sure if it's a synth or some sort of resonance, and since I'm short on time I'll just have to leave it at this. Try listening for all the different layers of the sound, and try to replicate each layer one at a time. If it isn't a preset somewhere on a 303, or similar synth, then the best advice I could give is here. Sorry I can't go more in-depth, PM me if you'd like me to try to pick it apart more tomorrow.

Edit: Real quickly, I listened to it once more, and it certainly has a low pass filter moving on and off it over time, and the automation of that is what gives it a lot of life.

[Lavender_Harmony]

I'm not too sure about the low pass filter, but what I an deduce is that the filter does move with the velocity, which is how the top resonance changes tone, or note, how the harmonics are changing.

I know the top end of the sound also has a room reverb on it to give it more presence. I'm just struggling, maybe because I've been ill haha.

[Applejinx]

It sounds kind of like my xoxbox (a 303 clone) if you distort the CRAP out of it

[Peak Freak]

Sounds like Sync waves for me (see Massive: Pulse-Saw Sync): Put an envelope on the sync rate, so the sync rate gets from high to low in a short time after you pressed the key. For a little longer tones you then get the right pitch tones, for the very short percussive tones, you get that noisy percussive feeling, because the sync rate is still very high.

[Peak Freak]

I made a little basement sound in Massive, how I suppose it works. You can look, if this is what you search for, the sound is very raw and unfinished.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7493638/Matrixtest.nmsv

[Freewave]

Well due to the age of this track how THEY made it was likely done with a real 303 as everybody was using that in big beat at the time (and those were actively hunted down by these bands and collectors as those weren't new equiptment and highly sought after). Keep in mind that a lot of sounds bands were using actual sampled breakbeats (likely with some compression and distortion). Although it might not be directly relevant for what you are looking for help on this project I will pass along this youtube tutorial and how re-enact a faithful recreation Prodigy-Smack my BFF Up and Voodoo People as it's pretty fascinating and informative. As I stated a lot of the sounds used are treated samples.There's also some info on how they got the acid 303 made in these tracks too.




Nice to see Lunatic Calm having so much interest all of a sudden. While that track was definitely popular thanks to the Matrix appearance that hard big beat was mostly overshadowed by some of the funkier big beat stuff for a lot of people (minus The Prodigy who was huge and hard).

[phaux]

Bump. I'm interested too, because <3 big beat.

[Lavender_Harmony]

Ever since watching the Blade films my love of Breakbeat and Big beat has suddenly gone whoosh, and with the insane oversaturation of bass music, I think going back to roots and adapting new ideas to the genre is a good direction to take. Also hat Prodigy video literally blew m mind. I know about all the samples, but the way they were processed, and aligned in so perfectly was astounding.

[phaux]

http://soundcloud.com/phauxx/big-beat
Hurr I tried. Can share FLP if anyone is interested.

Edit: I removed low frequencies before distortion and it sounds really nice now.

I think going back to roots and adapting new ideas to the genre is a good direction to take.

I just got the same idea! That previous thread about breakbeats inspired me.