All about bass
Bass plays both a rhythmic and melodic role in music and can sometimes be very prominent in a track, while at other times almost invisible, providing a supportive role holding down the low frequencies. In our three bass walkthroughs we’re going to provide three different jump-in points using three different synths.
Our synths have plenty of presets to page through and that’s ideal for finding sounds. Even so, bass synth sounds are pretty straightforward to create from scratch and provide a good way to acquaint yourself with a synth’s capabilities. So in our first walkthrough we’ll look at creating a couple of slightly different synth bass sounds from scratch. These are by design meant to be functional, solid patches and are ideal for the supportive role mentioned above. The first is a solid 808-style hip-hop bass sound, and the second a more plucky sound with more attack and character.
“Bass synth sounds are pretty straightforward to create from scratch”
Of course bass doesn’t have to just play a supportive role, and when you want your bass sound to take centre stage, our simple sounds aren’t going to cut it. In our second bass walkthrough we’re looking at a much more complex sound and for this we’ll use u-he’s Zebra CM. In fact, to get the
