Jan 7, 2011
Deep Bass Time – how Pendulum get THAT bass sound
I have always planned to write a Production Advice post about how to achieve clean, powerful, natural-sounding bass in your mix.
This is not that post.
This is a post to give you ideas on how to achieve monstrous, un-natural, trouser-wobbling bass like the band Pendulum – bass that goes against nature and puts you in fear of your life, bass that endangers the structural stability of your home and gently eases the fillings from your teeth.(*)
(*) Some of these claims may be slightly over the top.
[Edit - This is another old post, but is still one of the most popular I've ever written. If you've already seen it, apologies - if not, I hope you like it!]
It was inspired by a question posed a couple of days ago on Twitter by @JCLemay:
Pendulum – “Showdown” how do they get such electrical energy (hear the lows) and massive sound ?
And I thought – “I can answer that” – after all, Pendulum use exactly the same formula to achieve this result on every one of their tracks. Rather than a sequence of tweets or an email to answer JC’s question, I decided to put my suggestions up here for him – and you. So, without further ado:
How to get insane, enormous quantities of deep bass into your mix
Lets start with the bleedin’ obvious:
It’s a synth
I know, it’s hardly an earth-shattering insight, but it needs to be said. The trademark Pendulum bass sound is a synth, not a real instrument. There are real bass guitar sounds in Pendulum’s mix, but they aren’t the reason the neighbours are calling the police. The subsonic foundation that is Pendulum’s trademark is a synth sound – and by the sound of it, it’s exactly the same on every track. It’s a very pure and sine-y, with very few high harmonics, often just the root and an octave above – I’ll come back to this later.
The kick doesn’t kick – much
In contrast to the bass synth sound, which is huge, the kick is quite restrained – not that loud in the mix (compared with the snare, say) and with a very focused, punchy sound – much more energy in the 80-100Hz region than the 50-60Hz area. This is a technique The Prodigy also use. The relatively dry kick sound doesn’t really matter – the bass line fits closely with it rhythmically and adds it’s subsonics to the drum sound, rather than fighting it.
There’s nothing else down there
Try this – add a low-cut filter over a Pendulum mix, at about 80Hz. All that amazing, deep bass will disappear, as you might expect – but almost nothing else will be affected. This is a fairly extreme example of the technique of “frequency sculpting” – restricting instruments to specific frequency ranges to avoid them getting in each other’s way. Often this is used as a way to make a confused arrangement work, but in the case of Pendulum, it’s a fundamental aspect of the mix. Just listen to any of the sections where the bass and drums drop out – there’s no bass in any of the other instruments, especially not down below 80 Hz or so. This gives the bass and kick freedom to completely dominate the bottom end.
“Ambush” dynamics
While we’re listening to the sections where the bass and drums aren’t in the mix, it’s worth commenting on another aspect of the arrangements. The bass and drums are LOUD in the mix. In “Showdown”, when they pile in the overall level of the track lifts by a hefty 3dB RMS. They even use a quieter bass line to start with to add to the effect.
Which means, if you’ve put the CD on, adjusted the volume to a good healthy level and sat back down, when the bass and drums eventually cut in, they’ll knock you straight back out of your chair again. This “ambush” effect is added to by the bass-light aspect of the other instruments – our ears get used to the mix and accept it as reasonably balanced… and then the bass arrives.
Often this kind of strategy might lead to a muddy, confused effect, but the fact that the bass sound is very pure, without many high harmonics, means that it doesn’t interfere with anything else in the mix, and vice versa.
Parallel parts, or doubling
Pure, sine-wave bass sounds have a disadvantage though – they don’t have much attack or clarity, and they don’t come across well on smaller speakers. Pendulum deal with this by almost always having the bass-line doubling with another instrument – either a real bass, or a high, cutting synth sound. This gives clues to our ears about what the bass is playing on small speakers, and (along with the kick) adds an impression of attack and impact to the soft, subby bass sound.
Finally, the fact that the bass parts are doubled in higher octaves gives a great depth and richness to the sound. This isn’t a new idea, though – classical composer Ralph Vaughan Williams
Sequenced precision
Another thing to notice about the bass part is the incredible precision of it’s notes – unlike a real guitar where the sustain decays throughout the note, the synth maintains a constant level through each one, and ends at just the right moment to give a little air before the next note. These carefully judged, seqeunced gaps in the sound add to the impact.
Heavy compression
Let’s face it – Pendulum is loud. It’s highly compressed, with a dynamic range of less than 6dB when going full tilt. My guess is this is achieved with some multi-band compression at some point, probably in the mastering, and this coupled with the careful arrangement and mix decisions allows the bass to be even more consistent and powerful, without causing pumping or distortion (most of the time).
So, what are you waiting for ?
