Creating Iconic Bass, Pad, and Lead Sounds

[00:00:00] Yo folks, welcome back in the last video
[00:00:02] I showed you some classic sounds and how to do them in Bitwig studio just with a simple subjective synthesizer without any bells and whistles
[00:00:09] No heavy processing chains just straightforward simple patches and a lot of people really liked it
[00:00:17] And I wanted to see more so why not do another video with some more classic sounds
[00:00:22] Maybe it's it would be better if I just research first and then make a list of sounds and then make a video about it
[00:00:29] But that's not how I am right. I just want to switch on OBS record some stuff and I want to switch it off and do something else
[00:00:35] Anyway, so there's a second video
[00:00:38] I also created some kind of a website or page on my website where you can read about
[00:00:43] These kind of sounds or simple patches, so you don't need to actually go to the video and scrub to the right position
[00:00:51] It looks like this here. I show you this on my on my website
[00:00:57] So you go to polarity dot me and then you have here the salon button at the top and
[00:01:03] Then you can see my stupid face in front of Bitwig studio because that's how I like it
[00:01:08] And we have here some courses Bitwig grid course. You already know this probably and we have now here a Bitwig
[00:01:15] Classic Sounds course 2025 and also again me here thumbs up in front of classic synthesizers
[00:01:22] It's all mine
[00:01:26] And you can read then about these simple patches here in these chapters and you can follow along right?
[00:01:34] simple straightforward step-by-step guides also here my video the last video on YouTube is
[00:01:40] Yeah, but time markers here so you can jump to the right position in the video
[00:01:46] You can see how I built these patches from scratch. You can hear them. You can follow along here with the
[00:01:52] Text and later on I also want to give you some presets that you can download if you are really lazy
[00:01:59] Everything completely free on my website. No login. No cookies. No subscription nothing just free stuff, right?
[00:02:08] I put you the link in the description below
[00:02:10] Okay, so we want to start here with a sound
[00:02:14] That's very very classic. I want to say I was in it in it patch here of the
[00:02:21] Polymer
[00:02:23] So we have a simple sign wave here already and we want to create another
[00:02:29] Oscillators we go to 50% here with the sub oscillators. We have two oscillators now this one and this one
[00:02:37] So this one stays on the root note and this one goes out by seven semitones, which is just a fifth
[00:02:51] So a very simple organ house bass
[00:02:54] And that's basically it for this sound, but you can make it more fancy or you can make it more
[00:03:00] sound like the M1 classic preset from the cork synthesizer
[00:03:05] With this we need actually
[00:03:08] Five or four oscillators, but we only have two oscillators here
[00:03:12] So what we can do now is we can remove the sub oscillator. We can bring this back to zero and
[00:03:19] Instead of using multiple oscillators. We just use a multi note
[00:03:22] And yeah, we let the synthesizer basically play multiple notes, which equals to multiple
[00:03:30] Oscillators, so we play the root we play the fifth seven semitones up and we also go
[00:03:38] 12 up and let's say
[00:03:41] 12 and seven
[00:03:44] Additionally, so an octave and a fifth up which is
[00:03:47] 19
[00:03:50] Okay, this sounds like this
[00:03:52] And then on top of that we can go an octave lower
[00:03:57] So we have additional bass sound. So we have four oscillators, right? Then we bring down at the volume a bit
[00:04:04] Then we have this classic house organ bass
[00:04:10] You
[00:04:12] Know the deal so this type of sound very easy
[00:04:19] It's actually just a chord but sometimes most of these classic sounds are just sampled
[00:04:26] Chords from somewhere else
[00:04:29] It sounds like one sound, but it's actually
[00:04:34] Yeah, a chord also here. There is no third in there. So no minor or major third. It's just fifth and
[00:04:41] Octave shifts so it fits basically more or less in every scale and you can use it everywhere and you can you know
[00:04:49] Transpose around and it always fits. So this is the classic house bass
[00:04:54] Okay, in the last video, I showed you a jungle bass and I used a
[00:05:01] Pulse for this and then I used a low pass filter on that but we can also do this in different ways. We can say
[00:05:08] we want to have
[00:05:11] let's say
[00:05:13] pulls and
[00:05:14] Maybe you can do here
[00:05:16] This trick again where we just detuned basically one oscillator
[00:05:20] So we have now here on the left side detuned by
[00:05:24] Three Hertz down on the right channel. It's three Hertz up sounds like this
[00:05:29] And then we just make it mono by using a tool device
[00:05:33] removing the sides
[00:05:36] Sounds like this
[00:05:38] You can also use here the pulse for that
