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Blue Monday bass

1

It’s fitting that a single that would shape the future of music would be made with an instrument that could charitably be referred to as “space age” in appearance! Moog’s The Source was a garish delight in silver, orange and blue. Luckily, it sounded better than it looked. We’ll be using u-he’s BazilleCM to recreate this legendary bass sound.

2

First, we’ll disconnect Osc 1’s Output cable from Out 1, and insert it instead into the top-left Filter Input. We’ll patch Osc 2’s Output to the other Filter Input. The Filter’s LP24 Output will now go to the Out 1 jack previously occupied by Osc 1. Next, we’ll route a cable from Env 2’s Output to the Filter’s lower-left Input.

3

Go to the FX: Delay section and deactivate the delay effect. Let’s start shaping the sound. Set Osc 1’s Modify knob to -2.00 and Osc 1’s Modify knob to 2.00. Find Osc 2’s Waveform menu (it says Saw) and turn the knob above it fully clockwise. Now, nudge Osc 1’s Phase knob up to around 9.00.

4

Our sound is pretty burly at this point, but lacks any sort of shape. Go to Env 1 (it controls the amplitude). Set the Decay and Sustain sliders fully up. Set Release to about 23.00. Now let’s go to the Filter. We’ll set the Cutoff knob to around 42.00. Our sound is now all but inaudible. Don’t panic! That’s where Env 2 comes in.

5

To get Env 2 in on the action, we’ll need to shove the Filter’s lower-left knob up to a value of around 96. This is the knob controlling the amount of modulation coming from Env 2. While we’re in the Filter, we’ll nudge the Res knob up to about 26.00 for some of the ‘squelch’ we hear in the original patch.

6

The sound still isn’t quite there – we need to see to Env 2. The Attack is OK at nil. The Decay should be pushed up to about 22.00. The Sustain slider should be set to around 33.00, and the Release should be at around 29.00. This gives us a close approximation of New Order’s Moog patch, but feel free to tweak it further!