That should give you some pointers towards achieving the “Pendulum” bass sound – my questions is, do you really want to ? It’s not a natural sound by any means – the sequenced synth bass gives a very controlled, electronic, almost robotic feel – and to me, the surgical frequency sculpting sounds very clinical and stylised. It’s a highly distinctive sound, and the danger of copying something this specialised is that you end up just sounding like a bad parody.
Of course you don’t have to use them all at once the way Pendulum do, though – in fact, any of these techniques can be used on it’s own in a more “normal” mix with great success. Listen to the last chorus of U2′s Beautiful Day
If you’re struggling with the bottom end of your mix, why not send me your track and get some feedback ? And please tell me in the comments if you have any favourite strategies for a Big Bottom End that I haven’t already covered.
And when the neighbours come knocking, don’t blame me.
PS. I mentioned multiband compression above – this can be an invaluable tool for getting loud, punchy mixes without crushing the life out of your mix – to find out more, click here.
Related posts:
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Brilliant! So much great information in there, that goes beyond just dealing with the bass… balance, space, and how important instrument/sound choice and arrangement is before you even get to the mix. These things can’t be repeated enough, and it’s always great to hear ‘another voice’ saying it. Thanks, Ian!
Cheers,
Adrian
“a synth, not a real instrument.”
Ahem – a synth is a real instrument. Ask Kraftwerk.
@dean OK, fair play. Not a real bass guitar, then
Why is it that so many audio engineers are pedants ?! (I include myself, naturally)
@Adrian, Thanks ! It’s always great to know that people find this stuff useful. Feel free to tell your friends
Great post Ian, really enjoyed reading your analogy. I like the way you cover several aspects, not just: bass sound, eq, compress….voila!
Will pass on to others
Cheers
Adam
Cool post. Need to investigate Pendulum more, from the sounds of things, only really heard their singles.
Interesting stuff: feel compelled to take a shot at that style of DnB bass just to see how “easy” it is tom emulate or if turns out be more like “it’s simple to write a fugue: you just need to…”
Seriously, great stuff and I’ll let you know how my “experiment” turns out.
All the best,
Per
Thanks for the great feedback – please spread the word, the more interest I get, the more time I can devote to the site !
@Chris Pendulum are on Spotify, here
@Per – Yup, it’s easy to listen and say “I could do that” alright
I look forward to hearing what you come up with !
Great Info here m8.
some really good insights, youve even found yourself a spot on the pendulum forum.
http://pendulumlive.com/pendulumlive/files/viewthread.php?tid=2296&page=1#pid33658
probably a better example of this powerful, loud, well defined bass is in their song “still grey”, where you can even here the sound getting quieter as it gets higher as a result of the filter cuttoff in the mixdown.
thanks.
Nick
About : (*) Some of these claims may be slightly over the top.
Ha ha ha ! Know what ? I’ve made the experience of loud pure sine 30hz on giant monitors speakers in a pro studio here in Paris. My gosh. You can “hear” nothing, but after a very short time, it’s like all the cells of your body are dancing, and your brain cells too. You quickly feel very nauseous, and I just ran out of the door, without even taking time to ask the engineer to turn it down. Weird.
Ok, thanks Ian for this so complete answer ! Brilliant and very usefull !
Ian,
I’ve been following you and reading your posts for a few weeks now, and this advice couldn’t come at a better time… I’m a bassist/singer currently producing a project with the goal of putting the bass out front, yet still making an album with good dynamic contrast. Your words always inspire me to improve, and are great food for thought. Thank you!!
Cheers,
Seth
thanks very intresting post
the synth they use is pretty much guaranteed to be the RCA Audio Z3ta+
Good work on the mixing aspect of it.
Thanks a lot for this post, it was very nice to read it all.
and u were right all the time
Wow, thanks. It’s tough to imagine how they do it from just listening, but after reading this article, I really wanna go make a new song to try it out
But what about their live sound? they have a bassist (who is also a DJ/producer of their music, as well as other members of the band.)
Ive never seen them in concert as a band though so i couldnt say, does their bass still sound as thick? Ive seen Pendulum do a DJ set 3 times. best one yet was @ ULTRA in Miami this past year (2010).
Btw, i think its amazing that they write and produce these tracks, play them live, and do DJ sets mixing, and MC’ing.
I heard them play live on Jools Holland’s show and the BASS was still there ! Not sure how the synth was triggered – via a midi backing track or live from the bass – but it was there, doing it’s thing
maybe gareth mcgrillin runs two channels at the same time? one totally clean w/ no treble or mids, and a parallel channel to get a regular bass tone from it? idk.. lol. or something along those lines?
Hey this stuff is great, and it makes a lot of sense. im kinda new to making this type of music but i do have a question, is fl studio a good program to try to experiment with these techniques, i usually do less heavy synth stuff?
Glad you liked it ! I have to be honest, I haven’t used FL for years, so it’s hard to say. I’ll ask the question on Twitter and see if anyone else chimes in.
