FOKI26
11-10-2004, 12:41 PM
Spent the weekend trying the 808 kick technique, and have to say it's improved my bass sound by 100%...
All I did was;
loaded up an 808 kick drum, set it to loop with very short loop points (I think there were only 2 cycles of the waveform, and was looped from just after the initial thump of hit). The sample was then mapped to play across the whole range of my keyboard (so the low notes played lower in pitch...duh !!!), and set it to play monophonic (1 note at a time)
Put a Low pass filter on it with a steep curve (12db), slight bit of resonance boost (not too much), and brought the cut-off down somewhere between low and the mid position to start with
Using a 1 band EQ, I gave a slight boost of approx +4db at around 80Hz
LFO attached to and modulating the following;
-Filter C/Off (Mod amount about 4, on a range of 0-127)
-Pitch (Mod Amount 2, or 3)
-Amp/Level (Mod Amount 5, or 6)
Amp and filter envelopes (more or less the same settings, with slight variation);
-Attack 97 (range 0-127….127 being full attack)
-Decay 25 (Quite a long decay time)
-Sustain 100-105 (So the level only drops slightly but over a long period of time due to the long decay time)
- Release 100 (Quite a fast release, but not too fast as this then gives a smooth fade/end to the sound, rather than a sharp cut out which sometimes I find causes clicks).
Pitch envelope
The pitch envelope is given a range of +19 semitones
-Initial level is 127 (and therefore + 19 semitones above the note I’m playing)
-Attack approx with a setting of around 100 (so it drops in pitch quite fast)
The sustain and decay are all at 0 (for both the rate and level, so the pitch is held at the level it drops to)
-Release level 105 (ish) – Not sure if this is right, but I set the pitch to slide back up to the full initial level quite quickly (127). On my sampler this helps the envelope to retrigger smoother as it doesn’t have to jump from one end of the pitch scale to the other.
The pitch change on the end of the note wasn’t audible tho.
Portamento/Slide – Depends what you want here, but I found a fairly short slide time worked better and sounded more natural for the tune I was working on, so set this how you want.
Think that was about it in the sampler…. Sent the signal to a mono channel on my desk (well 2 actually to fatten up the sound), red lined the signal going into the desk slightly to warm the whole thing up, and added my compressor as an insert on the desk, set a fairly fast attack time (not too fast tho, as the initial thump of the sound came through quite nicely with a few tweaks) and a mid-to fast release time.
The signal going INTO the compressor was slightly clipping on ‘most notes’ and after bringing the threshold down I had the output signal peaking just below 0 db. This was then turned down slightly on the desk (just so it sat a little quieter in the mix than the drums).
I also used a tube emulator (in my compressor) to give a colder sound to the bass sound (warming it up didn’t really work for me, or my tune as I found the sound to be a it too warm and thick already) and that made it all seem to come through a bit cleaner.
After that I just gave the filter cut-off a tweak or 2, to make the overall sound sit better with ‘my’ mix, and on my desk gave a bit of a cut somewhere around the 1.2 Khz range. This helped to thin out the boominess (is that a real word ?) of the bass and made it a more controlled, cleaner and direct sound.
And that’s about it… thought I’d share that with you all…It’s by no means perfect but it’s a good starting point considering most tips on the net are usually useless, and far from specific.
Obviously my gear is probs different to yours, and the envelopes could be faster (or slower) on my sampler than yours, so you’ll have to experiment a bit to get the right sound. Also the samples you use will obviously make all the difference.
Hope this helps….(soz it’s so long winded also….but can’t believe I remembered all that on a Monday morning at work with a hangover either…wooo hoo !)
Xafoki.
All I did was;
loaded up an 808 kick drum, set it to loop with very short loop points (I think there were only 2 cycles of the waveform, and was looped from just after the initial thump of hit). The sample was then mapped to play across the whole range of my keyboard (so the low notes played lower in pitch...duh !!!), and set it to play monophonic (1 note at a time)
Put a Low pass filter on it with a steep curve (12db), slight bit of resonance boost (not too much), and brought the cut-off down somewhere between low and the mid position to start with
Using a 1 band EQ, I gave a slight boost of approx +4db at around 80Hz
LFO attached to and modulating the following;
-Filter C/Off (Mod amount about 4, on a range of 0-127)
-Pitch (Mod Amount 2, or 3)
-Amp/Level (Mod Amount 5, or 6)
Amp and filter envelopes (more or less the same settings, with slight variation);
-Attack 97 (range 0-127….127 being full attack)
-Decay 25 (Quite a long decay time)
-Sustain 100-105 (So the level only drops slightly but over a long period of time due to the long decay time)
- Release 100 (Quite a fast release, but not too fast as this then gives a smooth fade/end to the sound, rather than a sharp cut out which sometimes I find causes clicks).
Pitch envelope
The pitch envelope is given a range of +19 semitones
-Initial level is 127 (and therefore + 19 semitones above the note I’m playing)
-Attack approx with a setting of around 100 (so it drops in pitch quite fast)
The sustain and decay are all at 0 (for both the rate and level, so the pitch is held at the level it drops to)
-Release level 105 (ish) – Not sure if this is right, but I set the pitch to slide back up to the full initial level quite quickly (127). On my sampler this helps the envelope to retrigger smoother as it doesn’t have to jump from one end of the pitch scale to the other.
The pitch change on the end of the note wasn’t audible tho.
Portamento/Slide – Depends what you want here, but I found a fairly short slide time worked better and sounded more natural for the tune I was working on, so set this how you want.
Think that was about it in the sampler…. Sent the signal to a mono channel on my desk (well 2 actually to fatten up the sound), red lined the signal going into the desk slightly to warm the whole thing up, and added my compressor as an insert on the desk, set a fairly fast attack time (not too fast tho, as the initial thump of the sound came through quite nicely with a few tweaks) and a mid-to fast release time.
The signal going INTO the compressor was slightly clipping on ‘most notes’ and after bringing the threshold down I had the output signal peaking just below 0 db. This was then turned down slightly on the desk (just so it sat a little quieter in the mix than the drums).
I also used a tube emulator (in my compressor) to give a colder sound to the bass sound (warming it up didn’t really work for me, or my tune as I found the sound to be a it too warm and thick already) and that made it all seem to come through a bit cleaner.
After that I just gave the filter cut-off a tweak or 2, to make the overall sound sit better with ‘my’ mix, and on my desk gave a bit of a cut somewhere around the 1.2 Khz range. This helped to thin out the boominess (is that a real word ?) of the bass and made it a more controlled, cleaner and direct sound.
And that’s about it… thought I’d share that with you all…It’s by no means perfect but it’s a good starting point considering most tips on the net are usually useless, and far from specific.
Obviously my gear is probs different to yours, and the envelopes could be faster (or slower) on my sampler than yours, so you’ll have to experiment a bit to get the right sound. Also the samples you use will obviously make all the difference.
Hope this helps….(soz it’s so long winded also….but can’t believe I remembered all that on a Monday morning at work with a hangover either…wooo hoo !)
Xafoki.