FM8 Glitch Hop Bass Tutorial

It’s not enough to make a bass like this nasty or dirty sounding. It also has to have certain harmonic qualities that will help the bass work with the wide range of sounds that this genre is known for, as well as sound good with both long and incredibly short bursts of sound. In other words, it needs to sound good whether the delivery is short, long, interrupted, chopped, sliced, mangled, etc. This FM8 glitch hop bass is one of those nicely balanced synths that has the unique ability to fit into music like this, and still be at home in more mainstream music genres. So it may come as no surprise that it takes some work outside of FM8 to make it sound just right.

The core of this FM8 glitch hop bass is made up of two sawtooth wave based operators, both feeding back into themselves. Operator E also is routed into Operator F to modulate it. There are two additional feedback-laden operators added, that are running a sawtooth waveform, each is then routed into both Operator E and F for further modulation. Operator C is also routed into Operator D for even more accented modulation, which gives it a harder distortion edge. The variation in pitch ratios adds width and motion to the synth.

The total number of Unison voices is increased to 8 and the synth is detuned a bit more than normal to help spread the sound out more. The Digital and Analog Quality sliders are also turned up, which gives this FM8 glitch bass more character and some movement as it develops over time. There is also a touch of air added to the sound through the Digital Quality increase.

At this point the sound design is done in FM8 and moves into the DAW. Although Ableton Live is the program featured in this video, the same things can be accomplished using any digital audio workstation. And even though their are certain 3rd party plugins used as part of this specific workflow, you can achieve similar results easily using similar plugins. First, an EQ is used to shape the sound and accentuate certain frequencies. Then a Saturator is added to focus some of the harmonics and distorted characteristics. A couple of plugins called Sausage Fattener and Ohmocide are used to introduce more distortion. If you do not have these plugins, experiment with our own distortion plugins to see what you can come up with! A Sugar Bytes Wow filter is also used to help call out certain formant sounds, which is a matter os precise EQ work if yu do not have this kind of tool.

The rest of this video spends time tweaking the sound a bit to make the best FM8 glitch hop bass possible for his project. A lot of work goes into the automation in the DAW, which is something that comes with the territory when it comes to producing this style of music. If you have a tutorial request, or would like to share one of your own with the rest of the world, get in touch with us by sending a message our way before you depart today. Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers,
OhmLab