For today’s post, we are going to use Ableton’s built-in “Operator” to create a step bass. I like to think of a step bass as any bass sound that has a repeating pattern on one note. We are going to create our “stepping” sound today by making use of Ableton’s arpeggiator.
If you don’t have Operator, or even if you don’t have Ableton, you can still follow along and build this sound in virtually any synthesizer.
I highly recommend synth 1 if you are just getting into building sounds and you need a good plugin to start with.
Building Your Step Bass
Step 1: Add an instance of Operator to a default midi channel strip.
Operator is great for FM synthesis, but for our purposes today we want Operator to function like an additive synth, so we’ll need to change the oscillator configuration.
Step 2: Change the routing to have each oscillator running in parallel by selecting the master shell, and choosing the farthest right configuration
Step 3: Set oscillator A and B to saw waves by clicking on each shell, and choosing the waveform saw 64.
Step 4: Set oscillator C to a square wave
Step 5: Set oscillator D to a sin wave
Step 6: set the volume of each oscillator to -12 and the master to – 20.
Eventually, we can tweak these volumes, but its good to start off with them low so that you don’t end up with any uncomfortably loud noises when you are creating.
Our sound right now is very vanilla, and there’s not much going for us in terms of crunch or depth. Not to fear though, by slightly detuning each oscillator our sound will begin to have more character, and take up much more space across the stereo field.
Step 7: Set the fine-tuning to the following parameters
Step 8: Now let’s adjust the course tuning to get our bass sound sounding more like a bass
This bass is really starting to develop some character. Let’s add feedback to oscillator C to add more crunch to the sound.
Step 9: Click oscillator C’s shell navigate to Feedback, and bring it to 11%
Using The Amplitude Envelopes
Right now we have a sound that sustains forever and doesn’t at all reflect the character of a bass. When you think about the plucking of a bass string, there is an immediate sound, followed by a relatively quick decay, and a medium length decay.
Using the Amplitude envelope we are able to create that same plucking feel that you would get from the string on a bass.
What Is An Amplitude Envelope?
An amplitude envelope controls the amount of time it takes the sound volume to go from completely silent to maximum volume, how long it stays at maximum volume, and how long it takes to return to silence when you release a key.
On most synths, this is controlled by 4 parameters:
Attack: Amount of time it takes to reach maximum sound.
Decay: Amount of time it takes to decrease to the sustain volume.
Sustain: Volume level the synthesizer stays at until the key is released
Release: Amount of time to return to silence once the key is released.
In Operator, each oscillator has its own amplitude envelope. As we discussed above, we want the attack to be quick and the decay to be relatively fast, much like the sound of a bass. A bass also has a quiet sustained sound, so we will use one of the oscillators to emulate that as well.
My Amp Envelope Settings
Oscillator A
Oscillator B
Oscillator C
Oscillator D
Using The Filter
A filter, much like the name implies, allows certain frequencies to pass through, and filters others out. For our purposes, we will be using a low pass filter, abbreviated LPF. It allows low frequencies to pass through, and filters out higher frequencies. This will help us keep our bass sound round.
Step 10: Set the filter to LPF 24, and choose the filter type “PRD”.
These are my filter settings:
The filter frequency can be adjusted to taste. There are no right or wrong answers here. When I am playing live, I always have a knob mapped to filter frequency so I can adjust the setting depending on what is happening with the band.
All that aside, the above values will set you up with a good sounding starting point.
Making Your Bass A “Step Bass”
Step 11: Add an arpeggiator from the midi effects category of your browser, right before your bass sound.
You can experiment a little bit with the gate setting on your arpeggiator. Lower percentages produce shorter notes, and higher percentages produce longer notes.
Optional Final Step
If you’re still looking for a little more crunch, you can turn the filter shaper on, add some additional filter drive, and some filter shape drive.
Happy creating! Join me on Facebook to get connected with a whole community of Ableton learners, and ask questions to me and other members of our community directly.
