Ultimate Sound Design Recipe Book Vol 1: Basses and Subbass

Revisit fm synthesis fundamentals with Ableton operator, building a carrier and modulators to craft a wobbly bass using at least two oscillators. Introduce Jack as the course's first bass-focused guest.

Meet Jack Denny from Ternium Sound, part of a three-person production group touring worldwide, as he deconstructs bass sounds for attorney and soundtracks and his own tracks.

Explore creating an FM bass sound with operators and pitch modulation to produce a metallic subbass, then shape it with filters, key tracking, envelopes, and selective overdrive and saturation.

Explore fm synthesis fundamentals, meet Dumpling (Joe), and preview Ableton teaching, instrument racks, and upcoming wabble bass sessions in this sound design course.

Learn how to use instrument racks in Ableton Live, pairing two operator FM synths to route notes by pitch, and craft a plucked bass sound from scratch.

Shows a plucked fm bass in Ableton operator using a rack, carrier A with B, C, D for texture, a modulated filter and drive, plus a second operator and saturation.

See how serum is used as an FM synth with two oscillators, where the second modulates the first to create a tear out style bass using no wave tables.

Create a tear-out bass from square and sine waves with fast pitch modulation, two-octave offset, and an envelope shaping pitch, volume, bandpass filter, and light overdrive for cohesion.

Explore a dirty bass patch built around operator with a dense effects chain, highlighting step-by-step parameter automation across three automation lanes, using lfo and envelope automation, and external plugins.

Design a bass with Ableton operator, configuring carrier and modulator oscillators, detuning and pitch envelope, then sculpt with compressor, distortion, green delay, vocoder, corpus, and phase mysteries.

Meet Zakariya Khan, a versatile producer and performer in Honey Butter. Explore his work across softer pop, track production for others, and varied sound design.

design a funk bass in Massive by using a saw wave with envelopes and filters, starting from the init patch and sculpting into the track's bass.

Design a funky bass from scratch in massive by using the smoke out the garden saw wave, filtering with a low-pass envelope, and adding mono, legato, and unison stack.

Explore the wub wub bass with envelopes and lfo shaping, automate lfo rate for rhythmic variation, and learn to craft a dirty, high-overtones tone with distortion.

Explore a subtle wub by phasing two oscillators and using phase cancellation; render the synth as audio, drop into a sampler, and lock the pulse tempo for bass and subbass.

Craft a Reese bass in Ableton using two detuned oscillators, a low-pass filter, and saturation to load into a sampler and explore beating from destructive interference.

Explore envelope shapes to sculpt bass by modulating the filter cutoff, revealing distinct sounds. Recreate the wub with serum’s square wave or a non-wavetable synth.

Create a simple square wave dubstep bass using a low-pass filter and envelope-driven volume, then sculpt with chorus, eq, compression, and a high-shelf boost.

Explore wavetable grit for a dark dubstep bass, starting from sub bass and evolving with Face Plant, FM modulation, and multiple effects to build the tone.

design a mid-bass patch by starting with a clean, down-pitched sub sound, gently shaping with subtle distortion or harmonics, low-pass filtering, and texture via multi-band compression to reveal organic character.

Explore how subbass delivers a felt low-frequency hit in club systems through smooth sine-wave tones around 20–60 Hz.

Explore subbass design by layering distortion on a sine wave to add upper frequencies, creating a percussion-like sub bass for a drum and bass track.

Design a DnB sub bass patch in Ableton by shaping a sine-wave operator, layering erosions, a multi-stage distortion, a phaser, and Max for Live LIFO-driven frequency movement.

Learn how adding upper frequencies to a sub bass creates grit or hair, with Jack guiding a simple sub bass sound.

Learn a quick white-noise top layer trick to give sub bass more presence by using saturation, parallel effect racks, and a vocoder to layer white noise, then boost high frequencies.

James Patrick, our fourth guest, is an Ableman certified trainer and expert sound designer, renowned worldwide as a DJ and producer. Hear a short clip of his track.

Explore a quirky low-frequency technique that turns ultra-low tones into clicks, blending sound effects with bass and sub bass.

Discover squishy bass sounds by shaping ultra-low notes with band-pass filtering, envelopes, and lfo modulation in Ableton, then resample and add delay for a rich subbass.

Preview forthcoming modules on leads and chord textures, with synths and lead sounds, including pads; then explore drums and vocals, and close with effects and other sound design tricks.

Thank you for taking this class and being part of this crazy online experience. Stay tuned for more guest artists and future classes.