Video Tutorial: Making a Dirty Electro Bass Synth in Reason 4 (Like Justice!)

Tutorial Text:

Hi, I’m Dave from boyinaband.com and on this tutorial I’ll be showing you how to make a dirty electro bassline similar to that of Electro House artists like Justice.

We’ll be using useful techniques such as side chain compression, EQing and to make it really dirty, we’ll explore a bit of the Scream 4 distortion unit, trying out some ring modulation to really sharpen the sound.

Okay! Let’s begin.

Create a combinator, a line 6:2 mixer (I always add one of these before the synth devices, just in case I want to add an effect that doesn’t change the source sound later) and then an instance of Thor.

Usually, this is where I add a bunch of multi-oscillator synths, but not this time – we want a crisp sound instead of a thick one, so add three Analog Osc synths.   Keep two on the same octave and take the third down one octave so the top end is more prominent than the low end, but there is still an undertone there.

Onto the filter, take the “Env” knob down; we don’t want any filter envelope on this.   Frequency at 3/4, just cutting off the very high end.   Take the sustain on the amp envelope to full.

Add the chorus, taking the dry/wet down to about 1/4 so the effect doesn’t dilute the sound too much – just gives it a bit of width.

Now we have a very simple effect, let’s add the side-chain compression to make it pump with the beat so it’s more interesting!   Right click Thor and add an MClass compressor.   Turn the threshold down to -36dB (all the way left) and the ration to full (infinity to one).

Now, Right click and add an instance of ReDrum.   Hit tab to see the back, and take the stereo out from the redrum instance to the sidechain in of the MClass Compressor.   Now, add in 4 kick drums on the 1,5,9 and 13 steps on the ReDrum sequencer and hit “Run”.   You should hear the sound pumping!

I’ve actually used a tom rather than a kick drum, since a tom, coupled with the “Length” knob on the ReDrum channel strip gives more control over the attack of the pumping effect.

Another thing to watch out for is that since it’s in the same Combinator, any notes directed to the combinator can either trigger, solo or mute the ReDrum channels too – in this instance I’m lucky since it doesn’t touch the channel strip I’ve used.   This can be easily overcome by placing the ReDrum instance outside the combinator, or by using the same ReDrum instance as the one actually playing the beat for the song, but then it says “External Routing” on the Combinator and I get all OCD when that happens that it’s not the same as all the other combinators – I like things to be self contained.

Anyway!   Now we have a pumping effect.   Next up is to add some distortion to turn this electro bassline into a dirty electro bassline!   Right click Thor (Make sure it’s thor) and create>Scream 4 Distortion.   This is where you can completely destroy a sound if you’re not careful!

The distortion type we’ll be using is the “Modulation” one.   This is also known as ring modulation – what it does technically is makes another version of the input signal, filters and compresses it, then multiplies it by the original signal.   This can give some harsh resonant, ringing effects.   The P1 knob controls the “ring”, which is the resonance applied to the filtered version of the signal, and the P2 knob controls the “Frequency”, which (shock horror) is the filter frequency of the filtered version of the signal.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand that, all you need to know is that it gives this awesome tone when used right.   I’ve got P1 at 5/8ths and P2 and 1/4 just to give a harsh mid-top range sound.   Feel free to change these values to get a tone you’re happy with!

Last up we’ll be really bringing out that harsh tone!   Right click Scream 4, create>MClass Equalizer.   I’ve used two parts of the Equalizer to bring out the sound – the low shelf I’ve added a tiny bit of gain to in order to make the sound slightly bassier, but most importantly (since this bass effect is actually more about the overdriven top end) is hit param 1, turn the frequency up to around 2khz (5/8ths on the knob), the gain to 3/4 and the Q value (area of effect) turn fully left (value 1.0) to emphasize the distortion around 1khz-10khz.

And there you have it!   Start speaking in French and using questionable religious imagery on your album covers and you will not find anyone who can resist dancing to your new dirty, pumping electro house bassline!