Moog Music Forum

Trying to emulate a real bass guitar on an analog synth. Want to get a close as I can get. Any of you have samples of convincing patches? If yes, which moog did you do it on? Patch instructions please.

Nothing crazy like slap bass. Thank you.

If I remember right, you have a Voyager.

It's relatively simple, really. I do it on my Minimoog D but the principle is the same.

1 oscillator on sawtooth, 32' range, filter cutoff @0, resonance @0, filter envelope amount @ 60%, filter envelope (attack 0, decay/release about 2 seconds, no sustain), volume envelope (attack 0, decay/release same as filter, sustain max). Oh, and filter keyboard tracking at 50% (or 100% it's up to you).

Two ways of playing: with release switched on (no muting of notes), or switched off (sounds like muted notes when releasing keyboard).

For added depth, a second oscillator slightly detuned (same waveform and octave) can be turned on for chorus effect.

You can easily play "Dazed and confused" from Led Zeppelin with that, and most people will have a hard time telling that it's not a real bass guitar.

Of course, you might have to "fine tune" the settings to get exactly the sound you want.

Example here:
https://soundcloud.com/thealien666/daze ... ss/s-FxP1d

P.S. I might have had a little too much envelope on that filter. But you get the idea...

what about something like this?

Coming from bass guitar being my 2nd instrument, I prefer the Voyager and Source for emulating bass guitar to my Minimoog. The big reason is hard sync. The extra harmonics from a hard sync'd VCO help to emulate the sound of a metal string, especially from my Fender Jazz Bass. Phasing VCOs like the Minimoog is OK for synth bass, but I never thought it sounded anything like an electric bass.

Another trick for emulating electric bass is audio FM to VCF cutoff. That emulates the mild tube overdrive of a bass guitar running through a tube bass amp, and helps the sound to sit in the mix better.

Emulating bass guitar is more than just the fundamental.

This is what I could come up with to match the bass line in that video, archer. Almost the same settings with less envelope amount on the filter, and release switched off.

https://soundcloud.com/thealien666/sain ... ss/s-2LcMF

(sorry but, Soundcloud compression seems to have messed up the sound a little...)
P.S. Archer, why did you remove the link to the video in your previous post ???

archer wrote:what about something like this?

Something like what ?!

monsterjazzlicks wrote:

archer wrote:what about something like this?

Something like what ?!

Archer has removed the link to the video. It was a song called "Nothing can stop us" by the group called "Saint Etienne".
My attempt at reproducing the bass line is pretty close to the sound in that song, IMHO.