Any tips for dubstep/glitch hop?
- Thread starter Jiwan
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scrapheaper
Moderator
Although there are of course an infinite number of ways of making bass, here are two commonly used and distinct methods which each give a variety of different sounding results:
1. FM bass (skrillex, zomboy etc)
Technically not FM, I believe, actually made using phase distortion modulation, which is different but related.
Get a sine wave, modulate by many other sine or triangle waves in different routing patterns. Make one of the sines very high pitched (4 octaves up or more).
You will need an FM synth, FM8, sytrus etc. I don't actually own one of these, I've been getting by using synthmaster but it's a bit limiting.
2. Reece bass (KOAN sound, noisia etc)
Take some saw waves and detune them.
Then mess them up using FX (different kinds of distortion, chorus are the most common ones). Then filter them (automated EQ notches or bandpass) and compress them (multiband compression too). Repeat as many times as you feel is necessary: 3 or 4 times isn't unheard of, but you don't always have to go that far.
Also, for glitchy sound, record out a long section of bass with loads of different kinds of automation in it, then chop it up into pieces and try and make a nice riff out of the pieces.
That the kinda thing you're looking for?
1. FM bass (skrillex, zomboy etc)
Technically not FM, I believe, actually made using phase distortion modulation, which is different but related.
Get a sine wave, modulate by many other sine or triangle waves in different routing patterns. Make one of the sines very high pitched (4 octaves up or more).
You will need an FM synth, FM8, sytrus etc. I don't actually own one of these, I've been getting by using synthmaster but it's a bit limiting.
2. Reece bass (KOAN sound, noisia etc)
Take some saw waves and detune them.
Then mess them up using FX (different kinds of distortion, chorus are the most common ones). Then filter them (automated EQ notches or bandpass) and compress them (multiband compression too). Repeat as many times as you feel is necessary: 3 or 4 times isn't unheard of, but you don't always have to go that far.
Also, for glitchy sound, record out a long section of bass with loads of different kinds of automation in it, then chop it up into pieces and try and make a nice riff out of the pieces.
That the kinda thing you're looking for?
Last edited:
Ddream
New member
.
You can make a reece bass out of two detuned saw waves, but you can also use other wave types to achieve similar results.
For the FX part, I think the best way is to take the input signal and split it into at least three bands (low, mid, highs), and applying maybe a few saturation to the lows, and use chorus, reverb, phasing and any other FX on the mids and highs. Then you compress it, render to wav, reload it into project and repeat the steps (resampling). You can do this as many ways as you want/feel necessary. There are people who resample just once, and I heard of people resampling like 15 times. It's your call.
Keep in mind that all FX applied to a reece bass need to be subtle (specially when you're resampling) as things get nasty real quick with these kind of bass.
Also, reeces need movement: automated filters (notch, bandpass), specially when you are'nt using saw waves to make the bass sound.
Search for Black Sun Empire's tutorial on their youtube channel (you have two of them, one for dnb drums, and the other for reece and pluck basses), and SeamlessR channel as well (he uses FL Studio and Harmor).
scrapheaper
Moderator
Skrillex uses full time drums and most people consider him to be a dubstep artist. Whenever people say dubstep I mentally translate that into 'any kind of bass focussed music' cause the boundaries between bassmusic are pretty much non-existant these days.
Ddream
New member
From what i've been listening recently, those "dubstep" artists are doing mainly two things: 132bpm "dubstep", so they can slide into electro-house anytime they want; or 174+ bpm "drumstep", which people think it's dubstep, but it's more a sub-genre of dnb.
I don't agree with you on "bass music boundaries are much non-existant". You can still point differences between dubstep, dnb, garage, etc. Of course, cross-genre songs are much more common now.
scrapheaper
Moderator
The only difference between a dubstep, electro house and drumstep/dnb is really the drum pattern. I don't think that counts, really- especially when skrillex and similar can switch drum pattern halfway through a song.
Ddream
New member
I can't tell the difference between Skrillex's electro house songs to Avicii songs for example. But I can tell the difference between Skrillex "dubstep" songs to Noisia's "dubstep" songs. That's what I wanted to say.