Tutorial Request: Modern Progressive Basslines

[projektwelve]

Hello Future Producers, I joined this forum because for the longest time now I haven't been able to find specific tutorials to put together the type of baselines that many progressive house/trance artists like Tritonal and Norin&Rad are using in their tracks. I'm having the hardest time putting something together, arranging the baseline, eq'ing it, it just never sounds anywhere near what I'm trying to accomplish because I have no tutorials to follow that talk about this specifically. Here are a few samples of the type of baselines I'm talking about:

Norin&Rad - Bloom: From the very beginning you can hear the type of bassline:

youtu. be/ p4pUWe88rVM


Tritonal - Slave: Also from the beginning the baseline plays

youtu. be/ hxDTzQLrFBc

These two songs are pretty much the type and style of track I desire to complete. Yet I get started on a project, make it until the drop into the baseline, and then I have to abandon the project because I have no clue how to put this together. So to wrap it up, I'm looking for kind souls to shine some light, point me in the right direction, post links to tutorials, write your own approaches to this style. I need to learn how to compose these baselines, as well as how to EQ and mix them. I know it sounds like much to ask for such a newbie like me, but you have no idea how grateful I would be if I could finally figure out how to continue with my work. Thank you all in advance and best regards.

-projektxII

---------- Post added 08-30-2012 at 12:31 PM ---------- Previous post was 08-29-2012 at 09:17 PM ----------

Any ideas?

[MTLien]

When you say you can't put them together, you mean programming the sound of the bass in your synth?

[projektwelve]

When you say you can't put them together, you mean programming the sound of the bass in your synth?

Well, I can get the sound I want to use (I use Massive more than anything) and once I do, I can't seem to arrange them along with my percussions, drums, other sounds so that it sounds, u know, like it fits. I also cannot figure out how to eq everything so that it sounds as presentable as possible. The whole thing has me confused and well I was just looking for links, or tutorials, or ideas as to how to step by step put this together. I could find a million tutorials on dub step but zero tutorials on just these type of awesome baselines. If you could shine some light here that would be great. Anything that points in the right direction.

[Emanosoul]

i would also like to learn this. Not so much for my music right now but just so i have the ability to use it in the futures. Tutorials PLOX!

[MTLien]

Ok, first, I'm no EDM producer, so I don't know how these guys do it...
All I can say is
1 - Massive sounds like massive, every synth has it's personality... try other VST's (even free ones) to see if you can find a synth that sounds more like the ones you hear on your tracks. If you can't, try using saturators, a little reverb, compressors to change the sound in addition to EQs.
2 - Use different layers (1 sub , 1 saw). You dont have to only use one pattern either, think of them as different instruments : The tritonial track doesnt have just the bass playing at the very start of the song, it has two instruments, a lead and a bass.
3- play with and automate ADSR, Filter, anything you can. In the Bloom song, I feel like the first hit has a fast attack and the two following it have less (a white noise is used to accent those hits too...you can do that in massive using the noise amp and some automation). I also feel these is a seperate sub bass happening in that song
4- Keep it simple, use 1 oscilator at a time, but use multiple instruments(Sub bass, Lead, SFX, percs).... once you got the drop going on, add character to each sound

anyways, thats what I would look into, hope some of this helps

[projektwelve]

Ok, first, I'm no EDM producer, so I don't know how these guys do it...
All I can say is
1 - Massive sounds like massive, every synth has it's personality... try other VST's (even free ones) to see if you can find a synth that sounds more like the ones you hear on your tracks. If you can't, try using saturators, a little reverb, compressors to change the sound in addition to EQs.
2 - Use different layers (1 sub , 1 saw). You dont have to only use one pattern either, think of them as different instruments : The tritonial track doesnt have just the bass playing at the very start of the song, it has two instruments, a lead and a bass.
3- play with and automate ADSR, Filter, anything you can. In the Bloom song, I feel like the first hit has a fast attack and the two following it have less (a white noise is used to accent those hits too...you can do that in massive using the noise amp and some automation). I also feel these is a seperate sub bass happening in that song
4- Keep it simple, use 1 oscilator at a time, but use multiple instruments(Sub bass, Lead, SFX, percs).... once you got the drop going on, add character to each sound

anyways, thats what I would look into, hope some of this helps

It really does help to read your opinion and you personal dissection of the baseline. To me the best synth to achieve these sounds is massive, but that's just my personal taste. I'm more interested in the the EQ and Arrangement side of these baselines that are so popular nowadays. A technique I learned yesterday is I lowered the tempo of my song to like 100 bpm, played the baseline in my head bit by bit, and it gives me more time to calculate where every hit should go. But I'm still a long way from getting there. Hope more of you guys will join this post and we can all learn this. Thank you!