Experimental Bass Sound Design Explained
Sound design wiz Thomas Cochran delivers an Experimental Bass sound design video tutorial series! See how to make the sounds that define this popular electronic music genre, including ways they are used in EB productions. These videos are for electronic music sound designers who are looking for guidance on creating Experimental Bass sounds specifically.
Bass
• Noise Bass (09:32) - In this video, Thomas shows you how to layer simple waves with noise to create a heavy foundation bass patch. This video also shows how advanced distortion is used to give the bass more punch and aggression, but without compromising on low end frequencies.
• Sine Compression Bass (12:15) - Discover how compressing sine waves with noise can be used to create heavy bass-lines. The result is a bass that is heavily distorted yet clean sounding, which is great for layering with a variety of other patches.
• Heavy Reese (13:58) - Learn how to sculpt more complicated Reese baselines though the use of frequency splitting. This video will show how multiple instances of the same synth patch can be processed and layered together to create a more full sound.
Bass Fills
• Aggressive Modulated Bass (15:54) - See how to take a rather simple wavetable patch and transform it into a heavy aggressive bass though the use of bandpass filtering and heavy multiband compression. This patch also makes use of distortion automation in Serum to provide a growl effect.
• Textured Growl Bass (13:42) - Explore how noise can be used as an FM modulator on simple sine waves to create heavy textured growl basses. This bass also shows the importance of distortion as something that can bring body and resonance to your bass patches.
• Reese Stab (11:06) - In this video, Thomas shows how to take a simple Reese bass stab and apply multiband distortion to make it more punchy. This patch also shows how to take the multiband compressor in Serum and use it for frequency sculpting.
Melodic Elements
• 8-Bit Stab (11:22) - See how though the use of some creative wavetable automation, this lead patch re-creates a classic 8-bit arpeggio stab. Then though the use of heavy compression, Thomas shows how to make this sound punch though a drop creating the perfect lead which can be layered on top of any heavy bass line.
• Pluck Lead (08:56) - In this video, learn how to take a simple wavetable and transform it into a percussive pluck lead. This patch also makes use of reverb to give the lead an interesting pitch modulation effect.
• Arpeggio Lead (12:50) - Watch how to create a classic arpeggio lead, perfect for layering with drop sections to provide an additional melodic element over the top of heavy baselines. This patch also makes use of modulating the mirror modifier on the wavetables in Serum to create subtle phasing effect.
• Textured Chords (09:38) - Last but not least, see how to create a chord patch that can be used as a backing element for drops. This patch also shows how to use a delay effect to create a pitch modulation for the patch.