> Step by step

3. Found sound basslines

1

We start by selecting a decent microphone that can handle high sound pressure levels. There are plenty of drum mics out there, but as top quality isn’t a priority we select our trusty Shure SM58 dynamic stage mic and send it to an input in our DAW. We locate ourselves in the kitchen for no other reason than that we have a good supply of things to hit and other things to hit them with there.

2

We select a wooden spoon and two medium-sized saucepans, and wrap a tea towel tightly around the spoon to ensure that the strike isn’t too harsh but still hard enough to elicit a good strong attack and reverberations. Then we engage record and start hitting the pans. We’re going for clean, reverberating textures, so we strike them in various places (see the Raw Files folder).

3

For each of the two pans, we record about 10-20 seconds of strikes. You’ll notice that how and where you hold the saucepan will affect the amount of reverberation. For maximum note lengths, try medium-strength hits in a tapping motion with the pan dangled loosely from two fingers (holding the handle). Note: it’s important to start a new recording for each object.

4

Next, we relocate to the bathroom and start bashing various things with a large bath loofah (dry, naturally). We try the bathtub, the towel radiator and the window. It’s always worth experimenting, as you simply won’t know what works until you slow it down. Finally, for good measure, we retrieve our wooden spoon and spank a medium-sized inflatable gym ball (see the Raw Files folder).

5

With all our recordings in place, we use Live’s Transpose to tune the recordings down until we find the optimum tone for each (this is why it helps to have them in separate recordings). Now we select our favourite strikes and note their ideal pitch settings. Some don’t sound that good, so we simply discard them (this kind of procedure is all about trial and error).

6

Live’s clip pitch control, as good as it is, can sometimes damage the sound quality, but it doesn’t alter the timing and envelopes. We now load our chosen samples into a sampler and tune them there. This potentially alters their length and envelope, so with our optimum tuning set for each sample, we might decide to re-bounce these audio files with the tuning – although in this case, we don’t.

7

Time to play some bass with our chosen samples. Our original bass riff leaves plenty of space, so we can just play some riffs into our existing project. Using a single sampled sound, you won’t be able to play a riff up or down by more than a few semitones before it loses quality and weight, so try to keep things within that range.

8

After experimenting with a few riffs, we select our favourite. Depending on the range of your riff, the sound quality/envelope could start to break down as it reaches the top or bottom of the note range. If that’s the case, you can go back to your original sample and tune it closer to the difficult notes, or create a multisample patch.

9

With our riff working well, it’s time to add some final tweaks. You may need to tweak the envelope Decay and Sustain a little to maximise punch, and the Release to keep things tight. As we’ve mentioned, sampled notes will increase and decrease in length, making things sound a little loose, so we pull in the Release and tweak the MIDI note lengths.

10

The final touch is the application of compression and reverb. We want a fairly long Attack and short Release to make the hits sufficiently punchy. For the reverb (applied as an insert), we keep things fairly dry, so as not to swamp the mix. For the same reason, we apply a low-cut filter to the reverb signal – rolling off the top end ensures that the hits stay defined. (Audio: Pot riff)