[00:05:47] And then instead of a low pass I mean we could use a low pass here
[00:05:54] I
[00:05:56] To get already a nice jungle bass and then we want to use probably here the envelope for that the filter envelope
[00:06:08] Maybe a slow attack
[00:06:14] Also nice on top using resonance
[00:06:22] You
[00:06:24] Can also use in a lot of classic jungle tunes also usually
[00:06:40] Use here not so steep low pass filters like the LP 8 here, which cuts a lot of high-end away
[00:06:48] You want to let some overtones pass and also usually all synthesizers
[00:06:54] Have these LP one or LP two filters most of the time. So they have no steep filters
[00:07:01] Also nice on this distortion if you want to make it more fancy
[00:07:11] There's something like this
[00:07:16] Right very classic, maybe a bit crusher also possible bit eight
[00:07:23] You know jitter
[00:07:44] So you get this vocal vocal the vocaloid type of sound with a bit crusher sometimes
[00:07:50] Yeah, very classic and a lot of people use this
[00:07:55] So the resonance is also important. Also, we can switch this here to band pass band pass BP -
[00:08:02] works -
[00:08:10] Important for the band pass is that you at least touch some of the
[00:08:14] Fundamental bass or sub frequencies here. So you want to start very low like this
[00:08:20] We have at least in the beginning or at some point in the sound
[00:08:23] A sub in there, right if you have all the only frequencies here
[00:08:29] It's obviously not a bass sound, but you maybe can use this for step sounds in some house
[00:08:37] Sounds they use steps bass sounds basically like step sounds some top end here only
[00:08:42] So a lot of steps actually in in house is just filtered bass sounds
[00:08:52] So but for the jungle bass you want to have some frequencies here some sub frequencies in there
[00:09:02] And
[00:09:04] If you want to give it a more wobbly feel, of course, you need to use an LFO
[00:09:15] Then you modulate here instead of using the envelope you modulate the filter directly and maybe not bipolar here
[00:09:24] And
[00:09:26] Then again distortion without distortion, it doesn't sound that well
[00:09:37] Just just attach the touch
[00:09:49] And then using here maybe the filter envelope instead of for the filter we use it for the LFO speed
[00:10:12] So you have this wobbly feel and the LFO changes over time, that's yeah, what I really like and
[00:10:19] Yeah, that's how you do more or less these jungle whopper bass. It's just
[00:10:24] Detuned
[00:10:27] Pulls waves and then filter and resonance and distortion
[00:10:31] Very easy very straightforward in my opinion
[00:10:34] So the next one is not based
[00:10:41] Not based or rooted in drum bass, it's more like a melodic techno or modern techno type of lead sound
[00:10:48] It's more like in the direction of Stefan but then you'll probably know him. So what he does is he uses saw
[00:10:58] Let's go back to this one here
[00:11:01] And he also uses for oscillates because he uses the mokes in the size are a lot and you have like four oscillators
[00:11:07] Need to tune stem all of all of them and makes basically a sound out of it
[00:11:11] So here we have again only one oscillator or two oscillators. So here I just use one and again we create a chord
[00:11:19] So we are here the roots we use the
[00:11:23] seven at the fifth up and we also go here maybe 12 up and we go to
[00:11:31] 90 which is an octave and the fifth up
[00:11:36] Get this type of sound
[00:11:39] Maybe a little bit long
[00:11:45] And then on top we can maybe use here a MOOC filter low pass mg MOOC inspired low pass filter
[00:11:53] You
[00:11:55] Probably heard this a lot in a lot of productions on top put some reverb on it
[00:12:23] Make it more wide and fat and fancy
[00:12:26] [Music]
[00:12:54] So this is a simple patch, but you can also make this of course much better by
[00:12:59] Modulating a lot of things, but I want to keep it simple first. So we can use here instead of the
[00:13:06] Straight oscillators we can to tune all of them. So we have this in poly mode
[00:13:12] We have here bipolar and then we modulate the pitch just slightly
[00:13:16] Not too much and then basically every note or every oscillator is to tune differently
[00:13:22] [Music]
[00:13:48] Really nice
[00:13:49] Nice sound. I really like the sound a lot and it's very modern
[00:13:53] Yeah, and you can also hear this in a lot of productions. So this is
[00:13:57] Also a very easy very
[00:14:00] straightforward sound in my opinion
[00:14:03] Okay, let's go back
[00:14:05] In a preset and we don't need to reverb. Okay
[00:14:09] so another idea is I
[00:14:12] Showed you something like this in the last video, but it's kind of similar
[00:14:18] So for that we want to use here
[00:14:22] The pulse yeah the pulse because we need to have both with modulation and we do the same thing here
[00:14:29] We do the same thing as an in a re-space line. We
[00:14:32] Detune basically, but instead of saw we're using pulse. It sounds like this
