Bass sound with punch - how?

Lab KeyLab
#1

Newbie question:
Make a bass sound more punchy.

Details:
I need a patch for Ghostbusters bass line.
Found one for DeepMind. Sounds ok, but with less punch than the original.
Haven’t found one for Arturia.

So - the Q(s):

  • if I were to tweak the patch: where does the “punch” usually live?
  • Would I get more punch by overlaying two patches - one with colors, another just with lows?
  • Maybe there is a patch already out there (where)?

More details:
I have Arturia ALab Pro and DeepMind 6. Will be happy to do this with either.

#2

Hi @tomilchik ,

You shoud have good starting points in Analog Lab PRO i would think. You will have more editing possibilities having the full instruments versions.

Punch is often about the envelope seetings.
Also effects and production can add to punch.
The synth it self can be more or less punchy.

If you mean the original sound, then clearly the attack has quite more open cutoff than the rather smooth sustained sound. I also think either some kind of a chorus is used or something like that - perhaps a unison feature. Perhaps a compressor is used. It’s recorded on tape in that period of time.

You can layer 2 sounds. But in this case i think just a VCA and á VCF envelope is used. I would start setting the cutoff to match the sustained sound, and then use the Filter envelope to create the attack. If you lower the envelope sustain levels, then the attack will be higher than the sustained level. Then find the spot for the decays.
Exsperiment.

1 Like
#3

In addition to @LBH ALWAYS superb advice…

Punch, particularly with bass and drum sounds, can be enhanced even further with the use of a compressor or ‘compression’.
typically i use quite heavy compression for bass sounds.
If you have a compressor plugin you could try these settings as a start point and then dial in ‘to taste’.

If you are using a ‘stock’ compressor that comes with your DAW software, use a ratio of between 3:1 and 4:1. Set the attack around 20ms, and the release time to the fastest to start with.
lower your threshold until you see 8-10dB of gain reduction, increase your make up gain to compensate for the loss of level.

If you want a lighter compression you can dial the threshold back so you get less reduction and/or you can lower the threshold so you only get about 3dB or so of reduction.

hope that helps!