A starting point for a psy bassline is basically the same on any synth:
- Single saw wave oscillator
- Osc phase reset enabled for consistent notes
- LP filter cutoff set low
- Short decay for the filter envelope, near 0 sustain
- Filter envelope modulates LP filter cutoff
The filter envelope pops the filter cutoff open, creating a pluck type sound. The amount of decay determines how much pluck.
On the A4 these settings are used:
- Set Osc 1 to use a Saw wave (the default)
- make sure only one of the oscillators is turned up for now
- Osc 2 / page 2 - TRG is On (switch to the right)
- this resets the oscillator phase
- Filter page
- Filter 1 cutoff to around 35
- Depth 1 to around +30
- Envelope page, envelope 1
- Decay 1 to around 45
- Sustain 1 to 0
You should now have a basic plucky bass so set up a sequence triggering G2 with this pattern:
xBBBxBBBxBBBxBBB
You can change this later when you’re more confident programming the basic sound.
Swing is really useful, and of course side chain compression is used at lot to shape the basic bass pattern in to something more groovy, using the kick as the SC input to the compressor (obviously).
As for “sharing psy trance sound tips” … the beauty is working on psy is that you’re basically free to do whatever you want as long as the kick drum and bass line is hammering along.
Oscillator sync is one technique for creating alien sounds.
Abuse of PWM is another.
One of the main techniques is to keep the filters right on the edge of self-oscillation. When LFOs / envelopes / other mod sources move the filter cutoff frequency, you’ll hear the self-oscillation come in and out of the sequence. This is one (out of many) things that makes a sound “psychedelic” when listening to it on the dance floor.
Basically, you need to go deep in to synthesis, looking for diamonds in amongst a whole lot of rough. “Tuning in” is another way to put it. There is no easy “just do this recipe” with psy, but if you check Youtube you will find tons of useful tutorials.
Some links that might help:
Sort out kick and bass frequencies with EQ:
Some nice tips for basic psy production in Live:
(check out the other videos on his channel, he really knows his stuff)
Sorry, bit of an essay there. I hope it helps!
Peace,
Andy.