Drum 'n Bass with FM8 Part 3: Morphing Bass Patch

Welcome back to the third instalment of this four-part series on designing sounds for Drum n’ Bass music with FM8. This time we look at creating a unique morphing bass patch.

So far in this series we have seen Jonny create a nice lead synth and a simple bassline that could easily be placed into a Dn’B track. This week he walks us through the steps of creating a morphing bass synth that will offer more flexibility and the ability to change up sounds without changing patches. The Morphing Matrix is a quick shortcut to find new innovative sounds, or just a way to create slight variations on a sound. It’s really up to you how you go about using it. And the Easy/Morph window gives you all the controls you need to manipulate multiple parameters throughout the synth with very little effort or know-how required.

One of the first things to take notice of in this particular lesson is that the operators in play are routed through the filter (Operator Z). This is important because it gives you some added opportunities for controlled modulation over time by programming in some automation curves in your DAW. This can add instant tension, interest, or completely change how your sound it perceived.

One more area you can experiment with is the FM Matrix and waveform assignment setup. Some of the operators are not set to run in Key Sync mode. Try playing around with these to see how re-triggering affects how your sound is delivered from note-to-note. You may also have some success with inverting more than just the one waveform shown in the video. This morphing bass patch is very dirty, crunchy and downright nasty. You can often times find a couple of different version of a sound at the stage of the sound design process, and easily assign it to a corner in the Morphing Matrix before you even get to the Easy/Morph window!

The possibilities of what you can do with a sound like this morphing bass synth are basically limitless. These are just a couple of ideas to help you expand upon what you have learned in this tutorial and hopefully end up with your very own version to use in your projects.