Analysis of S1E05: Prolix – Beats & Bass Pt. 1 and bonus Q&A link

Work has been very busy the past two weeks, so I have not had a chance to watch the new Audeka video. Still wanted to get an analysis up for this week, have notes for most of S1 done, so here is the next in the series, S1E05: Prolix – Beats & Bass Pt. 1.

WATCH NOTES
 
DAW used: Cubase – material covered can be followed in any DAW, although you may need to get creative with other plug-ins for some of the material in the video.
 
Prolix knocked together a quick 16-bar loop for this video using some of his samples from S1 of Sample Genie. It is a slightly shorter video, about 25 minutes long.
 
Topics: bass, bass processing, resampling, variations of bass, slicing breaks, mix balance
 
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01:30 – reece bass made with  Retrologue synth VST (a native plug-in to Cubase).
– two slightly detuned saw waves and then the third OSCis a square wave, used as a sub. Suggests maybe trying a triangle wave for a sub, as another option
 
02:15 – uses several instances of distortion plug-ins (CamelPhat in this case)
• Resamples, as well as creates variations with different movements, resampling those as well.
 
05:30 – loads audio of bass into a sampler (NI Kontakt), does more processing in the sampler
• Refers to bass fill at end of loop as a “turn-around”
 
06:50 – explains the sub bass
• States he likes to use distortion & Eqs to shape & mold the sound
 
09:40 – starts talking about the beats
• Uses a break from his Sample Genie season (Thug break), slices it in to individual hits, cleans up clicks at the end of each slice.
• Pitched up snare +3 semitones to tighten up the sound of the hit
• He wants the bass to work in time with the beat and tempo of the loop.
 
15:30 – explains the bass turn-around.
 
17:45 – explains how he balances a tune.
• Aims for the sub, kick and snare to have the same average peak when examining with a spectrum analyzer. He does say this sometimes depends on the style of the tune.
 
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THOUGHTS & QUESTIONS
• I need to experiment with the sub OSC when making basses, figure out when a square is better vs. a triangle vs. a sine.
 
• Camel Crusher can do the same limiting effect as CamelPhat, as seen in the old Audio tutorial he did for Virus years ago. You basically just insert it on a channel, don’t have to turn on any of the modules in it (distortion, EQ, compression).  It was a free plugin, most sites say no longer available, but it was still easy to find online: http://www.audiopluginsforfree.com/camelcrusher/

This application was explained in the Camel Phat manual, but most people probably never read the manual. It states “CamelPhat applies a hard-limiting action on the output, which can result in unwanted distortion. Simply turn down the master volume to make this go away.” Camel Crusher applies the same action.
 
• The spectrum analyzer Prolix uses is RME DIGICheck, an external program you need a RME soundcard to access. I think?
 
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BONUS
Q&A with Prolix on Sample Genie’s Facebook page, from November 2013: https://www.facebook.com/SampleGenie/posts/254056538083391:0