Growl Bass and Talking Glide in NI Massive

When you design a good talking growl bass, there is a chance to cash in on the wide range of changes in sound when gliding between notes over time.

A growl bass has become almost as common as a wobble bass in the NI Massive video tutorial circles these days, and this video does a good job of showing you how to take that growl one step further to make it a gliding, talking growl bass. Massive makes it very simple to accomplish all of this without the need to involve any external plugins, which makes for a quick option for live performances. Of course, for studio sessions this is a prefect kind of sound to have a lot of fun with through some automation and added modulation through some of those plugins I just mentioned.

This sound starts with OSC 1 loaded with a Groan II wavetable running in Bend + mode, OSC 2 is loaded with a DuckOrgan wavetable running in Bend – mode and OSC 3 loaded with a Sine-Square wavetable running in Spectrum mode. Some phasing is introduced to OSC 1 through the Modulation OSC panel. Some slight noise and feedback are added to take a touch of the digital edge off before moving on to the envelopes.

Setting up a simple envelope to control the pitch of OSC 3, as well as the phasing of the Modulation OSC panel comes next. Switching the synth to run as Monophonic synth in Legato Triller mode on the Voicing tab allows for gliding to be heard, as well as toggling between notes. Assigning a Macro control to the Glide parameter on the OSC tab gives you the ability to easily automate the amount of glide applied to your sound. Activating the Pitch Cutoff feature on the Voicing tab adds some phasing to the overall sound, and assigning a Macro control to this gives you the option of going a little crazy with it.

He adds a Brauner Tube Amp next to give the sound a little more punch and small amount of distortion. A Dimension Expander adds more space and presence, while some quick adjustments to the EQ tab rounds out the sound. A plugin called Turnado from SugarBytes (a seriously awesome piece of software!) is shown at the end of the video giving you an idea of what kind of added effects can be effective with a sound like this one.

If you have a sound tutorial you would like to share with people from all around the world, send us a message telling us about it. We would love to hear from you and help you get your ideas in front of the entire MassiveSynth community! Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers!
OhmLab