> Step by step

7. Fusion bass with Logic’s Retro Synth

1 Herbie Hancock defined the sound of fusion with the squelchy ARP Odyssey bass that opens his 1973 classic Chameleon. While it might seem obvious to use a dedicated Odyssey clone to recreate this classic sound, we’re going to use Logic’s built-in Retro Synth, just to demonstrate that many sounds can be achieved on just about any well-appointed synth.

2 Retro Synth’s default sound is none too exciting, but believe it or not, the famous flatulent bass on Hancock’s crossover hit is not much more complex, with only a single oscillator in play. Let’s slide the Mix fader all the way down so that only Osc 2 is being heard. Next, we’ll reduce the Semitones knob value to -12 s.

3 Now to the Filter section. We’re not sure which of the many Odyssey filter variations was present on Herbie’s Oddy, but we’re going to dial in the LP 12dB filter for our patch. We’ll use our mouse in the display, clicking and dragging on the dot. We’ll drag to the left until the Cutoff value reaches 0.18, and we’ll drag up until the Resonance says 0.82.

4 As you can hear, the sound is already nearly there. Our filter’s Cutoff frequency is lowered but is, by default, being modulated by the Filter Envelope, giving it some motion. Our high Resonance setting is providing the necessary squelch. We can add a little more oomph by pushing up the Sine Level in the Amp section.

5 Though we’re almost there, we can tweak some details to bring our patch closer in line with the original Odyssey’s architecture. Take for instance the envelopes: Retro Synth has two four-stage ADSR envelopes, while the Oddy offered a single four-stage, with an additional twostage. Let’s crank the Sustain on our Amp Env to better mimic this behaviour.

6 Nudge the Amp Env’s Attack forward to around 2.90ms for a hint of a swell at note start. Now to the Filter Envelope, where our Attack should be set to 0.00, the Decay to 300ms and the Sustain to 0.64. We’ll set the Release to 1.00ms. This causes the filter to clamp down during each note for the perfect funky flavour.