bass end of a progressive groove...

[gregaaron89]

I'm starting to get into progressive grooves, I'm getting pretty good at layering percussion but something that totally eludes me is the bass. I want to make something along these lines: http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=bQR50_UiOU Q&fmt=18

I hear MANY sounds going on at once (including a vocal sample). Now what I'm interested in here is how these sounds are constructed from the ground up, I want to be able to make them from scratch. Waves, LFOs, EQ, filters, all that stuff.

I hear many different sounds in this. The main one I'm interested in is that big buzzy bass. If someone could just tell me how to make that I would be happy. I'm guessing it is made up of a low sine wave with maybe some square mixed in for the bottom part, and something with saws/squares, probably bandpassed for the high part (with some distortion?), sort of stuck together with some mids EQ'd out. If anyone can help especially with EQ I'd very much appreciate it!

[SinJim]

Well hmm, the bass sounds like two distinctly different parts. One's the low part that provides the moving essence of the groove and then there's those stabs that add some flavor on top. I don't think that they're a bass. I just think it's some sort of stab setting and I couldn't tell you as accurately how to get them.

The bass, though, sounds like it's a mono synth (ESM in Logic) sidechained with the Kick. Although it's most likely got a lot of effects on it, you'll have to play around with that to try and get the desired sound. I left it on on the saw setting and bumped up the distortion. Then you can take the decay of the Volume envelope (bottom right setting) and push that all the way up so you can get the same sound when playing legato and making your groove. After that you really just need to make up your groove and try some different effects on the channel strip.

Also here's a video on how to sidechain w/ the kick (if you didn't already know):
Sidechaining

Other than that, I don't exactly know how you get the stab. Maybe a sine or pulse wave with really short attack and some effects. Delay would be sweet on that. You're going to have to play with it to get some results. Also, the pad seems like some symphonic strings, just play with some of the es2 pad templates and you might find one similar and be able to tweak it to your liking.

Feel free to use something other than the esm (forgive me if you don't use Logic, I was under the impression you do). Either way that's how I'd make the bass.

Let me know if you got any other questions.

~SinJim