Analog Four Bass Tutorial

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

00:00 intro
00:41 Setting osc tune
01:48 Detune on Osc2 for thicker bass
03:21 2nd filter to boost low end
05:20 Chrous and noise
08:02 Add vibrato and LFO to change pitch
09:45 Alternative for saw waveform
10:54 Delay with lows and highs filtered out
12:53 LFO for easier 16th notes

Other tips
15:26 2-voice unison
17:34 use Osc2 to play a 5th
18:30 Sub oscillator for flavor, not more bass
19:16 Interesting behavior on the mk1 overdrive

I hope you find this tutorial helpful, and thanks for watching!

32 Likes
#2

Nice one.

I think the reason why it’s better to use TUN than changing octave, as you said, is that usually you set your filter to track pitch.
So for the same filter position, you add indeed lower frequencies.

You have some LORN sounding patches in there

3 Likes
#3

Thanks a lot, @LyingDalai! I I didn’t think of that, but it makes perfect sense now that you mention it :smiley:

4 Likes
#4

I’m still completely baffled why @Elektron won’t add Retrig to the A4. It’s omission is the reason I became extremely frustrated and came to hate my A4 and AK.
LFO’s and ploking are fine for occasional fixes, but a total pain in the arse for anything extensive.

2 Likes
#5

I can’t get enough of these tutorials! I think this is the first time I’ve understood linear detune and the mk1 side of the drive. Always so much to learn, even on synths I’m very comfortable with.

1 Like
#6

@JamesM agree, lack of retrigs A4 and DN is pretty inconvenient. Lack of p-lockable arp, too. On the DN, you can at least save different versions of the same sound, each with different arp speeds, then sound-lock them to fake retrigs. You can’t do this on the A4, because the arp settings are tied to the track (or pattern), not the sound. So arp is either on or off for the entire length of the pattern, can’t p-lock or sound-lock it.

@jemmons Thank you! It’s awesome to hear my tutorial taught you some new things :smiley:

#7

I really enjoyed that tutorial, you have a great way of explaining and displaying the concepts!

1 Like
#8

Excuse my bitchiness, apologies. Unfortunately @Elektron don’t understand how real Bassists play Bass. That is, do whatever the drummer can do, such as play 16th’s when the drummer is playing 8th’s, 32’s on 16’s…

#9

Woah! Thanks for that, it condenses a lot of what I’ve learned with my A4 over the years and gave me pretty new ideas on bass-ing up my patches :smiley: great to see you using an A4, Ivar! I’ve been following your videos for quite a while on reddit and here, your DT+DN videos are fantastic, looking forward to see what else you concoct with the A4, I want to learn more, hahah.

#10

Thank you @victorcampos! It’s so cool to hear you’ve been watching my stuff for a while. I’m planning on making more tutorials, I just have to pick a topic and find the time to prepare and record. Right now I think I’m confident in making a tutorial on performance macros and leads, and soon maybe how to make soma-like sounds using LFOs.

3 Likes
#11

There is a sort-of workaround for p-locking the arp on and off. Set arp on and arp speed to whatever you want the retrig speed to be. Set the default track note length to be as short as possible. You can then select which notes to retrig by p-locking the note length to be long enough. This allows retrigs down to 32nd notes and 32nd note triplets, after which the minimum note length is longer than the retrig time. Granted, you lose control over the note length this way, but for percussive/transient sounds it works great!

2 Likes
#12

Ahh, yeah that’s a cool trick. I only tried it a little bit, but you get to keep a little bit of control with the amp and filter envelope release time. So far I’ve used arp on drums, but on a duplicate pattern. I have to try this trick and see if I can do it all in 1 pattern instead!

1 Like
#13

Great tutorial, thanks for doing that. I have read the manual, done tutorials and have a good handle on how to do basic things on A4. Where I am struggling is having a feel for synthesis and how to intuitively dial in good sounds. I appreciate the pacing where you quickly twist knobs and talk about what you are hearing/thinking. I can follow along at your speed and pause/rewind as needed.