Deconstructing Snarky Puppy' Little Phatty bass sound

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cheopsnet
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Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2014 1:18 pm

Deconstructing Snarky Puppy' Little Phatty bass sound

Post by cheopsnet » Sun Nov 23, 2014 10:23 pm

Hi guys,

Reaching out to the Moog wizards over here to help me reproduce as closely as possible this Little Phatty Bass sound (using my Sub 37), starting on 00:25 and use throughout the song below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WysQreTa-M

This is part of Bill Laurance's debut album, and features a fairly typical Snarsky Puppy sound. The band uses this particular bass sound quite often with their Little Phatty and it works well in the mix of many songs. You kinda think initially that it is an overdriven bass guitar, then you realize that the grain is quite different.

Any help/pointer would be welcome. I am having a hard time making sense of some of deconstructing this spund and am nowhere close on my Sub 37. Please be as details as possible (a picture of your panel being ideal)..

Thanks,
Louis

egg
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Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2014 7:48 am

Re: Deconstructing Snarky Puppy' Little Phatty bass sound

Post by egg » Mon Nov 24, 2014 8:43 am

The first thing I did when my sub37 arrived is jam along with "We like it here" as I have been wearing that album out of late.

Literally init patch and drop the filter down. You're nearly there already. Just one osc at twelve o clock with some sub osc to taste. Slightly off saw towards square. Really fast decay and add a quarter turn on the filter EG Amount. You could take a shave off the attack on the VCA too. Drop the filter down quite low until the timbres match. A tiny tiny bit of glide.
Just tweak around with those knobs, nothing more. I'm not near mine so I cannot get it right on but that's all it is I reckon from memory.

cheopsnet
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Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2014 1:18 pm

Re: Deconstructing Snarky Puppy' Little Phatty bass sound

Post by cheopsnet » Mon Nov 24, 2014 2:20 pm

Thanks @Egg

Super useful. I will try that and get back to you.

You seem to be very at easy with the unit and being new to Moog, I am impressed. Any resource/methodology you recommend I use to get my head around the Sub 37 better? (website, book, videos)..

I find that some sounds are inspiring, but I am having a lot of trouble dialing in/translating sounds that are in my head (I have almost considered swapping my Sub 37 for a Little Phatty as the panel seems a lot more straightforward). Some Moog users have different approaches and I feel that, for some of them, turning knobs and hearing 'space laser' sounds makes them happy. I am not dissing, but I am looking to integrate the Moog in my setup, very much in the Snarky Puppy scenario, where the Moog can be used along with guitars/basses/drums/.. So far, great 'ambience/drone/..' sounds, but I have not dialed in a bass-like type of sounds...

Thanks!!
Louis, Sub 37 newbie, clearly..

egg
Posts: 56
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2014 7:48 am

Re: Deconstructing Snarky Puppy' Little Phatty bass sound

Post by egg » Tue Nov 25, 2014 7:04 am

I can't think of a better synth to do bass and leads for a Snarky puppy type situation.
The sub37 is a simple machine, far easier than the little phatty as it's all in front of you ready for tweaking.
If you know subtractive synthesis then it's perfect synth to quickly dial in basses. The only thing you have to really work out is the way the Mod busses work and can be routed. Once you have that then it's plain sailing.
I don't know of any vids or books that can help you, I just spent time with various synths to learn what happens when you turn a knob or move a slider etc. The best way I think.
Out of all my mono synths the sub37 is more instantly a bass/lead synth than any other. It excels at exactly what you want win just with a few tweaks. Alot of synths need alot more tweaking to get good bass but a moog just has it right from the raw osc. Sure, it can go all spacey and make weird noises that will keep many people happy but I don't think that's what the majority of professionals will be using it for, they'll be using it mainly for the moog sound on basses/leads.
This might help you, it might not but it's what I am doing right now because I have no use for the presets.
Go to bank 16 slot 1. All these patches are init/blanks presets and will help you start building simple basses etc. Once you have something, save it and fill up the banks backwards.

Start off with the oscillators. Put osc 1 at 12 oclock. set to 16'. Tweak the osc wave to see what type you want. Sounds bassy, but not enough right? add a sub to whatever level you feel (past 12 oclock it will drive the osc and start taking out the 1st osc) The sub is a square wave, if your 1st osc is set to triangle then the sub will over power it. try setting osc 1 to 8' then lowering theoctave on the keyboard to get lower notes. Then turn up osc 2 and set to triangle as well but at 16' so it's acting as the sub osc. Lets concentrate on a snarky puppy bass though so put you osc's somewhere around the saw, you can tweak later to taste anyway. Now you can start tweaking the filter. Drop it until you feel it's darkened enough. There is no bite though. That's all in the filter envelope. So turn the filter env amt up then move the filter envelope decay up, past 12 oclock you should start to hear the envelope open up and let the filter through right at the start giving a "BOW" sound. If you turn the attack up too you'll get a "WOW" sound. Turning these up more will give you longer BOOOOW'S and WOOOOW's ha. The env amt knob will set how much the filter will open up. The higher up the brighter the start of the note. Snarky won't have any resonance on their basses particularly but do on their leads so experiment with setting some resonance. Be mindful that higher res settings will seemingly lower the volume slightly. Now, you have a "BOW" bass sound. You just need to fine tune those settings to get the timbre and bite you want.
For anything like this, just ignore the mod busses unless you want to use a bit of vibrato like Sean or Cory use on their leads. Use Mod one and just turn the pitch up the tinyest amount so you can just hear a wobble, adjust the speed of the LFO to taste and it should already be set to triangle by default. Don't forget to push the mod wheel up or you won't hear a thing.
It's total bread and butter for any moog synth but I can see why the sub37 can steer you away from these sounds because of the amount of crazy presets it has. It can be overwhelming. The presets are great and showcase the moog but I wouldn't rely on them. They are a brilliant convenience though so I'm not knocking them but having so many does not promote learning the instrument. You can try and deconstruct them to learn, sometimes that works but there is nothing like learning synthesis from start, the raw sound of just one osc and then adding and then subtracting.
Hope that helps and didn't sound too condescending ;)

cheopsnet
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Re: Deconstructing Snarky Puppy' Little Phatty bass sound

Post by cheopsnet » Tue Nov 25, 2014 3:23 pm

This is GOLD! Thank you for the detailed walk-thru!!!!!!!!

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goldphinga
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Re: Deconstructing Snarky Puppy' Little Phatty bass sound

Post by goldphinga » Wed Nov 26, 2014 3:52 pm

Ill ask Bill...maybe he can chime in.
Moog Gear: Voyager AE,LP Stage 2+CV outs (Blue LED's/Wheels, MF104SD, MF101 Filter, MF103 Phaser, Source, Memorymoog+, Minitaur.

mmarsh100
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Re: Deconstructing Snarky Puppy' Little Phatty bass sound

Post by mmarsh100 » Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:18 pm

Also, I think Snarky Puppy likes the drive turned up a bit - try tweaking that to taste too.

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DonutDude
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Re: Deconstructing Snarky Puppy' Little Phatty bass sound

Post by DonutDude » Sun Jan 04, 2015 8:09 am

cheopsnet,
I'd never heard of Snarky Puppy before your post here. Because of their name I thought they might be a punk group, not a jazz/pop group with horns. I'm glad I decided to check them out. Thanks so much for bringing them to my attention.

Mark

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