bass

10 projects

105
The Jump-Up Bass
A Reese is two saws a few cents apart, so every harmonic is two lines with nothing at all between them: 84 dB of nothing at the sixth. Distortion doesn't add harmonics to it, the count is pinned at its ceiling before the first clipper even runs. What it does is put lines where there were none, and by the third nonlinearity the gap is within 17 dB of the lines either side of it. This one is also the first day where the sound isn't code: it's a patch, thirteen nodes of data, and the five steps you walk through are worked out from the signal path rather than written by hand.
sounddeepRecipes 2/12audio synthesis web-audio
103
The Moog Bass
The first of twelve basslines built a step at a time, and the step that matters turns out to be the filter you can't get from Web Audio. A Moog's ladder is four one pole stages with feedback around all four, and that feedback subtracts the input, which is what eats the bass: for an 8.5 dB resonant peak it pays 10.4 dB of fundamental while the peak itself rises 12.1 dB. Two cascaded BiquadFilterNodes put up the same peak within 0.1 dB and pay nothing at all, so at matched peaks the ladder sits 12.5 dB further down. First of twelve.
soundbuildRecipes 1/12audio synthesis web-audio
94
The FM Bass
Two sines, one modulating the other, and the spectrum is a Bessel function. Measured against the arithmetic at every ratio and index the page offers, the worst sideband is 0.18 dB out. At an index of 2.405 the first zero of J0 takes the note out of its own sound, 80 dB down while the sound stays loud, and a decaying index passes through that null 62 ms into every note, predicted at 61. At a ratio of 1 or 2 the folded sidebands land back on the note and the null only half happens.
soundbuildPatches 4/12audio synthesis web-audio
93
The Wobble
A wobble is a saw through a resonant lowpass swept by a tempo locked LFO, and it doesn't sweep, it steps. The filter peak can only land on a harmonic of the note, so on a 55 Hz saw it climbs a staircase of 32 harmonics from the third to the 45th, a fourth wide at the bottom and 0.39 of a semitone at the top, going round 4.6 times a second on an eighth note at 140. Sharp resonance lifts each step 18 dB, soft lifts it 6. Play it, or let it play a bassline.
soundbuildPatches 3/12audio synthesis web-audio
92
The Reese
The reese is two saws a few cents apart, and every harmonic beats at its own multiple of the detune. At 15 cents on A1 the fundamentals drift round each other every 2.09 s and the eighth harmonic beats 3.83 times a second, both read off the sound. The lowpass decides the fastest beat you hear: 5 Hz closed, 12 Hz open, and at 30 cents open it passes 15 Hz and the growl becomes grit. Play it, or let it play a bar of drum and bass.
soundbuildPatches 2/12audio synthesis web-audio
83
The Wobble
A saw through a resonant lowpass with the cutoff swept by an LFO at the tempo. Sweep it in hertz and the wobble sounds open 80% of the time, because the ear hears octaves. And however you sweep it, the resonance cannot keep up, 3 dB short at half notes and 6 dB short at sixteenths.
soundbuildSynthesis 8/15audio synthesis web-audio
81
The 808 on a Phone
A phone speaker hears one per cent of a clean 808, and 93% of that is the first 60 milliseconds. Saturation does not bring the energy back, it moves it later into the body of the note. Drive makes a sub last on a phone. It does not make it louder.
soundbuildSynthesis 6/15audio synthesis web-audio
80
The Reese
Two saws seven cents apart, into a lowpass, into saturation. The bass under most of jungle, built from the last four parts. Saturation flattens its swell from 6.4 dB to under 1, and cannot stop the sub vanishing 60 dB down every four and a half seconds. That is why there is a sine under every Reese.
soundbuildSynthesis 5/15audio synthesis web-audio
79
One Detune, Ten Speeds
Two saws seven cents apart is the Reese, the bass under most of jungle. Detune them and they beat, but a saw is a stack of harmonics and the tenth one beats ten times faster than the first. One knob, and every harmonic moves at its own speed.
soundbuildSynthesis 4/15audio synthesis web-audio
78
The Click Is Not the Note
A pure 55 Hz sine has one frequency in it, and it still clicks when the note starts. How much depends on where the wave was at that instant, by 19 dB. The click is the envelope, and the attack is a filter on it.
soundbuildSynthesis 3/15audio synthesis web-audio