How to make this Psy Trance Bass

[dtrq]

Yeah, it's important to make the kick and the bass go well along. Deep sweep sine kick, and match decay times between kick and bass. Think about kick as accented bass note.

[Passing Bye]

Exactly! I am often confused about if I should process or reprogram to get the sound I need. And it's very interesting that you mentioned the sonic academy tutorial, because I have actually watched it, and it is what got me into psy trance. The bass sound in the short clip I just uploaded, I actually designed it following protoculture's (or shadow chronicles') tutorial. However, I don't feel it is the same sound in the video I posted. The bass in the video sounds more rich in tail, and I am having a hard time trying to achieve that.

Trial&error, sometimes few tweaks on the patch can make world of a difference, sometimes anything sound the same going trough same processing chain, it's maybe simple as revisiting ADSR settings and Filter Cut Off, maybe is just particular effect or chain of effects, I don't really know what you are hearing and thinking about when you say tail of the sound.

What I can hear in your example is that kick is not doing that bass any favors at all, also that bass needs more harmonics, so before you slap distortion, just make sure to revisit your envelope amount and filter cut off, maybe decay even too, let more harmonics in, than go from there, try distortion and than EQ the thing to sound how you want it, boost, cut, whatever works for the desired sound you have in your head.

[Kwurqx]

Drifting away from the bass patch into the kickdrum bit...

Indeed, you could try a true (kick) drum synthesizer like the excellent and FREE:

E-Phonic - Drumatic 3 (the last free version, 32-bit)
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/drumatic-3-by-e-phonic

It normally uses a deep pitch sweep (normally on a sine oscillator) and noise (and filters and distortion) to produce it's kicks. You have plenty of control over the pitch and amp envelopes (shape/curve/speed). It's a very versatile and effective tool when designing these "clean" kicks (with or without a click and or audible pitchbend in the attack and/or tail). No audible noise layer is needed for kicks like the clean one in your example.

You have control over tuning and timing (both amp and pitch). You can get anything ranging from a fast clicky kick to a seconds long booooom.

Generally a pitch sweep kick translates well to listening devices that offer no or little bass (like a phone speaker). You wil at least hear the attack bit (bit of a click) and some of the rest, until the pitch sweep dives under thee lower frequency threshold of the device.

Start with the "default" TR808 style kick preset. Then subtly change amp and pitch speed (shift or ctrl + mouse for fine adjust, not sure which one) and the overall tuning and see if it fits your needs.

These sort of kicks can also be produced by any synth that offers a deep and fast (amp and) pitch sweep. Like the versatile and free Surge....
https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/

[Synthman2000]

"I understand that there is nothing complicated with this kind of sound, but I just cannot get it right. "

The principle is very simple, however it is very easy to make poor psy trance kick and bass. The devil is in the detail. Online you will find every possible technique and synth choice imaginable. Some with no processing some with lots of extra processing. All are viable but many rarely work when you try it for yourself.

There is a degree of subjectivity. A worthy tip to save you some time... check any tuts at the end to see if the kick and bass is actually any good. If not I would pass on the tut, why learn how to make bad kick and bass ? Whenever you hear at the end of a tut : "That is close enough to start a track with (sounds like a**), I will tweak it a bit more later to get it just right". Read that as I cannot make really good kick and bass and I may spend another 4 horus tweaking it later and find out it is rubbish still."

It is about whether the groove is right or not and if you are experienced enough and equipped enough to hear that. You have 2 parts which are totaly dependent on each other in order to turn it into one sound that works.

To think this can be achieved on a couple of tries is nonsense. In the same way some people say dance music is not real music, did they try yet ? . So easy to make a weak approximation, so difficult and time consuming to excel. It is a labour of love and you have to work at it of you want to do this with a synth.

Keep trying, you will get there if you want to. Give it a few years.

Psy trance kick and bass is an electronic music art unto itself.

[chk071]

I don't think it's a single saw wave. Typically, i think, a couple of stacked saws with phase retriggering, and phase set to a minimal amount, so the phase pretty much starts at the beginning of the saw wave, but not at the zero crossing, does this better, because it will sound fuller and more beefy.

[Kwurqx]

I don't think it's a single saw wave. Typically, i think, a couple of stacked saws with phase retriggering, and phase set to a minimal amount, so the phase pretty much starts at the beginning of the saw wave, but not at the zero crossing, does this better, because it will sound fuller and more beefy.

