Hi everybody,

whenever I hear something from Sam Paganini, I always wonder how he does it with his bass.
It's so incredibly dense and present, and still there is so much room left for all the other stuff.
So, any thought on how he does it, in terms of sound design and mixing?

Take this as an example:


The sub would be a sine, I guess, but I cannot build a sine-based patch that blasts through the mix like that. But all other oscillators add too much harmonics. Filtered triangle? And what in terms of dynamic processing?
I'm stumped...

Any help?

Thanks

 

There are many things to consider when talking about that, the first and foremost I'd mention is that Sam Paganini has been doing what he does for almost two decades, so the experience is invaluable and even the most subtle details make a great deal when post-processing and mastering; second, it's a Cocoon release that you're comparing your work with, and comparing work in progress mixes with finished products (especially if they are so polished and perfected like Cocoon's releases) is ALWAYS wrong, because every track has undergone a dynamic process in order to be released and trying to imitate its loudness is just going to be detrimental for your work.

Finally, sound-wise, I'd say it's a sub bass with inaudible harmonics (lightly saturated sine or triangle). Most of the sub ''pump'' it's a mastering derivate and probably nothing I'd worry too much about in the mixing process. Just try to find a more effective kick to pair with the sub and you'll see it works wonder to get that pumping feel when properly sidechained (Big Room kicks are the best in making this Drumcode-y kind of techno).

Hope this helps!

 

I don't really hear a bassline, but a sub kick layered with the mid/top kick.
As you can hear in the intro there is really no masking in the lows, so the sub has alot of room. The sine sub acts as both a bass and a kick in this case, so there is no "arguing" between kick and bass when it comes to mixing.

Sine (which only have one fundamental) or lowpassed square/FM/saw (to add a tad overtones to get some "grit"). The simplest of waveforms, played low, goes a long way.

 

Thanks, guys!
So I was on the right track, but I did neglect the sub kick. That's why the bass kinda collapsed when sidechaining the sub.
I think the magic is in the combination of the sub kick and the sub bass and glueing it all together?
Back to the studio

edit:

Ok, I think I got it.
Kick, layered with sub kick, sine subbass with the attack adjusted to fit with the sub kick's tail. Then I did something I honestly never did before: I compressed them together. Needs some fine tuning, like the tad of harmonics, but that's pretty much it I think.

Thanks again

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 25, 2015

It's just a sine sub underneath a top kick (highpassed kick). Yes, you might need just a wee bit attack to avoid click and overlapping with the kick transient (maybe 10ms).

 

Ok if I get you right you mean the sine layered under the kick as the only bass?
But there seems to be some kind of shuffled semiquaver bass with an octave step on every second offbeat going on, that rhythmic rumbling between the kicks?

 

Hey Baxter,
could you tap me just a little pinch towards the solution to the remaining uncertainty?

 

loads of ways to achieve that. sample, resample, synthesis, delays, ........

 

I just hear one bass/kick.

Do you mean the repetative melody (reverbed lowpassed square) playing in the mids?

 

Maybe I do get wrong what I actually mean.
I made an example and tried to isolate what I'm after, I also did it with other tracks by him as it is part of his signature sound:


So what I'm after is what that sound is and how he gives it so much pressure in the mix - for what I hear it has very little harmonics...

 

Its a good matched kick with sub. The sub is pumping, but that pumping envelope is perfectly shaped for that particular kick.
However, especially in your first example, you hear a lot of secondary percussion, let's say kinda toms. You can tune them to make them sit in the mix perfectly. Then you lowpass them which leads to a more boomy allover bass.

In techno productions you usually want a lot of percussive stuff, and you just lowpass them hard (30-80Hz) to achieve a dense bass foundation.