Notice when I shorten the notes in the previous bassline, how it affects the feel of the beat:
#BASSLINE FL STUDIO FREE#
There’s no problem with this, but it doesn’t leave much room for interest, so feel free to play around with this a bit more.ĭada Life have been quoted as saying that they will spend many hours deciding on the length of their notes.
#BASSLINE FL STUDIO FULL#
Most producers tend to program in notes so they hold out the full length until the next note is played, with no silence. It’s not just about when you play a note, but how long also matters. Release determines how long the note will take to fade to silence once the key is no longer being held.Ī plucky bassline is going to require different note programming to a soft, sweeping bass. Sustain determines the level of volume that the decay will drop to. Hence, the term ‘ADSR Envelope’ is used to describe them.Īttack controls the pluckiness or softness of the beginning of a sound.ĭecay determines how long the sound will take to decrease in volume after the attack stage. If you’re new to the basics of sound design, a synth envelope is usually made up of four parts:
#BASSLINE FL STUDIO PATCH#
This is more of a bass sound design tip, but how your bass patch sounds makes a big difference on the feel of your bass line. This tip varies between genres, so it’s worth doing some experimentation of your own here.įor example, if you’re making house or other 4-on-the-floor music, then using groove and swing presets are a great way to add a nice timing to your drum patterns. Take this example here where I use a combination of all four of these elements. The combination of these can be used to create a human feel that is normally not achieved by programming in simple notes. We’ve already talked about playing with the rhythm, but what if we took it a step further?Ī few musical devices you can use here are: See how it adds a greater degree of movement so easily?Įxtra tip: If you’re on Ableton Live, a quick shortcut to move notes up or down an octave is Shift + Up/Down Key. Moving up tends to increase energy, which can be great for builds, but moving down can help introduce a new section or repeat.
Just move between an octave on the same bass note to add motion and a different feel. Octave jumps are one of my favorite tips, because they’re simple yet so effective. This sounds particularly cool when we combine it with some chords and drums. We can add some note changes towards the end of each chord, just to add some extra motion. Playing the wrong bass note, even in the right key, can muddy up your low end.īut if you stick to the chord tones (the notes belonging to the chord playing in a given moment), then you’re likely to come up with interesting yet practical results. Shock horror, but did you know you didn’t have to follow the root note of your chords?Īll jokes aside, I get the temptation to stick to what works. You’ve written a full guide on the topic here 🔥 Tip 3: Play Notes other than The Root Mote: bass compression is key to getting a full, consistent sound in your mix. It can be done at half or double times this speed as well, so feel free to use it on other rhythmic elements other than bass, like fast hi-hats.
It gives it a feel that two different tempos are playing at the same time, but they’re not, which is why it sounds so damn cool. Syncopation as a similar feel to using a triplet grid, but it works with a 16th grid, allowing it to sound interesting yet rhythmically tight. The simple formula for writing syncopation is as follows: Wikipedia defines it well so I’ll show you the definition: Syncopation is a staple in many genres of electronic music for a reason – it adds such a nice groove to any drum pattern. After all, the bass is technically a ‘rhythm’ instrument.Įven though genres like trance have one note held for long periods of time, it’s the note repetition that drives the tracks and adds interest.Īnd that’s only the basics. So instead, they just played an interesting rhythm. This works because, traditionally speaking, bass instruments wouldn’t have a long enough sustain to hold a note for as long as a synth bass would. Simply by adding a second note in this pattern, you get something with a bit more ‘movement’ to it. One way to switch it up without doing too much is just by adding rhythm to those notes, even if they play the same pitch. As previously mentioned, most producers just follow the root note of their chord progressions and end up with a safe yet boring bassline.
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