Need some pro help

Lengai · Post by **Lengai** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 4:14 pm

I have a question for the more advanced programmers here like GregAE, LWG, MC, till, etc. I would like to know how this bassline was made:

Windows Media Player:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop- ... 66-5262547

It sounds like an arpeggiation over 2 octaves or a scale, but I'm not a music expert so I may be way off. I'm hoping you guys will have a listen to it and help me figure out how to program a bassline similar to this or how it's done. It's probably not a lot of you guys' favorite music, but I'd appreciate it if some light could be shed on how to do it on the Voyager.

Thanks,

Lengai

Suburban Bather · Post by **Suburban Bather** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:05 pm

I got the poison

Lengai · Post by **Lengai** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:53 pm

Not exactly the amount of input I was hoping for

My take is that it's a 2 octave arpeggiation that's obviously sequenced. There are a lot of other Electronica tracks that use this type of bassline, but I haven't been able to quite make it right. I know there are a lot of folks that would rather gouge their eyes out with a CV cable than listen to it, but I would appreciate some kind of feedback.

Cheers,
Lengai

latigid on · Post by **latigid on** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:44 pm

Lengai - I can't manage to get the file to play in either Firefox or internet explore.

Amos · Post by **Amos** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:49 pm

I think it's probably a 2-pole filter; it sounds edgier than the classic Moog filter, so on the Voyager you'd want to adjust the number of filter poles to 3 or 2. Obviously a lot of resonance. One of a few things is happening; either there is an envelope-follower which is goosing the cutoff in response to harder notes, or the filter is mapped to velocity (but I don't think so since you clearly hear a "sweep" to the filter on the brighter notes); or the yob at the controls is just tweaking the filter knob to the beat, live, while the arpeggiator plays the notes. One thing you can always do is record such live filter-tweakings as MIDI CC data and cut/paste/loop it with your sequence.

Lengai · Post by **Lengai** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:00 pm

latgid on,

Here's a link to the Amazon page:

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Jilted-Gene ... F8&s=music

Scroll down about 1/3 of the page to the audio clips of each track on the album and choose "8. Poison"

Amos,

Thank you very much for the help. I'm printing the page as we speak and will work on it tonight. BTW, Amos, you're awesome. Seriously. You fix everything, take time to answer questions on the phone and even help us here in the forum. And to boot, you're always nice and very detailed in your explanations even though you have amillion things to do. Thanks for everything you do.

- Lengai

notinachos · Post by **notinachos** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:51 am

i'm a huge prodigy fan!

liam howlett (sp?) is the main programmer for the prodigy. actually, the prodigy got their name from the moog "prodigy" keyboard. i read in an interview that liam used "one of his favorite synths, the jupiter 8" for the intro to poison. at least i think that was it. that or the juno.....i don't really remember. try googling for liam howlett interviews.

you don't want to read any keith flint interviews. although he IS the frontman, he just jumps around and pumps up the crowd. he dosen't really have a part in the music making per say.

look at the limitations and capabilities of the keyboard he programmed the line on, then try to emulate that on the voyager. hope this helps.

Lengai · Post by **Lengai** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:01 pm

notinachos wrote:i'm a huge prodigy fan!

liam howlett (sp?) is the main programmer for the prodigy. actually, the prodigy got their name from the moog "prodigy" keyboard. i read in an interview that liam used "one of his favorite synths, the jupiter 8" for the intro to poison. at least i think that was it. that or the juno.....i don't really remember. try googling for liam howlett interviews.

you don't want to read any keith flint interviews. although he IS the frontman, he just jumps around and pumps up the crowd. he dosen't really have a part in the music making per say.

look at the limitations and capabilities of the keyboard he programmed the line on, then try to emulate that on the voyager. hope this helps.

That's the correct spelling of his name. Thanks for the tip on the interviews. I'll look into it. I know a lot of tracks use similar basslines. I tried Amos' suggestion and it helped, but I still haven't gotten the sound right. Maybe one of the pro guys here will take a crack at reproducing the sound. It sounds like he got an arpeggiation down and looped it. It's actually starting to drive me crazy

Lengai · Post by **Lengai** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:05 pm

I'm beginning to think that there are multiple sequenced and automated basslines blended over each other?

sir_dss · Post by **sir_dss** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:01 pm

I also seems to have some other effects on it as well...reverb for one to open up the sound of it. You can't assume that it's just some analog synth right into the board.

Look at the Aphex Twin dude he lies so much about his process like Billy F Gibbons and Eddie Van Halen do with their guitar sound. You know how many amps he helped ruin by telling people to turn UP the voltage to get the Eruption tone? The opposite was the case.

Lengai · Post by **Lengai** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 6:14 pm

sir_dss,

Thank you for the help. Each new clue to this puzzle leads me closer to discovery

Now I'm thinking that it's got possibly 3 oscillators in there. The high end is definately a saw tooth, and the lows are definately nice and rounded, so would be mostly sine wave. It's probably a synth with several oscillator generators, possibly a couple of synths.

With the high saw and low sine (sine with a bit of an edge of square or saw in there too) you can hear there are at least two seperate LFO's working there on the modulation as well. The saw has quite a quick LFO modulating cutoff in quite a small frequency range, and the low sine has a slower LFO.

Maybe this is done using 2 saw oscillators and one sine oscillator de-tuned slightly from each other to get that effect?

The final thing is an analogue compressor to make the sound fat. Also I'm thinking an arpeggiator isn't the way to go, I'd say the synth is played with MIDI data and looped. It sounds like 2 synths, as the sounds play quite different sequences. You can hear the low one play some more notes on its own before the drop.

Does this sound more like the right way to approach this acid bassline delimma to you guys?

Thanks,
Lengai