Grant Middleton master class – Huge Bass
This patch was used to provide a bass note and simple phasey chords as backing for the 'chorus' section of the track C-57D. It was played via Roland bass pedals, as I had both my hands occupied playing melody and controlling sequences on the AN1x.
The patch is a fairly straightforward affair, even though it seems a little intimidating at first sight. There are two main sound channels, mixed by Mixer2, and sent to both the Dry output (Out 1) and the Wet delay output (Out2).
1. Moog Taurus bass |
Purists will say that it doesn't sound like a Taurus, and they'd be right. However, it's an impressively fat and satisfying sound from a device which costs a fraction of the real thing (which is pretty limited). The Keyboard1 input is used to trigger ADSR-Env1 and provide the root note. This is fed into KeyQuant1, to limit it to the notes E, Bb and C - I didn't trust my feet to hit the right pedal every time, and it was a good job I did this, as I made a couple of boo-boos which seemed to get covered up. MasterOsc1 drives five (!) OscSlv modules. Each of these is detuned by a certain amount from each other, and the overall spread of the tunings is governed by Morph Group 3 (The blue knob at the top). By turning Knob 1, you can get a range of sounds from perfect tuning through to a churning wash of bass. These are mixed via Mixer1 and sent to Overdrive1, which fattens the sound. Filter E1 is a fat 24 dB/oct model, and the output from it is fed back into Mixer1, to thicken things up again. ADSR-Env1 provides an initial punch and sustains at a medium level, then finishes with a fairly long release. |
2. A phasey chord pad |
The right hand side of the patch is concerned with generating parallel fifths, so that it can be used to fill out the sound on either major or minor keys. There's nothing particularly unusual about this patch, but it's worth noting that FilterE2 is a 12 dB/oct bandpass model. This gives the sound a bit of fizz and sparkle, which works fairly well in this situation. ADSR-Env2 is set to have a reasonably long Attack. This means that the chord fades in behind the bass, rather than coming to full volume at the same time. By playing staccato on the pedals (!), you can stop the chord appearing at all. Phaser1 just applies a bit of swooshiness to the sound. |
Knobs |
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Knob 2 controls Bass filter sweep. |
Knob 3 controls Bass pitch mod (no wheel on the pedals !) |