Elements of a Talking Bass

[Penumbrah]

So I've been messing around with synths along with different effects and filters, and I've noticed how certain wavetable positions and distortion settings whether it be included in the synthesizer like Massive and Sylenth or some other plugin adding distortion to it will give it that famous talking effect. Does anyone have a real explanation why adding distortion from another plugin sometimes gives a bass that "yoi" sound?

[Friv]

So I've been messing around with synths along with different effects and filters, and I've noticed how certain wavetable positions and distortion settings whether it be included in the synthesizer like Massive and Sylenth or some other plugin adding distortion to it will give it that famous talking effect. Does anyone have a real explanation why adding distortion from another plugin sometimes gives a bass that "yoi" sound?

I don't know what exactly what type of distortion you're talking about, but I'll paste this here.

Basically most talking basses are caused by these vocal formant centers,

Vowel (IPA) Formant f1 Formant f2
u 320 Hz + 800 Hz
o 500 Hz + 1000 Hz
ɑ 700 Hz + 1150 Hz
a 1000 Hz + 1400 Hz
ø 500 Hz + 1500 Hz
y 320 Hz + 1650 Hz
ɛ 700 Hz + 1800 Hz
e 500 Hz + 2300 Hz
i 320 Hz + 2500 Hz

Vowel formants
Vowel Main formant region
u 200–400 Hz
o 400–600 Hz
a 800–1200 Hz
e 400–600 and 2200–2600 Hz
i 200–400 and 3000–3500 Hz

and when one formant center is moved to another (whether via EQ, filters, or in your case distortion), it gives the famous "talking" sound. So essentially, I think the distortion is just mucking around with your frequencies causing the simulation of a talking sound.

[Raddons]

In Massive you can route an LFO to a 4 pole low pass filter with a U shaped curve and drag a macro to the rate knob and the same cutoff on the LPF. The sound comes from that, and a combination of a bit crusher. I set the bit crusher to gradually decrease the downsampling rate over time. I personally don't like the Bitcrusher in Massive, so I use this one.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/84260720/Vocal%20Bass.mp3

I hope this helped!!

[Captain Ironhelm]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/84260720/Vocal%20Bass.mp3

good heavens I'm going to have nightmares tonight now.

[Raddons]

Oh, cmon. It's not that bad!!

[Captain Ironhelm]

It was fine, illustrated the point well! it slightly freaked me out was all

[Mondogreen]

phase, feedback, sample&hold, and a lowpass filter. Now that you know the elements of a good cheer, let's hear one:
https://soundcloud.com/djmon/talking-bass-example

[cloudshovit]

1. Bitcrush/Distortion.

2. use the formant filter on Sugar Bytes Wow Filter.

3. Profit.

[Lavender_Harmony]

Or if you know which waveforms to use in Massive...

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Modern talking -12

LFO5 modulates the wt position.

Add dimension expander. Works well with Brutal Electro 2.

[Captain Ironhelm]

Modern talking -12

LFO5 modulates the wt position.

Add dimension expander. Works well with Brutal Electro 2.

Any LFO you please modulates anything you please.

Anyway-- Sample-and-Hold. Then low-pass filter.
Use of Modern Talking will make you look newbie or lazy, and it makes almost everyone wince when they here it, so it's best learn how it's really done. The way I just illustrated takes just about as much effort as Modern Talking does and it's a lot more diverse with what you can do with it.

[Lavender_Harmony]

Modern talking -12

LFO5 modulates the wt position.

Add dimension expander. Works well with Brutal Electro 2.

Any LFO you please modulates anything you please.

Anyway-- Sample-and-Hold. Then low-pass filter.
Use of Modern Talking will make you look newbie or lazy, and it makes almost everyone wince when they here it, so it's best learn how it's really done. The way I just illustrated takes just about as much effort as Modern Talking does and it's a lot more diverse with what you can do with it.

They're both pretty cliche at this point. I've heard Modern Talking in context before, and it honestly isn't as overused as people claim. Most people say what you described, using Sample and Hold (Which is Massive speak for Bitcrusher) is Modern Talking. Anything that goes wah, yoi, or any vowel sound, to most people, is 'Modern Talking'.

Besides, I'm sure none of you have tried pitch bend phase modulation on Modern Talking with a Bend- sweep over the wavetable. MT does more than what you hear when you move the first knob.

[Captain Ironhelm]

thanks for correcting me, I hate spouting a bunch of hooey.

anyway, I just don't like people bragging because they know how to set an LFO on the wavetable and use Modern Talking dry as it is.

