Rolling Basslines in techno

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
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over9000
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Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by over9000 »

Hello cvnts
i cant figure out how the rolling basslines like in this track are done
youtu.be/3qdSPcmqmtk
i found some topics on this, but they dident really helped me, as they were mainly on sound design.
I guess its a sampled tom here, with some chordy swoosh sound on the 1st step and the rimshot thing on the 4th, that create the rolling feel.
But i cant figure out the placement of the notes of the actual bassline..
i tried something like --- ___ --- ___ as one bar but it just gives a psytrance style bassline, which is also nice, but not what iam after here. Can someone lend me his/her ears to help finding this out?
EDIT: just thought, that the sound i thought of as swoosh might be the bass and the tomsound is just used as a percussion to create the rolling effect?

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winston
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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by winston »

if you want to find out the placement of hits, put the track into your daw, put a midi channel below it and put a midi note at each transient. play it back really slow to figure out what transients are what you are looking for.

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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by over9000 »

winston wrote:if you want to find out the placement of hits, put the track into your daw, put a midi channel below it and put a midi note at each transient. play it back really slow to figure out what transients are what you are looking for.
thats a good idea, thx!

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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by intrusav »

I was wondering about this too.
Had a bassline with overlapping sine notes and there was obvious phasing which added interest. Was trying to figure out if I could run that or if it was too unpredictable, where there could be standing waves or they cancel each other out. How random is that or can it be controlled? Is the whole thing too risky from an engineering point?
Phase issues are something I need to grasp and seem to be a fairly fundamental issue ..

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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by Lost to the Void »

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over9000
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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by over9000 »

this rolling effect can be achieved with different bass sounds playing on different notes between the kicks. If the sounds are different to eachother in timbre it helps to create the rolling. And they can overlap! thats what i was struggeling with. if you make patterns with say 3 bass sounds that play different not to complicated patterns where some notes overlap, it can lead to this kind of bassline. I sidechained two of the basssounds to one "main bass sound" so there is no clashing. Also i found it necessary to take out some lowend of the bass sounds. one of the sounds has no lowend at all and is just used as a rhytmic element.
its not as complicated as i thought it was, thx everyone. ofc i dident get the exact bassline like in the above track, but i think i understand more now how this kind of effect is achieved.

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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by Lost to the Void »

the example you posted is just a mono synth playing one note. It`s just 7 of the same notes in a row on an 8 note pattern. There is an amount of swing added, and that`s it.
Actually, it is probably just 8 notes in a row, and the final 8th note is an octave down.
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over9000
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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

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Lost to the Void wrote:the example you posted is just a mono synth playing one note. It`s just 7 of the same notes in a row on an 8 note pattern. There is an amount of swing added, and that`s it.
Actually, it is probably just 8 notes in a row, and the final 8th note is an octave down.
lol cant imagine that, but will try this evening...
that would be even easier :D keep it simple i guess

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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by Mattias »

over9000 wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:the example you posted is just a mono synth playing one note. It`s just 7 of the same notes in a row on an 8 note pattern. There is an amount of swing added, and that`s it.
Actually, it is probably just 8 notes in a row, and the final 8th note is an octave down.
lol cant imagine that, but will try this evening...
that would be even easier :D keep it simple i guess
Why not? It's not as hard as it seems. I'd say Steve is pretty damn close to how it was done.
It sounds like a splash a rumble verb was used on the kick. So combine that with an 8th note mono synth progression or pitched 808 tom and you're
right in the ballpark.
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Mattias
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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by Mattias »

Just gave it a try in 5 minutes and it's definitely close down this route;

Rumble kick verb with much low mid spared, one original 808 conga and another an octave below, sent to the same rumble verb
as the kick. With added resampled ringing sounds and all in the lower octave conga.

https://soundcloud.com/fridell/zahn-test/s-VpqQm

Another 5 min for EQ and compression and it's getting even closer
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over9000
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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by over9000 »

wow yep thats it, thx for this :)
the other way i found out is nice too, but this is definitly the easier approach.
one last question where did you get the ringing sounds from?

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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by Mattias »

over9000 wrote: one last question where did you get the ringing sounds from?
It occurs naturally if you re-sample audio using extreme pitching without allowing for modern time stretching.
Aliasing and shit.
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over9000
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Re: Rolling Basslines in techno

Post by over9000 »

thx for the help :)


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