#183: How Do Producers Make Bass Sound So Good?

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Achieving a powerful, well-balanced bass is essential for any great mix. In this episode, Marc Matthews takes you behind the scenes of his latest track, breaking down his process for designing and mixing bass sounds. Whether you're working in Logic Pro or another DAW, these insights will help you create a deep, punchy low-end that enhances your overall production.

What You'll Learn:

• How to make sub bass in Serum for a clean and powerful low-end
• How to create sub bass sounds that sit perfectly in your mix
• Techniques for how to make sub bass sound better layering
• The importance of duplicating and modifying bass tracks for a fuller sound
• Tips for final mixing considerations and blending bass in context

If you've ever struggled with making your bass stand out, this episode is for you! Tune in and start crafting basslines that bring your tracks to life.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Xfer Records Serum Advanced Wavetable Synthesizer

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Episode Transcript

Marc Matthews (00:00):
So it sounds like this with my sub bass.
So we've got two bassinstruments.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,
mark Matthews.
Welcome to Inside the Mix, yourgo-to podcast for music

(00:21):
creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials and insightsto help you level up your music
and smash it in the musicindustry.
Let's dive in.
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Dm me, rather, on instagram atinside the mix podcast.
A lot of call to actions there,but we want to answer your
questions on the podcast folks,and we're looking forward to
hearing more from you.
So I recently finished a mix fora new song that I'm going to be
releasing.
So this is the 17th of feb thatI'm recording this and this

(02:07):
song is going to come out atsome point in March.
It's a follow-up to Separationand I've sent it out to a few
people and I've been asked a fewtimes now how I created the
bass, what patches I used andbasically the production behind
the bass in this in short.
So this episode is just goingto be a quick tutorial on how I
created the bass for this newtrack.

(02:28):
I think it's going to be calledDisease or Diseased.
I was toying with Bloodline aswell, but I'm not entirely sure,
so it might change.
So when this is released, whoknows what it's going to be
called?
Anyway, let's dive into thisone.
So, to create the bass in thistrack, I am essentially using
two bass instruments and theyboth got Serum.
So to create the bass in thistrack, I am essentially using
two bass instruments and theyboth got serum.
So this is what it sounds like.

(02:49):
I'm using just a basic serumpatch and this is what it sounds
like with just one bassinstrument, with my MIDI, okay,
and I'm using a patch called theRealist, and I might have done
some other tweaking in here aswell.

(03:09):
But basically, to get the basssound I use, I generally do
start off with some patches thatI like, and then I tweak them
to be conducive to the mix andthe production.
It's got to marry with the kickdrum, right, so I'm creating
space with various mixingtechniques further down the line
.
So I take it from that.
Well, I'll play it again this,okay, and I'll add one more bass

(03:34):
instrument.
I don't like to layer basses.
I like the bass to have room tobreathe.
I don't want too much going ondown there in the low
frequencies and the subfrequencies as well.
So I'm going to add a sub bassand so it sounds like this with
my sub bass.
So we've got two bassinstruments, okay, so now I'll

(03:59):
demonstrate how I did that.
It's really simple.
So I've muted the original subbass and what I'm going to do is
I'm just going to command and dduplicate this bass track I've
already got.
I've got my midi here and I'mgoing to drag it down.
Okay, so it's just a duplicate.
So I've got bass and base.
Basically, let's call this, uh,we'll call this sub base and

(04:20):
I'll do it in lower case so Ican see the difference between
the original and it didn't work,so let's call it sub base again
.
Maybe I need to press enterthis time.
That might help, mind it.
And we'll call it sub base too.
Right, and because I'veduplicated it, I've got the same
serum patch on there and youcan see I'm using Neutron for EQ
and I've got a kilohertz can'tremember how it's pronounced

(04:43):
side chain compression to thekick going on there as well.
Basically, all I'm going to dois I'm going to open up the
serum on sub bass 2, theduplicated one, and I'm just
going to disable the firstoscillator.
I only want the secondoscillator, so I'm going to play
it on its own now.
So this is the duplicated subbass instrument track.

(05:10):
Okay now the reason I'veduplicated this and I'm using
the same patch is because I wantthe attack, the envelope of the
sound, basically to be the sameas the original bass, so that
they'll marry up nicely together.
Now I may go in and tweak it abit with the envelope, because
we're going to use a sine wavein a minute and I might need to,

(05:31):
and the cutoff as well.
For the filter, the cutoff isbeing modulated with this
particular patch.
But the reason I've duplicatedthe original bass one is because
I want again, I want the subbass.
For all intents and purposes, Iwant the patch to be exactly
the same, but I'm just going tochange the oscillator, or rather
I've disabled one oscillator.
So I'm going to changeoscillator B basically to a sine

(05:54):
wave.
So change oscillator Bbasically to a sine wave.
So I'm gonna go to digital.
I tell a lie, it's not digital,it's analog and I'm looking for
basic shapes and I've got asine wave.
So this is what it sounds likenow.
Now you can hear there's a withthe envelope.
It might need a bit of tweaking, but now it's sounding much
more like a sub-bass.
So now let's play the twotogether.

(06:15):
So let's solo both the bass andthe sub bass and I realize I
need to up the master on the subbass.
There we go.

(06:37):
You can hear it now.
Before, because we've takenaway a lot of that frequency
content and we're using a sinewave, the signal level has
dropped so I forgot to increaseit on the master.
But now I increased the master,the overall volume of the
instrument.
You can hear it.
To begin with I was like, oh,there's no difference, which
wouldn't be great, right?
So I'm going to play the basswithout the sub-bass and this is

(07:04):
with.
Now it's a bit loud at themoment and I did have it 2 dB
down in terms of overall levelin the.
Well, this is the first mix.
Actually it's not the final mixof this track.
So that is how I generallycreate basses.

(07:25):
I'll have an original patch.
Whatever synth I'm using.
You can do this in any synth.
Really, as long as you canmanipulate the oscillators and
you can change the waveforms andwhatnot.
Can't think of a synth that youcan't really do.
That I'll probably be correctedon that.
And then I just duplicate thatwith a sub-bass instrument.
I use the original patch andthen just change, or rather

(07:47):
disable, any oscillators I don'twant.
I only want one oscillator andthen I change it to a sine wave
essentially.
And I mean you could playaround with the octaves if you
want, drop the octaves down,mess around with that.
Probably don't need to do thatin this instance, but this is
one way of doing it.
So others might say well, I doX, y, z, but this is just the
way I do it and have been doingit of late, and in the past I

(08:10):
probably did it differently, andin the future maybe I'll do it
differently then, but this isjust one way.
So what I will say is Igenerally I cannot think of a
time recently in the last fewyears where I've had more than
two bass instruments on a track.
So let's play it in the contextof the full mix.
I'm actually going to drop thissub-bass that I've just created
by 2dB, because that's what Idid with the original and I'm

(08:33):
just going to.
I need to unmute the rest ofthe song and make sure that
original sub-bass is muted.
So let's play this from thebuild into the first drop.
So here we go.
Well, there we go.

(09:12):
Logic decided to have a diskoverload, even though I've got a
Mac Studio with an M1 processorin it and 32 gig of RAM.
For whatever reason, it didn'tlike it.
But I'm just going to play itagain from that drop one.
So this is from the drop.
So we're eliminating the buildnow.
No-transcript.