Using a kick as your bass?

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EDGEK8D
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Using a kick as your bass?

Post by EDGEK8D »

Greets mnml:

Rather new here and to this kind of music. I've been noticing quite a bit lately in some the minimal tech/house I've been listening to lately, that it sounds like to me, that occasionally there is not bass line per se, but just a nontraditional kick drum pattern where sure there is always a kick on the 1, but then elsewhere too. Or maybe they have a kick on the one and then use another kick as the bass line.

Is this correct, or is it just a really punchy little bass? I'm still getting familiar with this genre and am curious if this is common practice.

Thanks :)
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Re: Using a kick as your bass?

Post by AK »

You could use anything that has a low frequency to be honest. Toms have been quite common, esp. the 808 type with or without the noise added as they are easy to pitch but kicks, congas djembe's, anything really. Sometimes you may have to take a bit of the attack transient off so it's not too kick-like but anything that you can pitch and has a short punchy low frequency sound can work really
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EDGEK8D
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Re: Using a kick as your bass?

Post by EDGEK8D »

Thanks AK. I have been working hard for a while at making kicks in Ultrabeat. I bought a "Kay Labeled" Kicks sample pack and they were AWFUL. Labeled, but awful. So I started to make the low layer myself and with a little practice, I'm getting quite good at it. Analyzing some tracks with an FFT, I just low pass everything and listen to, and watch, the groove. Waves H-EQ is good for this and helps me see what key the kick and bass fundamentals are in. At times its just like they are playing chords with the low end. The kick and bass are often unison on the 1, or a a perfect fifth so there is no dissonance.

I'm rather new to this type of music but I'm loving all the space in the mix and look forward to learning more and working on some tracks myself.
AK
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Re: Using a kick as your bass?

Post by AK »

Yeah any form of dissonance amongst very low frequencies tend to lose itself into a sonic muddle, that's why very low chords are no good for anything except effect. But in terms of kick and bass, where small snippets of sound are used and sequenced to form a 'non-traditional' bassline, you are usually always safe with an octave or perfect 5th relationship. If your kick has a discernible pitch and you are using ( for arguments sake ) a low 808 tom for bass, the bassline is effectively being created by those two elements alone. Pitching the low tom to octave/unison/perfect 5ths of the kick and then creating a nice pattern could be all you need. It might seem a bit boring having a bass that just hits root and 5ths but the idea is more about the groove than anything melodic and besides, having a root/5th grounding means you can pretty much get away with any melodic and harmonic patterns created on your synths.

Whatever low end sounds you use for your bass, try starting very simplistic with those 5ths and octaves of the tuned kick, you can always add or repitch a certain low note depending on how things progress above but it does give your synths a lot of melodic freedom :)
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Re: Using a kick as your bass?

Post by zeropoint »

have a look at this thread....

http://mnml.nl/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1 ... 8&start=48
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Re: Using a kick as your bass?

Post by Dal-Tech »

It's common is some older dance music like freestyle, Miami bass type stuff because of MIDI/ sampling technology. You can do this with the Novation Drumstation too.
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Re: Using a kick as your bass?

Post by weedo »

man just use anything that will make the subwoofer jump around !
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Re: Using a kick as your bass?

Post by Minimus »

Yep!
Kicks are too good to make a sub bass.
Is one of my prefered mode to have it.
A good tip is to use a sample in the middle part of kickdrum waveform and cut the final part.
Search for best point to start sound ( take care to clicks ) and transpose down it -12 or more.
Next step u can use the glide option, this way u can create movement in sub bass line.
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