Can't get this bass right.

crimsonhawk47 said:
I really like doing these experimental tracks, but I can never get this bass sounding right.

The bass I'm going for is akin to Dpat's in bloom album. Or a lot of songs from sango.

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how about a link? people are more likely to help if you point them in the right direction. also what is it that you want the bass to do? fade out, fade in, sidechain, wobble, what? we need specifics.
 
Maybe my problem is more I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I would think I'd want a bass like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4vLEBxIo4

But maybe people hear the coronus bass and think it won't work in this other context. I'm not at all partial to the kick and I've been changing the sample a bunch to make it work.

The bass I'm using is just a sine wave run through guitar rig, because I wanted something subby. To me, coronus sounds like they are playing a real guitar over a sub bass.

Here's another

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyhrUnj-BKQ

Now here's something strange: As I pulled up Over, coronus was still playing, so they both started playing at the same time, and they have almost the exact same sounding kick.

I'll add more examples after an appointment.
 
to be honest with you there is nothing wrong with what you've made. your kick and bass both sound clean and fat. hell fatter than lotus'. no where near as soulful as what flying lotus produced but that's because he has a really eerie, yet strong musical background. my suggestion is this. take what you can from his style, ask yourself what do you want, identify what you hear, and re-engineer it.

side note. that guy is awesome though like seriously. imagine if he and outkast got together. MAGIC. dpat I have never heard of but its similar to lotus' style in a great way.
 
Well maybe there's something else I'm hearing. Any critiques of this track? I feel like I'm missing lotus's bounce. That bass just explodes. It definitely sounds like he sidechain compresses a lot of his stuff.

Ya, lotus is the shit. I'm definitely not trying to compete. I wouldn't be surprised if he and outkast did something. he's all over kendricks new album too. And if you like lotus you'd probably like dpat, atu, Sango, pretty much anyone on the soulection Label. It's basically r&b with hip hop Influences.
 
crimsonhawk47 said:
Well maybe there's something else I'm hearing. Any critiques of this track? I feel like I'm missing lotus's bounce. That bass just explodes. It definitely sounds like he sidechain compresses a lot of his stuff.

Ya, lotus is the shit. I'm definitely not trying to compete. I wouldn't be surprised if he and outkast did something. he's all over kendricks new album too. And if you like lotus you'd probably like dpat, atu, Sango, pretty much anyone on the soulection Label. It's basically r&b with hip hop Influences.
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the trick is to listen to the subtleties. that's usually the underlying sounds that people never hear that totally make the record what it is. I'd go with that.

I hear you yeah. I'm hearing a lot of jazz from them to. that's that cali and southern mixture. soulection. clever name lol.
 
Lotus is definitely one of those guys that I listen to and truly wouldn't even know where to begin remaking it, and part of it is the jazz theory but the other part is all of those subtleties. Before the beat even starts on coronus there's a lot going on.

I just sort of feel like mine is underwhelming. When the kick hits it sounds weak, and I tried a lot of samples
 
The subs are way too high in this one. Some notes are really more noticeable than others.

Split your bass into layers, use a layer of just the sub itself (100Hz and below I suppose, you should listen to it),
and send both layers to a group (bass group - the final sound).

Adjust the sub using the volume fader and then compress the group, to make the layers sound like one instrument (that's our purpose they really are one instrument).

You can even create a new layer with just the mids and saturate them a lot.
The track would sound like s***t by itself, but just a couple of dbs in the mix, would give some harmonics to the sound.

So in fact, you'll trick the listener that the bass is louder in volume but it won't.
The harmonics will just help it cut through.

Hope this helps
 
Aw by the way, is your bass in mono? If your VSTi has stereo outputs , it's not wise to use your bass in stereo.

Make it mono, and if you want add effects like chorus on bass (only the mids part not the lows), then you'll be able to do it.
But only because you want it and not because the VSTi is forcing you to have it in stereo.

Creating a Mono track and using the vsti there, no matter if it's stereo or not, would convert the sound in mono, that should be enough.

Cheers
 
crimsonhawk47 said:
Lotus is definitely one of those guys that I listen to and truly wouldn't even know where to begin remaking it, and part of it is the jazz theory but the other part is all of those subtleties. Before the beat even starts on coronus there's a lot going on.

I just sort of feel like mine is underwhelming. When the kick hits it sounds weak, and I tried a lot of samples
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I think your lack of knowing a good sample versus a bad one is affecting your better judgment. Your mixes sound fine as well as your kicks. Its all on your head. When I 1st started out I didn't know a good sample from a bad one. Now not only can I tell the two apart I can even make bad sound good.

So again your kicks are fine. They stand out, they punch through the mix, your bass is in mono. You're good. Just need to make catchy rhythms to go along with them.
 
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ill usually eq alot high freqs off the bass and then i boost bass freq just a littlebit and mix it lower volume than my other instruments, but everyone has own taste so its hard to say for sure. track was good i enjoyed it alot, keep it up :)
 
acetheface954 said:
I think your lack of knowing a good sample versus a bad one is affecting your better judgment. Your mixes sound fine as well as your kicks. Its all on your head. When I 1st started out I didn't know a good sample from a bad one. Now not only can I tell the two apart I can even make bad sound good.

So again your kicks are fine. They stand out, they punch through the mix, your bass is in mono. You're good. Just need to make catchy rhythms to go along with them.
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My problem isn't the kick isn't coming through, it just still sounds weak to me. I wasn't going for a super chill track, it's just how it turned out. I wanted really heavy drums and I've been looking through all of battery for them but in the context of the song they just dont sound heavy. I've tried kicks with pretty much no low mid information, I've tried subby kicks in case that for some reason worked, but usually I'm looking for punchy kicks with a strong low mid that doesn't go too low.
 
crimsonhawk47 said:
Found another song that shows what I'm going for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-AjkGX7Ys

Probably also produced by lotus too.
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the link doesn't work. you said the kick sounds "weak" to you. this sounds more like a preferable issue. sound wise it sounded fine to me and I've been learning since 2010.


so how heavy did you want the drums? low end sitting at 30-40hz with some of the mids reduced to let the rest of the mix sit on top? or maybe did you want a kick drum that sits in the low end with a thick density or sit in the same spectral range and sound a bit hollow?
 
Well that's the thing. The kick hits with the bass so Idc if it doesnt have a lot of low end, but it can still sound powerful when paired with the bass. Or at least so I thought. Yeah, I've been learning since 2010 too oddly enough.

They literally took that song down today haha. That's unfortunate...

I think the reason it sounds fine is because it's a real soft beat right now, and that wasn't really what I was going for with the drums. I wasn't going for super explosive drums and bass but I was going for something heavy handed. Let me see if I can find more examples.
 
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