Punchy sub 808 bass

Hello the community,

I’m not very experienced with Renoise, but I would like to learn a lot of things. And one of things is this :

how can I make a sub 808 kick bass like this with Renoise :

(drop at the moment, when people start to say damn)

I don’t know how to exactly do that with Renoise, and when I try, the result isn’t as good as that…

If someone could help me, I will be very thankful.

Thank you for the help,

Young Seruty.

Its not my type of sound, but I just want to point out for you.

Have you already tried to look for tutorials explaining how to create such type of basses, i.e. search for “how to trap bass”? You know, the same plugins shown in such tuts will mostly also be usable in renoise. Even with the native plugs you could try to make, or at least different plugins. A triangle wave is just a triangle, whether you let some vst synth generate it or use a single cycle wave in renoise, or any good saturation plugin will saturate a sound in similar ways, it doesn’t matter that very much when you know what you’re doing, if you get what I mean.

Just also wanted to point out this type of bass/music style depends a lot on the harmonics of the subbass. It seems just a very low and dull note, but actually it probably has a lot of energy reserved way up to the midrange, filled with harmonics of the low note. Then it has to have some really hard attack, as it will also serve like a bassdrum, so you have to impose a very quick pitch slide from high to the target note to get it to bang at the beginning, or carfully layer with an impactful kick, carving space out of each sound until the impact is just right. The spatial depth of the sound comes from mixing depth effects into just the upper harmonics, not the lower freqs of the boom which you maybe only want some very subtle reverb tickle to please headphone junkies, if any at all. You can get harmonics in many fashions, use a rich wave (odd harmonics are most important for dull sounds, so tri is best for 808), and filter it until its right, or use a dull wave (sine) and add harmonics with distortions, saturations, layering, stuff like maxxbass. Then strong eqing to shape it into your liking. I’ve seen tutorials making every note that will happen in the song a seperate resampled sound, so the producer could fine tune each to have the maximum impact even for the very low notes, and fit perfectly into the space reserved for the boom.

There is really more design to these kind of sounds than you would think at first when encountering them. Also there are probably millions of different valid ways to create such booms. If you have no clue right now, it might take you quite some time to perfect your way of creating your own sound. I’d suggest you look for 808/trap bass tutorials, watch them all to get a grasp, and the start working your way out to translate the techniques seen to renoise and the plugins you are using.

Hello OopsIFly,

Thank you very much for the very complete answers that you give me. Now that you explain it very well, I finally understand why after all that time that I have tried it never sounded like this. And I understand too, that I have a lot of thing to learn about sub bass and 808. I will look as you tell, to good 808 tutorials.

The reason that I like that type of bass isn’t because I’m a headphones junkie… But because I like the way that the drum beat is dropped with good sub woofer in a room or in a car and everything vibrate, It make wanna move or dance, that’s just crazy ! People like me who are into Trap Music, Would say that a trap song without a good sub bass is like a meal without salt.

Trap music Is not the only type that I listen to, I like Jazz music, Classical, and so on… I don’t make a distinction between different genre but I adore the 808 kick style because it give deep relief to a song and every fans of this type of music, anticipate the drop when the music start, If there isn’t a good drop or a good 808 sub kick they will say that you don’t make trap music at all, and you’re not good at all…

When the sub bass is dropped it liberate a lot of energy, and let people with just a word to say : << Damn where did you found this ! >>

Ofc I only meant the headphones as reference to the stereo depth added to the sound. You will want to keep it minimal on the sub freqs, in a way that is just on the verge to be appealing with headphones - but still controlled enough so you don’t loose impact on mono subs or risk vinyl incompatibility, and maybe even giving some very slight unevenness to the rumble that can be very appealing and as well glue together with the harmonics… vs. a straight clean action in the sub.

Also keep in mind that usual production seperates the steps between sound design and mixing. Maybe many people would design the maximum impact 808 bass in a rather plain way, and then give it that depth and definition in the mixing step. You need to plan this ahead.

You must view the bass as a composition of frequencies. The lowest, sub freqs where the fundamental is are rather felt than heard, and given proper mastering you cannot really tune those to have more impact than possible and usually applied. Just the sub alone will be weaker in impact than a sub with less amplitude, but lots of strong harmonics adding up to the percieved energy of the tone. The trick to make it have that energy is making sure you have harmonics/overtones/grit in sync with the sub freqs, and having reserved space for the sound in the mix. I’ve seen a trap track that did reserve almost completely the space from sub to about 400Hz or even higher just for the 808 kick - with that space reserved there was quasi nothing fighting with the 808 thus it dominated the song somewhat, in a very strong manner.

Another hint, load the tune in renoise as an autoseek audio track, cut so you only have the passages of interest to you, i.e. where the 808 kicks in and has the least amount of other noises distracting in the mix, then analyse it. Check ow the the waveform looks, the different spectrum analyser modes, check mono vs stereo, mid/side actions, lp/hp/bp filter it to isolate certain frequencies of the sound, resample the filtered and analyse on. As it is a complete mix you might miss some magic that might happen in the higher frequencies, but you should be able to find out roughly the properties of the sound, i.e. the energy characteristics of the harmonics. Then you can start trying to recreate something similar.

I’ve seen a trap track that did reserve almost completely the space from sub to about 400Hz or even higher just for the 808 kick

Wow, a pretty big chunk. Better be puttin dem kicks to good use then!

And some good production advice, haven’t got anything to add - except that, to my ears, the track has at least two distinct kicks:

The really low one, which has a powerful sub-bassy impact but then gradually reveals more frequencies. It’s “opening up” as it fades out… something that could be achieved with careful use of “drive” in the modulation.

The second one is a more traditional kick which goes way higher in frequencies. You need that, obviously, to build a complete rhythm that will also work on smaller speakers.

Another hint, load the tune in renoise as an autoseek audio track, cut so you only have the passages of interest to you, i.e. where the 808 kicks in and has the least amount of other noises distracting in the mix, then analyse it. Check ow the the waveform looks, the different spectrum analyser modes, check mono vs stereo, mid/side actions, lp/hp/bp filter it to isolate certain frequencies of the sound, resample the filtered and analyse on. As it is a complete mix you might miss some magic that might happen in the higher frequencies, but you should be able to find out roughly the properties of the sound, i.e. the energy characteristics of the harmonics. Then you can start trying to recreate something similar.

This is a brilliant idea, Why I don’t think to this before… So I have to try to observe carefully this 808 bass with the spectrum and I see what happens. Maybe I should see something…

The really low one, which has a powerful sub-bassy impact but then gradually reveals more frequencies. It’s “opening up” as it fades out… something that could be achieved with careful use of “drive” in the modulation.

I was thinking about the same things, But when I had tried with an hp filter, it make the bass retarded as the song but without the impact… Maybe with the drive modulation, It could works…

I will try everything you said in the next few days, and if it works, I will tell you.

Thank you very much for your great answers !

take a sinus or a triangle then play a low note and put an env on pitch

boom 808 kick

Thank you thanatos, it don’t sounds like I wanted but I really appreciate the result !