Sick Twisted Minds

Future House Basses Vol. 1 Tips

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 Sick Twisted Minds
Future House Bass Vol. 1 Tips

Thanks for taking the time to read this instruction packet to get the most out of these presets, make sure to
watch the youtube videos listed at the end of this manual.

1. Lean Towards Sine/Squares for hollow sound, others for more rich or interesting timbres, saw and other
more complex waveforms are good for fm modulation source and layer

2.Set the amp envelope to fast attack, medium to full sustain and medium decay with short to medium release.

3 After selecting waveform add a lowpass filter, and modulate the cutoff with an envelop. The cutoff should be
set fairly low and the modulation depth should be between 25% and 50%

4. Set the filter envelope to fast attack, medium sustain and medium decay with short release.

5. From here you can begin to add unison voices and hear the impact on the sound, this general adds
power/fullness, if the sound is too sharp try adding some randomness to the phase re-triggering which will
smooth out the sound. To further smooth out the sound, add a slight bit of detune. Make sure to reduce the
stereo width of your detuned voices to around 50% and if you hear a phasing/zapping noise you need to
increase the voice randomness.

6. Important note: For rich, interesting bass plucks the high end much be very rich in harmonics, even annoying
w/o a filter. So try turning off the filter, is the high end rich, full and bright? If not try adding some more
oscillators. Harmonic rich waveforms such as saws and FM generated waveforms are good to layer on top of
your base sound. You can stack them in unison, octaves, or even intervals like a 5th which can add a melodic
element to your bass timbre. You can try adding a sub if detuning has weakened your other sounds.

7. If you want an extra percussive attack, add enveloped white noise with a very short snapped envelope. This
will add bite and organic randomness to your sound if done subtly.

8. At this point try different kinds of filters, each has its own character for bite and punch as well as it’s
response to the envelope and sound of the resonance circuit.

9. If you want a more aggressive sound, try add some form of saturation or distortion, this will bring out the
snap of the filter and emphasize the harmonic content. Try not to over do-it and if you want heavy distortion try
using the wet/dry knob to keep as much of the original definition as possible.

10. At this point experiment with EQ and compression to see if it improves your sound. Try EQing all over the
frequency spectrum with different gain choices and resonances, don’t be afraid to push 20db if you think it
sounds good. EQing the high end usually brings out the snap and metallic elements of the bass where as
down below you bring out the weight and impact. Compression can adjust the envelope of the sound, and in
multi band mode the sound is drastically altered, use compression cautiously if you want to maintain the
original integrity of the sound.

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11. At this point you can begin to experiment with FM to achieve the modern basses popular in Future
House. Set the warp mode to FM from another oscillator and put an envelope on the warp amount, set the
envelope to fast attack, medium to full sustain and medium decay with no release. Try reducing the
modulation depth if the sound is too aggressive or distorted. If your having trouble hearing the difference,
temporarily disengage the filter. As stated before, saw and other rich waveforms, especially those generated
from FM make amazing modulators for FM and create rich timbres with ease.

12. From here go back to the beginning and consider each step again and try and tweak each decision to
better fit other choices made along the way. Sound design is an iterative process, going back to improve
things that other changes brought to attention.

Tweaks and Tips

-Add an LFO to pitch of one of the oscillators with depth of around .5 semitones and a very low LFO rate.
This has a noticeable impact on the sound, it rounds it out, blurs it, adds randomness and organic feeling to sound.

-Add portomento and velocity modulation for added character

-Add envelope to pitch of one of the oscillators with very fast short envelopes to add bite/punch.

-Try multiple envelopes on filter cutoff with different modulation depths and envelope settings to get extra control.

-You can use an oscillator with PWM to make a blurry detuned sound without using multiple voices or detune.

-Ring modulation can add an interesting metallic/ringing quality to the bass

-Vibrato makes the bass blur/warp/warble, adds randomness and a pressing hollow sound

-Unison and phase re-triggering are extremely important for snappy sound when used in combination with a
filter and saturation

-Put envelope on WT position for extra interest

-Try switching out the base oscillator waveform with something harmonically rich, like a formant waveform
and hear the impact when using FM.

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