Synthesis Process Evidence

As I selected Drum and Bass as the genre of this piece, my synthesis focus was on the bass sounds. All sounds were created in Serum 2, as it’s my go-to synth with capabilities beyond others, such as wavetables, spectral and granular engines, and effects processing.

Smooth Reese Bass

The first bass is a smooth Reese bass that plays during the intro. I wanted it to sound smooth but with some grit and distortion to create a deep and eerie tone. Starting with a saw wave in oscillator A, I increased the unison to 7 for that classic Reese bass sound, turning down the detune to reduce dissonance, and added a sub using a sine wave with an increased 3rd harmonic to increase its perceived volume. I added some white noise too for texture. I then altered the amp envelope to have that similar of an 808 – a short attack with a slight decay into a dipped sustain level with a small release. After, I then used an 18dB low pass filter, with the cut-off set to ~450Hz to maintain a focus on the bass frequencies of the sound.

After I had created the backbone of the bass, I then applied distortion to give it some grit and compress the sound. This gives the sound more harmonics and helps it cut through the mix – typical of most basses, especially in DnB. As I also have white noise running into the distortion, adding a harsh tone to the bass. I then used a low/high splitter, so I could apply distortion specifically to the sub bass frequencies, compressing them further and adding more harmonics; as for the highs, I added a chorus to give the bass width without causing phase cancellation issues. I then applied a multi-band compressor to the entire sound, glueing all the oscillators together, and an EQ to reduce harsh high frequencies and boost the low end slightly.

After this, I used side chained multi-band compression so sub bass frequencies duck whenever the kick is played, avoiding phase cancellation of sub bass frequencies.

Reverse Lead

I wanted to create a lead that would play throughout the track to link all the different sections together. The starting vision for this lead was to create a wonky and uneasy sounding pluck. I started by selecting an analogue wavetable from Serum 2’s library, and modulated the position of the wavetable using an LFO with a triangle shape, and a 5.8Hz rate. I deliberately chose not to sync the LFO to further the uneasy feeling this sound gives. I then layered this with a sine wave, pitched up 7 semitones (a perfect fifth) to add more harmonics, turning down the level of this oscillator so the tonal focus of the sound is still the fundamental frequency. To further the wonkiness of the sound, I applied the LFO mentioned prior to modulate the fine tune of both oscillators. Then I added Geiger noise to the synth, adding texture to the sound. Altering the amp envelope, I increased the attack slightly to mistime the synth, adding to the unease this synth creates.

I then applied a distortion to create harsh harmonics and a flanger to periodically increased certain harmonics, with an un-synced rate furthering the unease. I then used Shaperbox 3’s compressor to glue the oscillators together, another distortion to create grit, a bit crusher to create a ‘crunchy’ tone whilst adding strange and messy harmonics, adding more grit to the sound and a shallow low-pass filter to tame them. I finished with a delay set to dotted 1/8th notes, creating groove within the context of my project.

Arpeggiator Pad

I began with selecting another analogue wavetable from Serum 2’s library, then applying an LFO with a triangle shape and a 2.3Hz rate, to the fine tune and wavetable position, emulating a hardware analogue synth. I layered this oscillator with a saw wave and set the unison of both oscillators to 5 to provide width, and reducing the detune to decrease dissonance within the synth. I then added a Geiger noise to give the sound texture and then applied FM to Oscillator A and modulated it using the same LFO as before. This provides variation in tone whilst the synth plays extended chords.

I then applied Hyper/Dimension to the synth to add width and space to the sound, and distortion to give the sound brightness. I added a flanger and phaser to create more variation and movement within the synth.

I then arpeggiated the synth using Serum 2’s built in arpeggiator. I set the rate in Hz because I wanted the rate to increase linearly instead of jumping up from 1/16ths to to 1/32nds. The rate starts at 174ms (1/16th notes calculated to be this length) and increases to 41ms (1/64th notes). I did this because I wanted to use this as a transitional effect, going from half time into drum and bass.

Dirty Reese Bass

I wanted to create a really gritty Reese bass for the drop, making it sound massive and super gritty, so I took two saw waves – the basic one and an analogue wavetable from Serum 2’s library. I tuned that one an octave higher and reduced the level so the focus was more on the lower frequencies. I then added unison to both oscillators, but kept the detune quite high, to give that classic phase-y distortion effect from the original Reese bass. I then added a sub layer to boost the sub bass frequencies and put all 3 oscillators through a low pass filter set to ~1100Hz. On top of this, I added some Geiger noise too, as it creates a gritty and dirty tone when put through distortion.

I then added distortion to frequencies above 156Hz to generate dissonant harmonics and create a really gritty tone, tamed by the low pass filter set to ~1400Hz. Following this, I used multi-band compression to boost the low end and glue the oscillators together. I finished the sound with some more distortion, with a low pass filter running before it to avoid creating too much harshness and losing the focus of the bass.

I then used sidechained multi-band compression so the sub bass frequencies duck whenever the kick plays to avoid phase cancellation of delicate sub bass frequencies.

Clean Reese Bass

To match the liquid drum and bass drums, which are tighter sounds that give a more relaxed tone, I wanted to create a cleaner sounding Reese bass. I started with the basic saw wave in Oscillator A and increased the unison to 4 for the phase-y distortion from the classic Reese bass, and I layered it with a sub to increase the sub bass frequencies.

I then applied a tube distortion for warmth, using a pre-filter to remove higher frequencies to avoid creating harsh harmonics. I then applied a low pass filter to remove any frequencies above ~550Hz, giving the bass a smooth quality. I then applied another filter with the cutoff and drive modulated by Oscillator A to give the bass movement and subtle grit. I then finished with multi-band side chained compression so the sub bass frequencies duck whenever the kick is played to avoid phase cancellation in the low end.