Guest Post: Designing a Wicked NI Massive Bass Music Synth with Tunecraft Sounds

In this guest post we welcome sound designer Tunecraft to walk you through designing a Wicked NI Massive Bass Music Synth.

Tunecraft Sounds is a sound design company supplying a wide range of 100% royalty free LEGAL downloads for Producers, Musicians and Recording Studios.

Check out Tunecrafts Sound Packs For Massive

Ok let’s begin!

Let’s walk through a sound inspired by a bass preset that is included in our recent Tunecraft EDM Signature Series soundset available for sale on ADSR.

Here it is in context:

That screechy-style kind of sound has been commonly used in dubstep, glitch hop or electro house productions lately by artists like Pegboard Nerds, Knife Party and tons of others.

To create this patch, we’ll proceed with several steps: Today we will be doing Part 1 – How to set the basic template and sound design, and we will then move onto Part 2 in a future tutorial and add macro controls and modulation assignments to add interest and give a lot more possibilities and variations of use.

Let’s begin!

PART 1 – Basic template and sound design

Let’s start with a default init patch! Firstly set the oscillators as follows:

OSC 1 is off
OSC 2 is set to A.I, pitched +24 semitones
OSC 3 is set to Sin-Squ at -24 semitones to provide a pure sine sub

We also choose the bend -/+ for OSC 2, which we’ll be useful later in part 2.

Both OSC 2 and 3 go through F1 and F2 equally for now.

As shown on this first picture, we assign ENV 3 to both OSC 2 & 3 for a modulation of + 12 semitones.

We also use the MODULATION OSC to +12, and will set it to modulate the OSC 2 phase later on.

Bypass both NOISE OSC and FEEDBACK to optimize CPU use.

Let’s set our filters!

We’re using both filters in SERIAL circuit, with FILTER 1 set on COMB filter, and FILTER 2 on a LOWPASS 4.

Push both filters volume to their max and set the MIX parameter all the way down so that we hear the end of our filter chain with MIX 2.

Finally set all filters parameters as shown on the picture, and assign the ENV 3 to the COMB filter pitch.

Important note: The Comb filter knobs positions are crucial to get the attended result.

Be sure to DOUBLE CHECK the PITCH so that it takes its right place for this sound

We should now have a look to the OSC window settings and set it as follows:

We’ll check the “Restart via Gate” box, so that our oscillators restart all in phase.

If your default patch doesn’t set the MACRO 1 on the Vibrato parameters, assign them as shown in the picture above, this will be a cool modulation to play with in the end.

Eventually adjust the Glide parameter to your taste.

Finally tick the Vibrato Osc box to MONO, and set the pitchbend range to your taste. We set it to +2 / -2 which are our default patch values for now.

We will now have a look to the VOICING parameters:

-Set it for a unison of 4 voices to bring more thickness, and set the voicing tab to MONOPHONIC

-Set the Trigger to ALWAYS so that the modulators are retriggered each time you play a note.

Let’s have a look to the ROUTING parameters:

The routing Matrix offered by Massive is truly a powerful tool to create a wide variety of sound.

For example, here we insert INS1 to add some dirt between both Filters and INS 2 right after the second filter as they work in Serial mode.

We also send the OSC 3 (that is our sine sub) directly through the EQ by checking the Bypass box ( highlighted “B” on the left) and click the arrow

below the EQ box on the right. Let’s now set ENV 3:

As seen before, we assigned ENV 3 to the pitch of OSC 2 and 3. Set ENV 3 as shown on the above picture.

Setting a quick envelope on the pitch is a common trick that can be used on a lot of sounds like Leads or Basses: It should provide more attack and help you getting a nastier, punchy sound.

We can now have a look on ENV 4 that is our default Amp envelope:

Quickly set short Attack and Releases, and push the Sustain level all the way up, as shown above

We’re now ready to set our inserts FX :

We’re using a Sine Shaper on Insert 1 and a couple more filters on Insert 2 which will be useful later !

Now let’s have a look to our main FX Section :

A Classic Tube is used on FX1 to provide the grit that will give our preset his final aspect :

A Dimension Expander is used on FX2 to add some space and fatten the sound too. Adjust parameters to your taste.

We finally shape our sound with a rather strong EQ, and push the BYPASS fader almost all the way up to allow OSC 3 that is our sine sub to directly cut through. Adjust those parameters to your taste !

You should end up with something that sound pretty close to this :

What’s next ?

– Experiment with changing some parameters like wavetables, knobs positions, filter parameters, distortion amount and so on. You’ll be amazed how much slight changes can transform a sound into a whole different thing.

– Watch your master level for saturation even if you don’t hear any, it is a good thing to save some headroom if you plan to add post processing like EQs or compressors afterwards

– Stay tuned for Part 2 soon, as we’ll be showing you how to transform this cool preset in a huge live playing tool by assigning crazy macro modulations!

Check out Tunecrafts Sound Packs For Massive