Add just a little distorsion to the sound, barely audible. Combined with a fast
filter envelope adds a bit more definition to the attack phase of the sound.
Distorsion could also be controlled by a triggered single shot ramp LFO.
Here are some bass related observations and tests:
1. Bigger range of usefull bass-tones
MnM can deliver a loads of bass, no prblem with that. Most of the time I end up creating too
bassy or too low tones for being anything usefull. So, a good signal of lower end of spectrum
can be delivered. But the problem mostly seems to be, that they only sound good/thick on a
certain range and this range seem to be so small. Compared to simple juno-106, juno wins,
because of thickness and usability in a bigger range.
2. What's the problem
I guess MnM produces sweet and clean signals that, in the lower range, produce full energy
on a very narrow area. It's hi-fi and works beautifully in the mid range (it makes MnM sound
very detailed and open ended). Thickness of a Juno bass might be related analog parts,
which produce a lot more harmonic distortion while driving the circuitry. Harmonic distorition
spreads over the spectrum and makes produces bass-tones to have nice overtone-structure,
which makes them seem more thick and present. So, when MnM creates clean 50Hz tone,
Juno or eqvivalent creates 100hz, 150hz, 200, 400, and so on.
3. How to cure
Now you can use distortion on the MnM or use Digipro to create juicy overtones over bass-
tones, but use of filter always filters them out. Distortion is build between HP and LP, and
when LP is used, it filters the upper spectrum out.
I tried to cure this thing with the compressor effect and thought it could add something.
Normally I hate when people tend to offer compressor as a solution to every problem, but it
just might work here.
I made bass patch with SAW-machine. Nothing special, just very filtered, just low-end working
here. Then I routed it to compressor. Attack and relese to low enough that compressor will
distort a little. Dig very deep with treshold and adjust ratio to your liking (it seems to harden
the bass). Distorting compressor creates distortion to bass-tone and creates some overtones,
while at the same time reduces dynamics to zero. Bass becomes more present and range
seems to broaden. At first you might lose some low-end, but then comes the EQ on
compressor track. Use it to boost where you want your bass line to have balls.
It's an old house-music trick. To have punchy low-end you need to compress/limit it to death,
so you have no dynamics left. Otherwise they will jump out in a mix and ruine the consistency
of low-end in a mix. But you also need to make it rumble, so you insert the eq *after* the
compressor. With eq, you can now adjust the amount of rumble and different bassline notes
around that will resonate also a little. With this you should have controlled low end. In theory
at least.
I didn't try it very extensively, but it might, again, provide some starting point. I might also be
interested to hear what kind of approaches you have found.
There are also some good results to be had by using the Mono's EQ.
I've found the Mono's filter envelope doesn't work well for punchy, snappy bass sounds. Try
using the Exp waveform on an LFO instead. It's a lot closer to the envelope shape you'll get
out of an analog, and it sounds MUCH better on bass sounds to my ears.
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