[00:14:46] And we want to
[00:14:48] Add an LFO and we add here pulse with modulation. That's very important
[00:14:55] You can hear if you use pulse with modulation you can actually create kind of a
[00:15:14] Reese type of sound even though we don't use the
[00:15:17] Saw waveform and that's kind of a tip or trick if you have an
[00:15:23] Monophonic synthesizer. I have here the MOOC M32 and there's a saw on that
[00:15:29] And if you want to use unison for the saw, it's not possible because you just have one oscillator
[00:15:35] but then you switch basically to
[00:15:38] Pulse and use pulse with modulation it gives you kind of a similar sound to
[00:15:43] multiple saw waves to tune for some reason and
[00:15:46] Yeah, that's kind of the trick, but it has a different sound to it. It sounds a bit different
[00:15:52] So now with this we want to use here the filter envelope to change the pitch
[00:15:58] Okay, so we pitch this up here maybe by two octaves. I don't know if you have to find your sweet spot later on
[00:16:06] And then a slower attack here, maybe decay we don't need this
[00:16:09] Yeah, this can stay open
[00:16:35] You get this typical rave sound feel
[00:16:38] Maybe want to use your also the tool device to make it mono so we have this who are kind of sound
[00:16:45] That's better
[00:16:49] Also, maybe glide so you have this legato feel
[00:17:00] But you can hear this in a lot of Prodigy productions
[00:17:12] Early rave sounds are made kind of this way
[00:17:17] So you need a lot of pitch modulation here to get this type of rave sound out of it
[00:17:23] So here I'm just using the filter envelope for that and modulating this also to glide
[00:17:29] But you can change it here and tweak it to taste more or less
[00:17:53] Yeah, it's it's really early rave sound, okay, so that's that
[00:17:59] The rave sound at least I think it's it's a preset on the Juno
[00:18:04] I'm not really familiar with these classic synthesizers. I never owned one
[00:18:09] But I think it's it was on a on a Juno synthesizer
[00:18:13] so
[00:18:15] so we know
[00:18:17] then we have another sound that's
[00:18:21] Not really one sound again, it's a
[00:18:23] Actually can notice it's again multiple sounds at once
[00:18:29] It's a so-called dub chord. Well, I call it dub chord and
[00:18:34] It's usually just a minor chord. So zero a minor third and a fifth and we use saw waves here and a very
[00:18:44] slow
[00:18:46] steeped
[00:18:47] Low pass filter LP2
[00:18:50] And then we open up here the filter I used or I like to use your very slow attack
[00:18:57] Also here
[00:19:01] Just you know not having this going in straight from the beginning
[00:19:06] So you have like a slow
[00:19:08] Beginning here. It might I mean it sounds okay
[00:19:12] But again, I really like to have it here a slow attack in the beginning
[00:19:20] And
[00:19:22] Then for this you need probably
[00:19:26] reverb
[00:19:29] Let's dial us down here and delay
[00:19:32] More feedback
[00:19:35] Also here, that's too much feedback
[00:19:50] Also here you can tweak this in all kinds of directions first up you have of course the envelopes here to bring it in more slowly
[00:19:57] Make it more like tone down
[00:20:01] You can also randomize this here on each note trigger if you want to again make it more like a step sound
[00:20:12] And
[00:20:14] We can also play around with the resonance here
[00:20:41] And then you can use the wavetable oscillator here and bring in some unison so we make already multiple voices on each note
[00:20:48] But it has a different sound to it, so
[00:21:04] I like both versions so this is the dub chord that's how I do it you can also
[00:21:10] Use your more notes so you can use or you can add a 7th here a minor 7th and
[00:21:16] Also a minor 9th here
[00:21:33] But I think it's too happy I really like to have it simple here just with a minor chord in my opinion
[00:21:40] That's how I do it most of the times in my tracks. So that is this is the dub chord
[00:21:45] It's just also just a saw wave more or less and then you play around with the filter. It's it's all in the filter
[00:21:52] I also saw someone on reddit asking for rave steps and
[00:21:57] most of these rave steps are just
[00:22:01] Filled out differently so instead of having here a lot of bass
[00:22:05] right you
[00:22:08] Cut out the low end
[00:22:10] And then you can play it and you have in the bass something different or you know a different sound or different bass sound
[00:22:22] Also sometimes you filter with the band pass like this pretty fast
[00:22:28] Also
[00:22:30] All the other rave steps I showed you earlier you can just use a band pass filter and then filter
[00:22:39] Only in the top region and leave the base out and you have more like a step sound or typical
[00:22:45] House step sound on top
[00:22:57] Sometimes I also use bass sounds in drum and bass, but I don't use them for the bass
[00:23:02] I just cut out all the the sub frequencies and then I use them as step sounds on top
