Wide Bass Tutorial

Summary

In this tutorial I will show you how to make your bass sound wide over the stereo image by layering 2 bass sounds together. One in the lower register - the bass region (40 Hz - 250 Hz) which will stay mono, and one in the upper register - mid and treble region (250 Hz - 20 kHz) which will be panned and phase shifted.

Basic bass synth

If you didn't read my "Basic Psytrance bass tutorial", read it now. Insert a new synth (any subtractive synth will do) and set it up like I explained in my "Basic Psytrance bass tutorial". This time though, reduce the Filter Envelope Amount knob (as shown on the picture below with 1).

Fig 1. Basic bass synth

Next, program a bass score:

Fig 2. Score

It should sound simmilar to this:

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Wide bass synth

Fig 3. Wide bass synth

Next, clone this synth, and increase the Filter Cutoff  and/or Resonance (2) and the Filter Envelope Amount (1) to make it sound brighter. We will be using this synth only in the upper register (by high-passing it with an equalizer).

Tip: You can get even more interesting bass character (and better percieved wideness) if you change the waveform of this synth instance.

Fig 4. Custom waveform display in 3xosc

The original 3xosc sawtooth waveform sounded too harsh. So in my synth instance I loaded up a custom sawtooth waveform (3) from Adventure Kid's single cycle waveform pack (you can find them on his website: visit Adventure Kid's website).

Tip: If you are using 3xosc you can change the character of the waveform and the bass sound by manipulating the knobs marked with 1 on the picture to the right.

This is purely optional. You can use your synthesizers default internal waveforms even if your synth allows importing a custom waveform.


This is what my wide bass synth sounds by itself:

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Assigning frequency bands

In this step we will filter out mid and high registers on our main bass synth, and low register on our wide bass synth. Assign each synth to its own mixer track. As we are going to apply stereo separation to only the "Wide  Bass" synth we need to filter out its low end. You dont want to apply any kind of stereo separation or panning to your sub bass region because it will effectively destroy your mix on most club and large scale sound systems.

Warning: Always keep your low register (40 Hz - 200 Hz) in mono!

Fig 5. EQ states for both bass synths.

Insert an EQ on both tracks and low pass everything above low-mid/mid frequencies, usually above 200 Hz (1), on your main bass synth and high pass everything below low/low-mid frequencies, usually below min 200 Hz (2), on your wide bass synth. In this example I used EQ states as on the picture above.

This is what the "Bass" synth sounds like after EQ-ing:

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This is what the "Wide Bass" synth sounds like after EQ-ing:

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Playing together:

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Stereo separation

There are a lot of different methods you can use to add stereo richness to your synth:

by using modulation (choruses, flangers, phasers),
by phase offset and phase delay (the Haas effect),
by layering (using 2 instances of the same synth's with different tuning, modulation and panning),
by frequency splitting and panning each individual band,
hybrid (combination of the above).

In this tutorial I will describe the stereo phase offset and delay method.
First insert a stereo phase offset effect to your wide bass mixer track. Im using Fruity Stereo Enhancer, for a free alternative check out mda stereo (bundled in mda vst plugins).

By delaying one channel (the right or the left) of the mono audio source by a couple of milliseconds, our ears will percieve that same audio source as being stereo and coming from either left or right. This is called the Haas effect. Applying that effect on our "Wide Bass" synth we will get a stereo bass. 

Fig 6. Fruity Stereo Enhancer (up) and mda Stereo (down)

On the picture above under 1 is the phase offset or delay knob. I've set that to approximately 1.8 ms. Meaning my entire right channel will be delayed by 1.8 ms. Don't set this too high or you will get a kind of echo-y sound as demonstrated on the clip below. FL SE can also invert the phase of either channel (2).

Example of different delay lengths on percieved character of the audio (0 ms, 1 ms, 2 ms, 5 ms, 10 and 20 ms):

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The mda Stereo has an additional knob that can alter between the classical Haas effect or Combing filter mode (3). In the Combing filter mode the frequency spectrum of the audio is split into many small bands, with the even ones panned hard right and odd ones panned hard left. The delay knob in this case only delays when the wet signal will kick in. The mda Stereo plugin is reversing the phase of the right channel by default.
The panning and balance controls can help us center our stereo bass sample if it appears too much panned left or right.


And the final result:

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The project file: Wide Bass Tutorial