Let there be Bass

Studio Session 1

Today was our initial studio session for the Project "Silence" with group members Jordan Lamb (Amor), Sasha Bernardes and myself. It was an extremely productive session where we jammed for a good 2 hours each honing our sound. Jordan on the Arturia Drumbrute and myself on the Moog Sub 37. This session was so much fun and gave Sasha our graphic designer a good idea of the vibe we are trying to create and something to base the visuals to. The session went seamlessly and we even had a rough outline of a track finished by the end of the session.

To view our session plan click here.

BASS

My role for todays session was to create an evolving techno bass line. I did this using the Moog Sub 37 . This was really fun as not only have I never made techno before but I've never used an analogue synth in a production.

First step in creating a new sound is initialising the synth, this resets all patches and gives you a fresh starting point. Then we can move on to the glory.

It all starts with and Oscillator

For this bass line I chose oscillator between saw and square wave utilising 4 voices as in the picture below

The second oscillator was very similar however it uses 16 voices and was closer to a saw tooth (unfortunately the photo is missing)

The Moog has a sub function as well, which follows the path of the playing oscillator just one octave lower. These are the settings I used to layer up on top of each other to create the sound I was chasing. Please not there is a little feedback added and a hint of noise. (the lights are off at the moment as I build up the sound as the bass line progresses).

Then we move onto modulation there are 2 modulators on the sub 37.

As you can see Modulator 1 is using a Sawtooth source with a fast rate controlling both oscillators with the pitch knob which controls LFO 2 rate. Have a listen below to see how various changes sound.

The second modulator I set up to control simply the wave shape of Oscillator 2 using a triangle wave source and fast rate again. (Pitch and filter knobs used freely in live performance to create this bass).

I turned legato on to get a nice glide between notes, it only activated on oscillator 1 in legator mode to make it smooth.

I didn't use the arpeggiator and FX so both of these functions are disabled. The volume envelope is set as below with a fast attack, medium decay, long sustain and medium release to let the bass line breathe.

Main volume to the DAW is controlled by the main volume knob.

Lastly for performance I controlled the filter cut off, resonance and multi drive to knobs in a free way to create an awesome bass line. Check out an example below.

Conclusion

Studio session one was a complete success not only did we get a solid foundation for our track down and inspire our graphic designer. I also had the pleasure of getting to know the Moog Sub 37 and just how powerful it is.

Studio session 2 tomorrow vocal recording stay tuned.