[Lavender_Harmony]

thanks for correcting me, I hate spouting a bunch of hooey.

anyway, I just don't like people bragging because they know how to set an LFO on the wavetable and use Modern Talking dry as it is.

I agree with that, but still, if mixed in well and layered alongside other sounds:

http://soundcloud.com/coyotekisses/acid-w-lfpack

:>

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Modern talking -12

LFO5 modulates the wt position.

Add dimension expander. Works well with Brutal Electro 2.

Any LFO you please modulates anything you please.

Anyway-- Sample-and-Hold. Then low-pass filter.
Use of Modern Talking will make you look newbie or lazy, and it makes almost everyone wince when they here it, so it's best learn how it's really done. The way I just illustrated takes just about as much effort as Modern Talking does and it's a lot more diverse with what you can do with it.

They're both pretty cliche at this point. I've heard Modern Talking in context before, and it honestly isn't as overused as people claim. Most people say what you described, using Sample and Hold (Which is Massive speak for Bitcrusher) is Modern Talking. Anything that goes wah, yoi, or any vowel sound, to most people, is 'Modern Talking'.

Besides, I'm sure none of you have tried pitch bend phase modulation on Modern Talking with a Bend- sweep over the wavetable. :P MT does more than what you hear when you move the first knob.

Lol only Mallard makes that mistake.

[cloudshovit]

also checkout SeamlessR on youtube. He seem to have all that talking bass stuff covered, he mostly uses Harmor but he also has Massive and Sytrus tutorials.

And also Image-Line is having an end of the world sale if you wanna go legit. 45$ for Harmor, which can do a whole lot more than Massive.

[Lavender_Harmony]

also checkout SeamlessR on youtube. He seem to have all that talking bass stuff covered, he mostly uses Harmor but he also has Massive and Sytrus tutorials.

And also Image-Line is having an end of the world sale if you wanna go legit. 45$ for Harmor, which can do a whole lot more than Massive.

Please don't compare an additive synth to a subtractive... they're completely different and have totally different applications >_<

[Captain Ironhelm]

... Harmor, which can do a whole lot more than Massive.

[cloudshovit]

also checkout SeamlessR on youtube. He seem to have all that talking bass stuff covered, he mostly uses Harmor but he also has Massive and Sytrus tutorials.

And also Image-Line is having an end of the world sale if you wanna go legit. 45$ for Harmor, which can do a whole lot more than Massive.

Please don't compare an additive synth to a subtractive... they're completely different and have totally different applications >_<

Sorry if its OT. My bad, didn't know this was a subtractive synth specific topic. I was just actually thinking about the techniques for making the talking bass part only. I really I just wanted to give a friendly advice for people who want to save, its more like comparing a 45$ synth that can also do yois well to a 199$ synth thats mostly used for yois. But it seems you guys are all happy with massive, so its OK.

Also http://www.kvraudio.com/product/forma_8 ... tter_audio plus a bitcrusher can turn any synth, subtractive or otherwise into a talking bass without spending 200$. I am actually a fan of massive, but for not for bass or electro stuff. The pads and key sounds from massive are underrated. The only reason why I'm not using it other than it being a CPU hog, is because I can't afford it. How I wish I can afford it or NI could lower its price, but NI being wise knows that dirty wobble bass = money. NI are constantly releasing awesome yoi friendly plugins these days. Skanner, Lazerbass and my favorite, Razor.

Another suggestion on what I used to do with Massive is sample it on Directwave, which lowers my CPU use A LOT. This also used to be the free alternative to Directwave http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzRZAZ0jC_0 but its no longer free.

[cloudshovit]

Oh and you can get the exact VST emulation of the Dimension Expander effect for free here http://www.xferrecords.com/freeware/

And check out CurveCM, you can get it for free along with other great plugins if you buy a copy of Computer Music for 3$. You can draw any shape you like on its oscillator and LFO and with semimodular routing as well. SynthmasteCM from this month also looks useful for yoi stuff.

[Omegastick]

It's pretty easy to do a talking bass for free.

Get a waveform with lots and lots of harmonics (probably some FM synthesis). Put a lowpass filter, a bitcrusher (with about 20db of drive and 21x downsampling (or at least those are the settings I use, your mileage may vary) and an EQ set up to the vowel sounds (mentioned earlier in the thread). Automate the EQ for the vowel sounds, the waveform volume for 'y' sounds and the filter cutoff for 'w' sounds. Bam, easy to do with all free software talking bass, you just have to know a little bit more about what is causing each sound.