Bass driven music such as drumstep, drum and bass, types of electro and complextro and glitch hiphop require a good bass line. This is one of the key elements of a dubstep and plays a huge role in making exciting music that keeps listeners engaged. Understanding the basic concepts of creating basslines is an important skill that producers can embrace so as to create top level productions.
1. Keep the melodies simple. Coming from a keyboard player perspective, playing in numerous bands (especially funk) it took some adjusting when it came to producing this type of music. I was used to creating elaborate bass melodies and when I translated them over to this dance genre, it didn't quite transfer so well. Most dubstep basslines are very simple note wise and often stay on a single note and are often sustained notes with modulations on them. Try holding a sustained bass note for 4 bars and don't worry about it sounding too simple. Modulations will spice it up.
2. The next step is ensuring your modulations are complex. This is because modulations play a huge role in delivering the appeal in bass driven music productions. Depending on what synthesizer is being used, you can control a basic wobble and modulate different parameters such as volume, resonance, cutoffs, pitch, frequency and others to produce dynamic rhythms. You can use drum rhythms for more ideas when creating modulations. Sometimes, I thing of rhythm ideas like tapping my hands or tapping a desk or any surface and this helps me come up with unique sounding modules. Remember that modulations can either break or make a song since your melodies are simple.
3. To produce more dynamic sounds, make use of different synthesizer patches. One simple concept to make your sounds dynamic is by using various different bass synths. This ensures that each part of your bass line is in a different voice. This not only helps you produce engaging sounds to listeners but also saves time modulating rhythms by hand. Most often, I use a couple of mid-frequency and high frequency synths and up to 6 different synth basses to achieve this.
4. Call and response technique is another crucial concept. Though this technique is extensively used in the production of many types of music, I generally feel that bass driven music uses call and response more than other music genres. You can easily hear the difference by listening to any bass song. Most often, you will hear 4 or 8 counts of a bassline played in a certain voice and then another 4 or 8 counts of a synth played again followed by another. This technique is often broken up by the use of fast arpeggiated synth patterns. The technique is very simple to listen to and follow. Even the best dubstep songs demonstrate this easy format.
Keep listening to your favorite artists and keep working on improving your music and you will get there one day!
1. Keep the melodies simple. Coming from a keyboard player perspective, playing in numerous bands (especially funk) it took some adjusting when it came to producing this type of music. I was used to creating elaborate bass melodies and when I translated them over to this dance genre, it didn't quite transfer so well. Most dubstep basslines are very simple note wise and often stay on a single note and are often sustained notes with modulations on them. Try holding a sustained bass note for 4 bars and don't worry about it sounding too simple. Modulations will spice it up.
2. The next step is ensuring your modulations are complex. This is because modulations play a huge role in delivering the appeal in bass driven music productions. Depending on what synthesizer is being used, you can control a basic wobble and modulate different parameters such as volume, resonance, cutoffs, pitch, frequency and others to produce dynamic rhythms. You can use drum rhythms for more ideas when creating modulations. Sometimes, I thing of rhythm ideas like tapping my hands or tapping a desk or any surface and this helps me come up with unique sounding modules. Remember that modulations can either break or make a song since your melodies are simple.
3. To produce more dynamic sounds, make use of different synthesizer patches. One simple concept to make your sounds dynamic is by using various different bass synths. This ensures that each part of your bass line is in a different voice. This not only helps you produce engaging sounds to listeners but also saves time modulating rhythms by hand. Most often, I use a couple of mid-frequency and high frequency synths and up to 6 different synth basses to achieve this.
4. Call and response technique is another crucial concept. Though this technique is extensively used in the production of many types of music, I generally feel that bass driven music uses call and response more than other music genres. You can easily hear the difference by listening to any bass song. Most often, you will hear 4 or 8 counts of a bassline played in a certain voice and then another 4 or 8 counts of a synth played again followed by another. This technique is often broken up by the use of fast arpeggiated synth patterns. The technique is very simple to listen to and follow. Even the best dubstep songs demonstrate this easy format.
Keep listening to your favorite artists and keep working on improving your music and you will get there one day!
About the Author:
Jason Johann is an emerging electronic artist from Los Angeles. He is releasing his first EP on Beatport September 2012 using the name Good Lyfe Addikts. He's uploaded many of his own free dubstep downloads which is downloadable from his Soundcloud channel.
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