From The Bottom Up: From The Fender Bass To The Software Synthesizer - Page 5

While Kurasaki frequently uses Reason's Maelstrom synthesizer for his bass parts, he doesn't mind using loops of bass if the song he's working on calls for it. "A really catchy bass loop has the power to inspire one to create a whole track around the riff. Once the bass loop is loaded and set, I'll try to double it with a synth bass or even just a sine wave bass".

Typically, Kurasaki processes bass riffs in Propellerhead's ReCycle program, "so that I have some flexibility with the groove and tempo. I then load the bass loop into the Dr. Rex loop player or NN-XT Sampler. With the bass riff segmented, I can nudge notes around in the sequencer or adjust the pitch of a single note to make it fit with the track." Cakewalk's Project5 and Sonar also have a good loop editor, their Cyclone applet.

When working with Acid loops, Craig Anderton, the author of Sonar 3: Mixing & Mastering, says, "I think most loops are worthless unless you slice then up and move them around! Otherwise they can sound pretty boring--I want a loop to be hypnotic, not put people to sleep."

Much of the slicing that Anderton performs involves dropping out a measure or half-measure while the drums do their thing, or with loops of two to four bars or longer, isolating the first measure and repeating that before going into the rest of the loop. Slicing the loops to get "stuttering" eighth or 16th notes can also be a great effect if used sparingly.

If a slice occurs on a zero-crossing, there can be a click or pop. "You might not notice this if other parts are happening, but they have a detrimental effect on a mix. As a result, prior to mixing I solo each track and listen all the way through." If Anderton hears any clicks or pops, he uses fades, such as Sonar's clip-by-clip fade-ins and fade-outs to clean them up.

Many commercially available loops are not Acidized or Rexed very well and have missed transients and misplaced slice markers, etc. So Anderton recommends optimizing the loops before doing any cutting or copying, "because I want to make sure I cut or copy the optimized version. If you copy the original, then you have to go back and re-tweak every single copy", which can end up being a tremendous waste of time.

Get Into The Mix

Getting a good bass mix is all about experimentation, but there are certain tips that come in handy.

First, it helps to listen to the material on a variety of speakers, and to balance the sound of the bass with the instruments. When you've got a mix with a clean, audible bass part that doesn't blow out the vocalist, and works on a variety of speakers, you're obviously in the ballpark.

Article Author: Ed Driscoll

Visit Ed Driscoll's author page — Ed Driscoll's Blog