SYNTH MASTERCLASS
How to get punchier bass
As anyone making commercial music will cite, using the perfect set of basic sounds can make or break a track. This begins with the essential components of bass and drums, but getting your bass sound to punch through a mix can be a real challenge – and indeed sit well with the kick – especially when the whole mix may be reproduced on eversmaller devices that lack the ability to play low frequencies sufficiently. In this tutorial, then, we will take a close look at how to get a synth bass sound to rumble at the bottom end, while providing plenty of top-end colour, to keep the iPhone generation happy.
Vintage synthesiser hardware is still very much a weapon in the armoury of the commercial producer, with the classic MiniMoog synthesiser, and it’s later affiliated clones or reproductions, continuing to be highly regarded. Beyond this American classic, the 80s-based Japanese machines from Roland continue to provide a stylish sonic sound-set and hierarchy, which we can look to imitate in software form. This will be our sonic template for creating a punchy bass patch from scratch. We’ll employ a sub-oscillator to provide the bottom end, and an envelope controlled filter for some added bite and crispness, as we go all 101 with Zebra CM.
This new synth series is designed to show you some useful production techniques employing the free synths in the suite of plugins we give you each month at FileSilo. Download them now from filesilo.co.uk.