Hey guys

So I've been listening to a lot of Techno tracks during the last weeks, and I really like some of them. One characteristic thing about Techno that I noticed is that a lot of Techno tracks have a Sub Bassline that gives the track a nice groovy feel. I find it really hard to explain, it sounds like 3 bass notes that repeat every .5 bars. For instance, a C1 on the first beat of the bar, then a C#1 and another C1 on the second beat of the bar, then a short pause, and then a C1 on the third beat of the bar and so on. If you'd have both the Kick Drum and the Bassline in the same MIDI Clip, it would look something like this:



It can be found in many Techno tracks, for instance here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqaKL2TKkhQ&t=0m19s

Now, I tried recreating this effect with a Sub Bass I created in Massive, using glide to smoothen out the transitions in between the notes, but it just doesn't sound quite as good. So... any ideas?

 

Nice track, even though is from Deadmau5.

Problems with sub basses are that they tend to overlap the main bass part's frequency range.

Try using a steep high‑pass filter on the main bass to see if it suits better in the mix.

Or better try eliminating individual frequencies with an EQ and a spectrum analyzer, like Fabfilter ProQ to actuate in the frequency you want to get rid off.

In this site there is a very useful calculator to find the Note to Frequency in the spectrum.

http://www.muzique.com/schem/freq.htm

 

Or use Voxengo Span or Gliss EQ to tell you the note at the cursor position. Ableton Live can do this as well.

 

What do you mean "even though"? *no*

Thanks for the clue, I'll give that a try! Seems like a good idea to EQ the Sub a bit, never really thought about that...

Thanks man, you're right! EQ8 is a powerful tool!

 

Sine wave sub. Same note. On the offbeat 8th.

 

People sometimes forget to experiment with swing when trying to emulate these type of basslines. perhaps that's why you think its grooving different to your efforts.

 

Try to apply a valve distortion on the sub bass.
Notch the frequencies where kick and other basses are sitting!

 

It's not a semi-tone apart, and set some groove !

 

What? Reproducing this doesn't take effort for me. I was just explaining what it is I hear.
Swing is helpful sometimes (for making it groove a bit), but in this case everything is straight.

Clarification (for OP): the sub is just one note (D). The tom-ish layer above is a small third (D and F).

 

thanks everyone who helped me with my question
I've been expermienting with some of the tips you gave me, and it sounds a lot better now