hey, guys!
hope you’re having a good one.
anyways, i’ve been trying to make sound design for some upcoming tracks, and the one thing i’ve been struggling the most with on digitone is how to make my bass more punchy. it usually comes off very flat and one dimensional with the questionable amount of low end. is there any advice you can give to me? the tracks i’m working on are more industrial, minimal, almost yeezus-esque. thanks in advance.
I usually put a high pass filter with some res and union (2 voices) with some spread, eg. 30 to 60 to taste.
Do you prefer certain algos?
Have you fiddled with the presets - is there one that is bassy enough? If yes, you could look into it what they did.
And: Perhaps you also need to give the bass room in the mix.
cut the lows on other tracks too (also if you think you can’t hear them anyway!)
Apart from FM synthesis wizardry, a tiny bit of basic pitch decay in the attack phase is always good to make the transient of the bass slap a little more.
IMO it’s all about filter movement to get punch/thump - you want some ENV on a filter with resonance to taste - you probably want the bump moving through the fundamental but I’m not 100% on that
i prefer 6 and 7, cause they are easier to work with for someone like me (who is a beginner in terms of fm). i’ve been tweaking some patches to make them more custom, but i still feel like none of them match what i’m looking for, and i know for a fact those sounds are achievable through digitone, cause i’ve seen videos in which people make tracks with those designs.
I’d find a punchy preset and see how they did that, the timbre isn’t my favorite but usually any fm synth has a “lately bass” patch or one with a similar name that can really thump.
Have you already gone through YouTube BTW? Ivar is a good place to start DIGITONE Bass Tutorial - YouTube
It helps with FM synthesis, and especially with the digitone, to think in terms of the two different operator groups (A and B) as two different parts of the sound, so one part might be the transient, while the other is the slower decaying body of the sound. This is obviously fairly dependent on the algorithm as to how it will behave, but I found that if I set up the A and B envelopes with one as a fast attack transient and one as a slower decaying body then mess about with algorithms and ratios, punchy bass would find its way through the mess.
Then add a bit of pitch envelope and find the sweet spot on the low end of the high pass filter with resonance to taste and bang, you’re off.
touch of FDBK on a low tuned operator for the rumble
Just been watching this in the background - I’ve learnt a lot about creating this kind of bass patch it covers a lot of ground! I find FM so confusing 