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It seems that for every "how do i make skrillex bass?!?!" thread, there is a smart arse answer.... resampling.

I've been listening to a lot of koan sound lately and have been desperately trying to wrap my head around the techniques they use. I know they are big on resampling and a lot of their tracks it sound like they make a bass sound, then load it into a sampler and cut it up, loop it, reverse it etc, all with pitch bends and glide effects.

As this is like a totally different way to how i have always worked, (i work mostly with midi i rarely bounce anything) i was just wondering if there were any experts on this way of producing who could teach me a bit? Or does anybody know of any decent web tutorials or anything? I haven't found anything that has helped me and believe me i've spent hours searching lol

which daw are you working in?

*queue smartass answer* - your search fu is fail. Look up your daw + resampling. Easy as piss. From there it's a lot of experimentation.

subfect wrote:*queue smartass answer* - your search fu is fail. Look up your daw + resampling. Easy as piss. From there it's a lot of experimentation.

er yeah i know how to resample

i was asking about how to chop up and arrange the basslines, while looping them and reversing them etc.

For example the bass in this song



It sounds like they've got a bass stab and are just chopping it up and reversing it and at 0:30 it sounds like they've got it looped and somehow x-faded the loop, and also it glides around pitches at the same time.
What kind of vst's do they use to do this kind of shizzle ?

koan sound use reason. so no VSTS. malstrom/thor/subtractor resampled into nn-xt/nn-19

Once you've bounced out the bassline, chop it up and load it into a sampler. Play some notes on it until you've got a rhythm you like. Adjust the ADSR envelopes. Reverse some of the samples. Add effects. Modulate the arse off of it. Then bounce it out again and repeat the whole process, if you like.

Resampling is probably one of the most versatile production methodologies there is. You could even start with a pure sine wave and take it from there, no VST required.

wub wrote:Once you've bounced out the bassline, chop it up and load it into a sampler. Play some notes on it until you've got a rhythm you like. Adjust the ADSR envelopes. Reverse some of the samples. Add effects. Modulate the arse off of it. Then bounce it out again and repeat the whole process, if you like.

Resampling is probably one of the most versatile production methodologies there is. You could even start with a pure sine wave and take it from there, no VST required.

I can make decent enough basses using massive, i understand how you can bounce one note of that and then add moving notch filters or distortion or whatever etc. and then bounce again, thats pretty cool i spose

i just dont' get how to work with slices and samples effectively. is there some proper badman sampler in reason or something? i've got kontakt but i don't really know it that well and it seems a bit ball bags to me :S

jarvis89 wrote:

wub wrote:Once you've bounced out the bassline, chop it up and load it into a sampler. Play some notes on it until you've got a rhythm you like. Adjust the ADSR envelopes. Reverse some of the samples. Add effects. Modulate the arse off of it. Then bounce it out again and repeat the whole process, if you like.

Resampling is probably one of the most versatile production methodologies there is. You could even start with a pure sine wave and take it from there, no VST required.

I can make decent enough basses using massive, i understand how you can bounce one note of that and then add moving notch filters or distortion or whatever etc. and then bounce again, thats pretty cool i spose

i just dont' get how to work with slices and samples effectively. is there some proper badman sampler in reason or something? i've got kontakt but i don't really know it that well and it seems a bit ball bags to me :S

Telling you where to slice the sample is largely redundant as each bounced sound will be different - it's just something that requires trial & error, I'm afraid.

What DAW are you using? Wub's right you just need to mess around and persevere with this technique, it might take you 10 songs to actually make something you're proud of but along the way you'll have discovered the answers to all your above questions. I've discovered a workflow which I'm sure is pretty unique and works perfect for me and you most likely will too, just stop worrying about things sounding good as you experiment. Also if you're working in Ableton check out the Sampler and the zones feature. You can assign different parts of a longer sample to different MIDI keys and get some really cool ideas that way.

jarvis89 wrote:i've got kontakt but i don't really know it that well and it seems a bit ball bags to me :S

You think the industry standard sampler is "ball bags"?

Wow........ Just....... Wow.

yes the nn-19, if that's the bigger one, is a pretty 'badman' synth. only downside imo is that you can't see the waveform. maybe it's a plus though, as you're using your ears an not your eyes. i suppose you can always load into audacity if you need a visual waveform.

Try this..

Step 1 - Search Engine for any random game/machine sounds. (Samples)

Step 2 - Boot up Daw and create basic melody. (Can be further developed with samples or whatever else being used )

Step 3- Add samples. Throw in filters, fx etc.

Step 4- Any point ( Usually the Drop ) go nuts with the samples that have been cut upp and affected (Resampled ) and try and make it sound as cool as possible to you. Well whatever just seems to fit.

That's generally what I do to have a whack at it, works out lovely most of the time but always go in knowing you're going to scrap 90% of a tune most of the time during production.

Must hear what you bring out after some experimenting mate!

Which DAW are you working in and I'll see if I can help..

If you could answer a question for me too.. How did you get that many followers on Soundcloud without following many yourself?

You could even start out with a random kick sample.

Resampling possibilities are infinite!

to me .... It seems a bit of a pointless waste of time taking a sound effect of a toaster popping up and rasampling it for 5 hours so it sounds like a bassline, when you could just make a bad arse bass patch in massive in about 20 minutes

I am however really interested in chopping up my basslines and am experimenting with this at the mo in a remix, whereas i normally just use midi notes and vst's, i am getting some really cool results with bouncing this and chopping it up and moving it around, it gives a lot more control over the sound you want.

and @ascian there's not really a trick to soundcloud followers, just get yourself out there! i'm getting a lot of my tunes and remixes played on lots of different radio shows and DJ's are always asking me for them to play at parties, i also been featured on dubstep.net, so that's where my followers come from. Also a large proportion of my followers are those people who just follow 2000 randomers and never listen or comment or anything. which is really annoying!!

yeah but imagine maknig a sick bassline and when people ask you how you made it 'oh its the sound of my toaster popping up' this is what puts producers and sound designers on another level. foley sound design has unlimited functions.

Refuzed wrote:yeah but imagine maknig a sick bassline and when people ask you how you made it 'oh its the sound of my toaster popping up' this is what puts producers and sound designers on another level. foley sound design has unlimited functions.

"Worth it, because worth it" is the most sound argument I ever make. Fuck bitches, feel cool.

well i finished my experiment with chopping up the bassline in my remix of matt cardle, yeah actually for real lol.

chopped it up rearranged it reversed bits of it pitched em up n down n that. Let me know how i did !

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