[Max Kranabetter]

Hi there,

I plan on doing a live cover of this song with some friends and I have tried recreating the bass in Serum, but I’m having a little trouble getting it to sound big. I have tried using a saw wave and another saw wave as the sub and then I added a lot of distortion, but it didn’t really sound right to me.
I know this is a very simple sound, but I would really appreciate any help!

Thanks!
Max

(Bass comes in around 0:38)

[Joe Hanley]

Hm, this one’s really tricky. I too tried messing with saws and distortion, but it never really sounded right.

So I went onto the second vocal-esque layer to create the wide low end. It’s a formant wavetable modulated to create a “yeah” sound.

And then I realized the distorted layer might be using the same “yeah” wavetable and that got it much closer. Try starting with this:

LAYER 1: VOCAL LAYER AND BOTTOM END

Oscillator 1: “E_Yeah” wavetable with wide 3 voice Unison. Set the WT Pos right around the “y” and then use an envelope attack to quickly move the WT Pos up so that every note says “yeah”

Oscillator 2: Duplicate of Osc 1, one octave lower

Sub: Sine wave. Enable “Direct Out” to bypass the upcoming Chorus, and give us our big steady bottom end

Chorus: Wide easy Chorus, 100% Wet, with a little bit of low passing to take some top end off

LAYER 2: THE NASTY

Oscillator: Same settings as Oscillator 2 above, but remove the Unison, so it’s just a really low, singular “yeah” in the center

Distortion: We want a really nasty aggressive style distortion, so I went with Lin.Fold. I only set Mix to about 9:00 so that we still have some of the dry sound to help blend into the first layer. Then set Drive to your liking. I liked 10:00.

EQ: If your sound isn’t bright enough use a high shelve to boost the top end

[Max Kranabetter]

Thanks for the reply! I ended up using two different saw waves with Hyper, Dimension, Distortion and Chorus on them and it did the job, but I definitely prefer your approach!

[Joe Hanley]

Cool! Let’s hear it