[00:23:07] That's also possible. So you have to combine them basically in different ways
[00:23:13] But there's no magic formula behind any of these sounds. It's just
[00:23:17] basic
[00:23:19] filtering and basic combining of
[00:23:22] Simple waveforms if you ask me that's how I see it at least
[00:23:27] Okay, so then I want to show you another sound. That's more like an FX sound
[00:23:34] But it's also very important
[00:23:36] And you play around noise
[00:23:39] so
[00:23:41] sometimes
[00:23:42] You want to create risers. You can do this pretty easily with the with the noise here and the band pass of course
[00:23:48] Maybe maybe a steeper one
[00:23:51] So
[00:23:53] Something like this just in the track and the background to move from one part to the other part is it's all you need
[00:24:02] right, it just brings in a transitioning
[00:24:05] Transition from one part to the other and it's perfectly fine. You don't need to add any fancy things to that
[00:24:13] Then you can use the noise here with the filter and use maybe a steeper filter
[00:24:18] Let's say a BP8 one and then a lot lots of resonance and no key tracking
[00:24:24] Get this type of sound then we use here the envelopes
[00:24:32] We don't need resonance a bit of release here a bit of attack for that
[00:24:38] And then we change here the frequency with the envelope
[00:24:41] You
[00:24:43] Get laser sounds with this so we have a steep attack
[00:24:57] Pew pew
[00:25:07] But you can also create laser or water effects with this
[00:25:12] Let's see if I can dial it in here a bit
[00:25:21] Maybe a randomized
[00:25:27] Randomize modulator here so each time we press a note we get the random
[00:25:36] Value for the frequency position here. Let's see
[00:25:40] It's a bit too much
[00:25:55] You have to dial it in you have to find a sweet spot for the for the envelopes here, that's the important part
[00:26:05] I
[00:26:07] Have something like this
[00:26:18] and then we can use a repeater and
[00:26:45] Maybe we also want to randomize here the modulation amount
[00:26:58] See all the sounds
[00:27:03] I
[00:27:05] You get the idea, okay
[00:27:31] So you have to find a sweet spot for the filter position and the envelopes and
[00:27:36] The filter amount but at some point you get nice
[00:27:40] Water drops here. You probably want to use better envelopes here. So this one is pretty basic
[00:27:47] So you can't really shape the sound
[00:27:51] You maybe want to use here something like this
[00:27:55] so let's say we have a segments here and
[00:27:59] and
[00:28:01] Use this here in seconds, maybe
[00:28:04] you set this and
[00:28:07] Then yeah, we can shape this a bit better. What's actually happening here to the filter
[00:28:14] Right you can hear it's it's much better because you have now this deeper curve
[00:28:24] . Oh
[00:28:26] . Hey change this here
[00:28:36] Can we change here the amount this is this and this is that
[00:29:06] Yeah, we changed them out here with a randomizer
[00:29:09] Or
[00:29:14] This we use here this one
[00:29:17] Let's pull this down
[00:29:22] Yeah, that's much better
[00:29:36] And then we probably want to add
[00:29:51] Reverb to make this a bit more
[00:29:53] Yeah, a bit wet
[00:29:56] Convolution there is
[00:29:59] Delay
[00:30:01] Yeah, these are water drop effects
[00:30:29] Just with the filter and like I said, you need a
[00:30:33] Specific envelope here. This one is okay, but this one is a bit better
[00:30:38] So you can shape the envelope a bit better to bring out these kind of water effects
[00:30:44] So yeah, this is a water effect on the
[00:30:46] Polymer subjective synthesizer
[00:30:49] So yeah, I think that's it for this video. I probably
[00:30:54] Find some more sounds I can show you so I make multiple videos of this and show you
[00:30:59] More sounds maybe they get complicated or more complex over time at the moment
[00:31:06] I wanted to show you very simple classic sounds
[00:31:10] straightforward
[00:31:12] Setups just a few tweaks in a simple subjective synthesizer. This was the idea behind it and
[00:31:19] Yeah, like I said most house sounds or house depths are based on multiple
[00:31:24] Notes or actually chords and then a bit of filtering band pass filtering
[00:31:29] There's not much to it to most sounds
[00:31:32] So experiment with this you can probably recreate a lot of more sounds
[00:31:39] Maybe I focus also on drum sounds or eight or eight sounds and nine or nine sounds how you can recreate them
[00:31:46] But they are kind of more complex you have to have more sounds more oscillators in different configurations
[00:31:52] But these sounds are pretty simple in a subjective synthesizer to replicate
[00:31:57] Anyway, and I don't want to start to talk about or repeating myself too much
[00:32:02] Let me know what you think
[00:32:05] Leave a thumbs up leave a subscription give me ideas in the comments always. It's always welcomed
[00:32:11] Thanks for watching. See you next video. Bye
[00:32:14] Fine.
[00:32:16] [BLANK_AUDIO]