Designing a Wicked FM8 Growl Bass

Although modern electro genres and dubstep have largely dominated the growl bass sound design scene for the last few years, this type of sound has been used in the past and will be used for many more years to come in a wide range of music styles. In this video, Evan actually uses some 90’s hip-hop style music to accompany his FM8 growl bass, and it works just fine. He also shares a bunch of great FM synthesis knowledge as he moves through the lesson. Let’s take a look at how he makes this bass.

Starting out with the FM Matrix, where the routing is set up, Evan explains how it works and breaks down how to look at the Spectrum window to understand what you’re seeing and how this can help you in your sound design sessions within FM8. He begins by using Operator F as his main oscillator being routed to the output. Operator E is used to modulate the signal of Operator F. His example of creating a pseudo-sawtooth waveform is a wonderful visual aide to help you better understand how modulation and feedback are used to affect sounds in FM synthesis. After the examples are done, the sound design process begins. Different waveforms are selected and the ideal routing scheme and settings are found.

Next, he walks us through the envelopes system and how to use them to affect the delivery of sound from the Operators in the FM Matrix. This is an essential step in designing this FM8 growl bass. Then he goes on to the Master window where the total number of voices is increased and then spread out using the Detune and Pan features. A touch of Glide (or Portamento) is added as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,
OhmLab