Maybe you are right about multiple oscillators. But if you stack (= mix) multiple retriggered (phase synced) oscillators (that run at the same frequency), you wil get a static spectrum. The average of the spectral content (sum of the amplitudes of each oscillators spectrum/partials divided by the number of oscillators). So a different resulting spectrum but not fuller and/or beefier per se (which are subjective terms).

As soon as frequency per oscillator differs and/or phase per oscillator is modulated you get spectral changes over time.

[Mushy Mushy]

That ain't psytrance. At all.

[Passing Bye]

"I understand that there is nothing complicated with this kind of sound, but I just cannot get it right. "

The principle is very simple, however it is very easy to make poor psy trance kick and bass. The devil is in the detail. Online you will find every possible technique and synth choice imaginable. Some with no processing some with lots of extra processing. All are viable but many rarely work when you try it for yourself.

There is a degree of subjectivity. A worthy tip to save you some time... check any tuts at the end to see if the kick and bass is actually any good. If not I would pass on the tut, why learn how to make bad kick and bass ? Whenever you hear at the end of a tut : "That is close enough to start a track with (sounds like a**), I will tweak it a bit more later to get it just right". Read that as I cannot make really good kick and bass and I may spend another 4 horus tweaking it later and find out it is rubbish still."

It is about whether the groove is right or not and if you are experienced enough and equipped enough to hear that. You have 2 parts which are totaly dependent on each other in order to turn it into one sound that works.

To think this can be achieved on a couple of tries is nonsense. In the same way some people say dance music is not real music, did they try yet ? . So easy to make a weak approximation, so difficult and time consuming to excel. It is a labour of love and you have to work at it of you want to do this with a synth.

Keep trying, you will get there if you want to. Give it a few years.

Psy trance kick and bass is an electronic music art unto itself.

Such an great post, totally agree!

[Synthman2000]

Thanks, yes it is a fine balance between technical analysis/knowledge and esoterica + It sure helps to be able to feel this like someone who "gets it" on the dance floor.

The psy trance gods must guide you through the kick and bass initiation ceremony, to gain your rite of passage.

[chk071]

That ain't psytrance. At all.

But... but... it's a Psytrance bass!

[hhuang9611]

So, after experimenting with different synths and fair amount of tweaking, I have made this new short clip, and I feel it sounds so much better than the last one.
https://soundcloud.com/ray_d8/psy-bass-2/s-vcg5S

Huge thanks to everybody! Especially Passing Bye , who gave me a lot of great advice through pm. The kick I used in this short demo actually was based on a BazzISM preset he sent to me!

Just FYI, I ended up using this seemingly old yet great synth called Ultimate by superwave (http://www.superwavesynths.com/ultimate). It doesn't necessarily mean that other synth won't work for me, but I guess I just somehow adjusted parameters correctly and it ended up on this synth.
Also, there is actually not much processing going on. The kick is purely BazzISM and there is only a slight EQ applied on the Bass to remove some muddy frequencies.

Ahhh, this feels so GREAT Finally got a sound that is very close to what I want. Thanks again everyone!!!

[Passing Bye]

Awesome, glad that you are excited and close to your sound!

[tasty tatsyn]

I got this bass from electra2

[tasty tatsyn]

Exactly! I am often confused about if I should process or reprogram to get the sound I need. And it's very interesting that you mentioned the sonic academy tutorial, because I have actually watched it, and it is what got me into psy trance. The bass sound in the short clip I just uploaded, I actually designed it following protoculture's (or shadow chronicles') tutorial. However, I don't feel it is the same sound in the video I posted. The bass in the video sounds more rich in tail, and I am having a hard time trying to achieve that.

Trial&error, sometimes few tweaks on the patch can make world of a difference, sometimes anything sound the same going trough same processing chain, it's maybe simple as revisiting ADSR settings and Filter Cut Off, maybe is just particular effect or chain of effects, I don't really know what you are hearing and thinking about when you say tail of the sound.

What I can hear in your example is that kick is not doing that bass any favors at all, also that bass needs more harmonics, so before you slap distortion, just make sure to revisit your envelope amount and filter cut off, maybe decay even too, let more harmonics in, than go from there, try distortion and than EQ the thing to sound how you want it, boost, cut, whatever works for the desired sound you have in your head.

above sums it up...

Synth gives you the base
EQ and compression do most of the trick and flavour

https://soundcloud.com/tatsyn/sets/psy-bass-tests

[tasty tatsyn]

some more testing

https://soundcloud.com/tatsyn/test-2-5-1