Hello I am relatively new to music making, I have been using Ableton and would like to know more about how to create more grimey bass lines, I have found countless grimey bass tutorials for reason on youtube but not very many for ableton?

So far I have been able to find okay bass messing around with operator, the woofer loving preset for analog and also using a machinedrumsquareC wave in simpler and messing around with automations and applying effects racks however I feel that I need to expand and I am not sure where to go first, should I get new vst's, is there a new ableton instrument I should explore?

Also I was wondering how to do a heavy sweeping bass that makes your heart drop on ableton?


thanks for your time

for grimey, try using some super low octave saw and square waves. apply distortion to the high end or filter out the low end and run a low octave sine wave to cover the sub freqs. C0 to C2 are your super low octaves.

get some vsts, they are fun!

would I use simpler to for all of the waves and if so where do I find these waves?

To make your own bass, you will usually use a synthesizer instead of a sampler.

I found this link on these forums today and got a new synth. If youre a pc user, youll get a few.

glitchhop-production/free-plugin-the-day-t953.html

To make a sweeping bass like you ask is pretty general. Record automation 1 knob at a time on your virtual instrument over a bass tone and the results are endless. Layer tones together, eq-ing them into different frequencies.

Try CamelPhat out - there is a demo on this website:

http://www.camelaudio.com/camelphat.php

It can do most of the dirtying tricks i've heard, all in one single VST - tons of filters, subtractive waveforms etc etc etc. Also has some generic "fattening" effects and filters, and a "Randomize" button in case you aren't feeling particularly creative.

Best of all, the UI is super easy to understand, and it's engineered to get things done FAST. Big time saver.

Also it's fairly cheap, @$85.

Downward pitch sweep automation on low notes...

Keep ur low end clean, filter everything that doesn't belong in a sub i.e. everthing but bass and kick. nothing worse than an ill bass line all mucked up in the low end.

Mess around with filter envelopes and modulation... sometimes pitch envelopes can be used for drop bass sounds... new vst's may be useful but they are by no means necessary at such an early stage of production... most of getting gnarly bass sounds is knowing how to layer your waveforms

First things first... use those reason tutorials for ableton, most of them use subtractor which is nearly identical to Ableton's analog... when they use a saw and lp filter in subtractor, just use the same things in ableton... boyinaband.com has some of the best genre specific tutorials I can find, but it's all for reason.. so I just used the ideas in ableton.

Also, that machinedrumsquareC sample... from the dubspot tutorial should be used for inspiration... Try using Operator to make some crazy sound (no automation, filter, lfo, or anything), don't worry about low end too much... just get a really gnarly texture, mess around with the oscillator routing and the ratios. Once you have what sounds like a good high end for a dubstep like bass... record what you made in operator to an audio clip... then throw that into simpler or sampler... you can create endless amounts of sounds this way... One thing though, is that when you create these different bass sounds in FM synths like operator, some of them will not have a heavy low end and therefore need to be layered with a low sine wave (i usually just use an Operator with a sine wave at 0.5 ratio)

you make them, with a synthesizer... or just play them straight out of a synthesizer... the only reason I mentioned using a simpler above is because of layering and cpu reasons, and it's nice to be able to create a bunch of bass timbres and save them... then just pull them out and layer them as you please (i keep my sound design and composition separate)... Though playing the bass lines directly from analog or operator will give you better sound quality. Whatever is easier for you

Mainly though, learn your synthesizers... you will be making nasty bass lines in no time

Best thing you can do - is just stick to ableton plugins for the time being. By limiting yourself, you'll learn more. You'll be amazed what an extra oscilator + detuning can do for movement + "distortion" of the original wave form. Also, a disharmonic oscillator in operator, using FM synthesis can create some very grimy sounds.