Trance Bassline Pattern

[SimonT]

Hi Everyone!

Tryna figure out what pattern this bassline is. It can be really hard to hear it properly with other elements masking it, and other effects going on etc. This song is 136bpm and is trance, as you might have guessed from the thread title.

Here is the song:-

Akira Kayosa & Hugh Tolland feat Stine Grove - Always With You (Lee Canning Remix) - YouTube

Anyway, it's a G# or Ab bass note, and I thought at first it might be the classic 123 123 trance bass line like this:-



Then I thought it might be this:-



But now I think it's this:-



It's so confusing. I sort of think it's a continuous 1 gap 1 gap 1 gap bass line some listens, and another listen, thought it was the same as the first pic I attached, but with 2 bass notes instead of 3. I think there's some effects on it too. Probably reverb, would you say so? I know this is used a lot in trance. 5-7 second reverbs on a lot of the instruments. Also, aside from this, what type of sound would people call the sound (I described it as a computer glitch noise) that's heard at 6 seconds?

Thanks!

 

[Wallengard]

Here's how I did it. This bassline is however layered in at least 3 parts. You have the main groove that goes like I did it here, and then there's an offbeat bass underneath that, and a delayed one on top of it all. So it's not just one bassline.



Alternatively it could look like this; (i'm not sure if those middle parts are a part of the delay or not, but this produces a similar result)



The type of computer glitched sound you are talking about is in this case called bitcrushed. If you have this effect on your vst instruments or even a standalone plugin (i'm not familiar with your DAW) it's very easily replicated.

Do note that this bassline does play an octave apart, and either the velocity is somewhat similar to what I did and/or sidechain has been used.

EDIT;

about that sound, I thought you were talking about the effect that has been applied to the bassline first. I'm not sure what to call that other "glitchy" sound.

 

[SimonT]

Thanks Wallengard. Very interesting. Never thought about 2 basslines before. You must have very good hearing to pick that out. So you say that the basslines are not an octave apart? so you just showed me the 2 basslines on the same midi editor clip an octave apart, just to show me? I had whatever bassline I heard down as G#1. You have the lower one at G#2.

No the computer glitched sound is nothing to do with the bassline. So it is bitcrush, brilliant. Will have to look into this. Don't think Reason has this, but might be wrong. You might be able to do achieve something with the Scream 4 distortion unit, that has many different things along those lines-ish, maybe.

Incidentally, 3 things, 1) what version of Cubase you using? 2) do you recommend it for edm? I could get Cubase perhaps, if it's worth it, and Rewire Reason into it also.
3) What kind of music do you make?

Haven't tried the bassline you showed yet btw, as got to nip out. Will get onto it in an hour and get back to me. Please get back to me in the meantime if you get this.

Thanks!

 

[SimonT]

Is this something like Wellengard? I copied the 2nd one you did.

 

[mitchiemasha]

Splitting the bass line this way (an octave up/down) is pretty much the standard procedure in Trance music. We call them rollers, might not be actual term.

 

[SimonT]

Splitting the bass line this way (an octave up/down) is pretty much the standard procedure in Trance music. We call them rollers, might not be actual term.

Oh yeah thanks for the info mitchiemasha. All welcome. I have used basslines with 2 octaves actually in ravey tracks. I forgot. Rollers? why are they called that?

 

[mitchiemasha]

I have no idea... They might not even be... Just we do!!! I suppose because taking it to the basics level, they roll as apposed to an alternative, the off beat Stab. Roller being short for Rolling bass line.

I'm just getting back into Trance production. Taking a project on with an old friend who's just got back into making music after about 10 years out. He wanted to go down the Trance route so that we are.

 

[Wallengard]

Is this something like Wellengard? I copied the 2nd one you did.

View attachment 42591

Thanks Wallengard. Very interesting. Never thought about 2 basslines before. You must have very good hearing to pick that out. So you say that the basslines are not an octave apart? so you just showed me the 2 basslines on the same midi editor clip an octave apart, just to show me? I had whatever bassline I heard down as G#1. You have the lower one at G#2.

No the computer glitched sound is nothing to do with the bassline. So it is bitcrush, brilliant. Will have to look into this. Don't think Reason has this, but might be wrong. You might be able to do achieve something with the Scream 4 distortion unit, that has many different things along those lines-ish, maybe.

Incidentally, 3 things, 1) what version of Cubase you using? 2) do you recommend it for edm? I could get Cubase perhaps, if it's worth it, and Rewire Reason into it also.
3) What kind of music do you make?

Haven't tried the bassline you showed yet btw, as got to nip out. Will get onto it in an hour and get back to me. Please get back to me in the meantime if you get this.

Thanks!

No I'm saying that it is playing an octave apart. Don't worry about the higher octave on my midi clips, my bass sound was just transposed in the instrument lower than yours.

Yes the effect applied to one of those basslines is definitely a bitcrushed sound, but I have no idea about what to call that other sound.

I use Cubase 7 Elements, I don't know if I should recommend it to you or not, because I have no idea what kind of things you need and what you want. You can make any music in Cubase.

I make what you hear on my soundcloud page, and some more.

Also yeah, that looks to be the right pattern.

Splitting the bass line this way (an octave up/down) is pretty much the standard procedure in Trance music. We call them rollers, might not be actual term.

It's a very common pattern indeed.

 

[SimonT]

Thanks for all your comments guys.

Yes, you can do bitcrushing on Reason, using (as I suspected) the Scream 4 Distortion Unit. There are 19 patches under Bitcrushing in Reason 6.5. On the unit itself though, there are 2 parameters on there called P1 and P2. They adjust various parts of the sound, depending on the damage type the unit is set to. There are 10 damage types on it:- Overdrive, Distortion, Fuzz, Tube, Tape, Feedback, Modulation, Warp, Digital and Scream. If you have it set to digital, then P1 alters the bit resolution, and P2 alters the sample rate. It says, for the digital setting, that if I turn P1 all the way to the left (or down), then the bit resolution is 1 bit, all the way to the right (or up) there is no bit reduction at all. P1 goes from (I presume ratio) - 1:0 up to 1:127. Just a little insight for any Reason users there that may be reading.

Anyway, with what I've described there, to anyone that might give me a bit of insight into bitcrushing (as regards the track I mentioned above), I presume that by adding the Scream 4 to my sound, selecting Digital, then altering P1, that will be bitcrushing?w
And what would your educated guess be for how I could achieve it with this unit, and what would be being bitcrushed, what sound or instrument?

Thanks!

EDIT - I've just messed around with a basic sawtooth wave on a subtractive synth, and added Scream 4 on digital setting, and it seems to get closer to the sound off this track when I moved the sample rate P2 knob. Unless the bit resonance is all the way down (to the left) then it did a bit. Is the sound non tonal? cause it sort of sounds like there might be 2 sounds together on the high pitched bit crush sound (the sound at just under 7 seconds. There's a less high pitched one at 6 seconds and the other (is what I'm focusing on atm at just under 7 seconds). There's a very slight, and I mean slight bit of echo on it too, and these sounds sound far into the distance in the mix.

 

[SimonT]

Also Wallengard, back to the bass line. Where did you pick it out best, I find I can't really depict it till about 10 seconds in and even then I find it hard to hear what you hear. Very well heard.

 

[Wallengard]

I can't help you at this moment with your sound imitations, as I am going on a little trip today.

It was fairly easy picking it up, I did it in the intro, where I also started hearing the third top layer coming in, and after the intro you can clearly hear them putting in a more lowpass bass underneath it all.

I guess when you have made trance for such a long time yourself, and you are familiar with how things sound and the way things have been made, these kind of things get easier and easier to hear.