DUBSTEP: The untold story

nickfarfol · Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 1:56 am Post subject: DUBSTEP: The untold story

Most of the tutorials on youtube and such are trash (and I'm not usually one to judge) but I've been wondering how does one make a "wobble" (the distorted pulsating bass in 99% of dubstep songs) in Cubase? I don't have any VSTs besides the standard 700 Halion and Proluge and would prefer to not have to purchase something of course.

Thank you
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Cubase Essential 5 - Windows XP Home 2002 Edition - Dell Dimension DIM 3000 - 2.40 GHZ Processor - 512 MB Ram

And yes, Cubase does take 15 minutes to start up on my computer Smile

Crotchety · Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:25 am Post subject:

I have no idea but it sounds like a great excuse to dive into the nitty-gritty. Don't reach for the plugins! Before we got spoiled rotten with all this gadgetry people had to make the most of what was to hand - plug this into that, see what happens, *klonk* what did I press there - oh, hang on, that sounds great...! Without that approach I shudder to think what we'd have missed out on.

Why not start with a bass, a distortion and a modulator and see what you can do? Just do it... Very Happy

Crotchety

PS: I'm not surprise Cubase takes 15 minutes to load with only 512MB of ram. Shocked

I'm a bit amazed you can even get Windows to run (slight exaggeration). I forget what your limit is on XP but I think you can go up to 3-4GB if your mobo will take it. You'll be able to do much more serious damage to your sounds with the extra. Wink

PS: And of course, when I say don't reach for the plugins, I don't mean the basic ones! (Someone was bound to point that out Whistle

)
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Fat El Nino · Member Joined: 29 Aug 2009 Posts: 155 Location: Germany

Hi nickfarfol!
I recently also started occupying myself with Dubstep and wobblewobble! Since I have NI's "Massive" and so many wobblebass-tutorials are based on it, of course I use it, too. I like the approach of Crotchety and also think it's a great method of gaining expertise in something. Dig in and suck out all of the things you got, and make it your own to really understand it!
In this case though, I belive it would be better and possible to look out for some free synths on kvr.com or something and find yourself one that has LFOs to set up some modulation paths, some waveforms (great if wavetable), filters and probably FX, to create some basic basses.
In the beginning for me it was difficult even in Massive and with all the tutorials, to set something up, that sounds typical. But in doing so, better results came fast.
So, in short: Why don't you check out some of the free plugins?

Greetz Nino
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Beanie Brandon · Member Joined: 13 Feb 2009 Posts: 158 Location: London

Hi there, the secret to the wob-wob bass is automating the cutoff to the LFO of each note differently (1/4, 1/8triplets, 1/16, 1/3 etc.) and also just distorting the hell out of the bass (overdrive, bitcrush, amp sim etc.)

Unfortunately in Prologue you can't change the LFO in the automation lane, BUT you can have several instances of Prologue, each set to different LFO rates, and play different notes on each of these (I was determined last night to get a Dubstep bassline out of Prologue after Crotchetys' suggestion, felt quite good having that genuine 'Eureka' moment!). Try different variations of sine, pulse (Reso pulse 2 is quite good) & saw at different octaves & levels, turn up the drive and also try turning the Chorus effect on for phatness and even the Distortion effect there too.

Also, if you are also using portamento you can always copy the whole bassline to all of your Prologues and automate the volume for each so that only one note is playing on one Prologue at a time but it keeps that slight wonkiness to the start of the note.

I've got Massive & also the Massive Threat Library, but you can spot the pre-sets from a mile away so it's always good to get stuck in a roll your own. As you can see, it's all a bit fiddly but it can still be done if you experiment. It would have probably been easier to do it on another synth though Laughing

Beanie Brandon · Member Joined: 13 Feb 2009 Posts: 158 Location: London

In fact a lot of Dubstep has either a separate synth sine wave underpinning that top distorted bass (with the top bass rolled off before 50Hz) or the two don't play at the same time, but in a kind of call-response (wob-wob-wob, dooooow, doow etc Very Happy

) For that true sub bass (that bass that makes your trousers flap & the walls vibrate) it needs to be within 24 to 50 Hz. This is why most Drum & Bass tracks (and some Dubstep) are in the key of G (G1 is 49Hz, G0 is 24.5Hz) any higher and it doesn't have that effect, any lower and you can't really hear/feel it but it still takes up massive amounts of headroom - so always roll-off everything below 24Hz.

Of course now you'll have to play close attention now to what frequencies you kick drum is sitting at, tune it to the root note of the song (can sound awful if you don't) and either shelve it out of the way of the sub or carve a notch for it amongst the 2 basses or almost incorporate it as part of the bassline (if the others aren't playing at the same time). Also worthy of note is that Funktion One Club Speaker Systems have a bass sweet-spot around 60Hz and that a kick drum at around 120Hz hits you directly in the chest so you could roll the kick off even at 90 (depending on the kick, there's also a sweetspot at 90) or just at 60 to make way for that sub.

Jeez, I hope some of that makes sense Very Happy

nickfarfol · Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2010 6:55 pm Post subject:

I have found out since how to do this (from watching someone make a wobble on a keyboard synthesizer Razz

) so if anyone is still wondering how, I posted a tutorial.
_________________
Cubase Essential 5 - Windows XP Home 2002 Edition - Dell Dimension DIM 3000 - 2.40 GHZ Processor - 512 MB Ram

And yes, Cubase does take 15 minutes to start up on my computer Smile