Kiana Li

All About Bass (Part I)

Added 2024-07-09 16:00:17 +0000 UTC

This has been a long awaited tutorial for my Patreon supporters, but they might be surprised by the route I've taken on this 90-minute masterclass on all things low-end.

I wanted to put forward an accessible yet detailed perspective on creating bass, as a paradigm of adding and subtracting frequencies and signals. I also posited the idea that it's simply about using sounds that have good low frequency content, and trying to bring out the best characteristics out of those sounds.

I hope you find this information helpful and inspiring!

All notes below are adapted from my written notes for this session:

The drums and bass sections of a track are always entwined, and that was a big reason why I had such trouble pulling apart the ideas of drum programming and bass design. Another reason why I found the topic of bass challenging to tackle was the overlap between bass and broader synth programming. Any sound with a sub-bass underneath could be called a bass, but I aim to focus rather on the sounds that directly provide low-end.
People generally think of these two as the "rhythm section" in general music terms. In bass music this section is given the full spotlight. Every bass patch in this session will be explained in context with the drums that play alongside it, to catch all the rhythmic accents, interplay and compositional & mixing details.

Key Points to achieve with a bass sound:

weight and depth in the mix
appropriate frequency content
appropriate dynamics

Nonlinearities, compression, filtering and envelope shaping are ways to alter signal amplitude and frequency content.

Gain Staging (especially for low end)

While gain staging in the traditional mixing sense is absolutely not required for sound design, any nonlinear processing will require your sounds take up a certain amount of headroom under and above the threshold.

100-300hz space

On all of these sounds post processing shows dips in 100hz, due to natural differences in perceived level (Fletcher Munson curves show relatively large increases in this region while the sound is still fully perceptible by hearing)

Stereo processing

Imagine an oil painting where you have a base tone and then the main object with its details and highlights. You will fill the canvas with the texture and colour of this base before moving to brighter or darker shades.

Stereo processing is this backdrop that gives the sound space and depth under the mono meat and weight of bass. It can either precede any nonlinear processing in order for deliberate mud and grit, or towards the end of the chain for a more natural effect. In this session I talk about using reverb and delays of various sorts to provide space and width to bass sounds.

If you can't control the frequency spread of stereo processing it's a good idea to use mid-side EQ. Mid-side EQ can also focus the midrange of your bass sounds towards the center of the mix so that other elements can better slot into the stereo field.