How to make this bass for Psytrance

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4damind wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 12:09 pm Btw. It is no secret that many (especially Israeli) trance producers are using Cubase. "Quadrafuzz" has been the 'secret weapon' to give the bass more bite for years. With modern synths and emulations it may not be so necessary anymore, but I would keep multiband distortion in mind.
By the way, when it comes to EDM producers, I think of Above & Beyond, 7 Skies, etc. who are avowed FXPansion users.
Not anymore since it became 64-bit only. And v2 doesn’t sound the same.
"I was wondering if you'd like to try Magic Mushrooms"
"Oooh I dont know. Sounds a bit scary"
"It's not scary. You just lose a sense of who you are and all that sh!t"

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Not the same means "better" or "different"? I know they changed the algorithms for v2.

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4damind wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 12:47 pm Not the same means "better" or "different"? I know they changed the algorithms for v2.
Valid question. I wouldn’t say either is better, so just different I guess. The default setting on V1 was superb in tightening the bass immediately.

There are countless threads trying to replicate this setting on V2 and AFAIK it still hasn’t been done. It’s basically the holy grail now.
"I was wondering if you'd like to try Magic Mushrooms"
"Oooh I dont know. Sounds a bit scary"
"It's not scary. You just lose a sense of who you are and all that sh!t"

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Considering the oscilloscope/waveform: it's not a "dry" signal, so not the exact oscillator shapes. It may have had all sorts of (post)processing.

The start of the first cycle is somewhat puzzling. A sudden straight drop to a sharp spike. That would be probably result in a lot of high frequencies (think click). Also: pretty messy and spikey. Not really periodical and/or sine-like, which would indicate plain resonance. It's only in the attack, so general distortion is not the obvious way to go. Maybe AM or some other waveshaping.

The transition towards the end is the least puzzling; lowpass filtering. This would cause the spikey messy bit gets "rounded" and too.

Then there is the ripple around the zero-crossing. Might be because of the filter/resonace. Then again...might be the peak of a second lower amplitude oscillator, a bit out of phase.

The shape seems to be fairly evenly mirrored. Both vertically and horizontally. So basic shapes like saw and/or square (or mix) are among the usual suspects.

You will need a fast pretty clean Lowpass filter (and equally fast envelopes). The closed filter leaves a nice and smooth waveform. Or...the non-linearities in the attack are actually caused by the filter handling high frequencies.

Soundwise it's less complicated: I guess a pulse of the right width will allready get you close quick. Maybe 2, a smaller and wider width. It does have a bit of an "odd" ring to it (as in odd partials as in a square).

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Btw. there are some Youtube tutorials how to make such kind of bass (Psytrance/Astrix Bass) with Sylenth or Serum (can be easily find find with searching for Astrix Bass or Psytrance Bass Serum Sylenth). They using different techniques like phase cancellation and working with replacing different harmonics. Also the idea with adding a bit more depth/width with delay/distortion/dimension effects is used or with layering and add a second synth for the "click" of the bass. Very interesting!

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This is what I do with Serum. I use a saw then remove the fundamental and replace with a sine. The sine then goes directly to the master unprocessed and the daw is distorted/compressed, etc.
"I was wondering if you'd like to try Magic Mushrooms"
"Oooh I dont know. Sounds a bit scary"
"It's not scary. You just lose a sense of who you are and all that sh!t"

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I think this is the tutorial?
https://youtu.be/PW0l9znOEX4

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