Great review and tips!
I usually make House and this can really be of use!
Very interesting article.
The truth is that the most of electronic dance music is highly compressed, although some producers try to change this achieving more DR, still compressed, but not so much. I think things may change in the future.
If you want to see what gear is Pendulum using, check this http://bit.ly/hR4Xu1, where they show their outboard gear.
Is this the same with Noisia? There sounds are equally amazing (Exodus) There sounds are always so full on the tip of the sound spectrum without complete distortion.
Noisia Exodus.. Video by Alexander Lehman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDS872M9Y9c
Both track and video are amazing compositions.
Yes, I can hear similar techniques in use there, although there’s also a nice use of two different kick sounds, one with much more bass than the other. They seem to alternate heavy kick + light squelchy synth with light kick + deep powerful bass. Good strategy !
The dynamic range is very limited, though – when the beats kick in it’s barely louder than the intro, and there’s heavy pumping on lots of it. This brings the average level right up without massive distortion, but for my money reduces the impact potential of the beats.
Pendulum is also very controlled, but listen to what happens at 28 seconds in – the beat lifts in level so it really hits you – that’s the “ambush” effect. There’s none of that in the Noisia track – when the beats hit it actually seems to take a step back, which I think is a shame.
” They seem to alternate heavy kick + light squelchy synth with light kick + deep powerful bass”
Wow, that’s unlocked many a mystery, thank you.
I’m a D&B & Dubstep producer just venturing into the murky world of sound engineering. So really I am learning about music all over again.
Thanks again, great site!!
Hi Ian,
First of all, great site you have, i learned already so much in the little time i’ve been following your site! I always wanted to make deep bass sounds, but find it difficult to do, especially to make them deep, wide and articulated at the same time.
Listen for example to my latest track (http://soundcloud.com/benignbastard/willitsflowersintostardustb9bmesmerized).
I spent a lot of time to that bass and when listening to it at home, it seems fine, but i cannot hear it on small speakers (Creative type). Is there anyway i can make it still audible on little speakers?
Thanks
Hi Pieter,
Thanks, glad you like the site ! And, nice remix
The reason you can’t hear the bass on small speakers is that it’s almost all sub. Few hi-fi speakers reproduce anything useful below 50Hz, and many roll off from 80Hz down.
Try putting a high-cut filter over the mix and sweeping it up. With 12 dB/octave it removes the low note at 50Hz, and by 80Hz the top note is greatly reduced. At 100Hz both notes have gone, and so has most of the kick drum.
Now, I’m not saying it’s necessarily a problem – if you want that warm, deep feel these are the kinds of sounds you need.
But, you could experiment with adding some higher harmonics into the sounds – even just a little of the first harmonic (an octave up) can help. Pendulum have several higher-frequency sounds doubling the synth bass, which also helps, but this may not work for your mix.
For the kick, I’d be tempted to blend in another sound, more in that “heartbeat” 100Hz area, so that on speakers that don’t reproduce very low frequencies you can still feel it. Again, just a very little may do the trick.
Or, you could just tell people to listen to it on decent speakers ;-p
Hope something there helps,
Cheers,
Ian
Alright, i’ll give it a try. Thanks a lot for the advice Ian. Great you do this for music producing community!
Great write-up!
Other aspect why Pendulum sounds so pumped up is that they counter all that great bass sound with perfect 200-250mhz snares and a lot of hi-freq cymbals. That propels the surge that bass kickstart. Make sure your hihats are transparent enough and add some subtle filter automation to it to add the subtle groove. You can’t go wrong if you have more than few closed and open hats, just placed them so in your arrangement. And of course you can still slice some good all DnB loops with high pass on it, Pendulum still does it even if they are not pure DnB anymore
Pendulum plays tight on 2.5K-5K frequencies and that’s cymbals and distortion. Distortion,noise or “guitars” are really important to get the energy constant. BTW they dont use real guitars they use synths for that as well:)
As far as the bass goes you can use simple utility bass as bass color just like its says in the write up its all about the arrangement and when to trigger that utility bass, it takes a lot of practice but also alot of know how in mastering process because that heavy sound comes out during mastering stage most of the time. So you have to know what you can expect from your bass once it gets to parallel compression stage together with kick.
On a sidenote you will never sound like Pendulum and that’s a good thing, really. But you can spice it up a bit and just like Ian Shepherd said above try introducing strong and weak kicks. Let the strong kick start of your beat and then let snare shine and then let the cymbals take over the rest of the flow and repeat. Break it down with either Dubstep beat if you want to go melodic to tone it down or some heavy metal double beat if you want to build up.
Once you master it you will come to conclusion that Pendulum is really about engineering and sequencing while chord progressions are really boring and melody plays second fiddle to that great bass and cymbals. Melody in their songs comes from vocals only and everything else is just a filler really. Any other time they got some good melody and energetic chord progression was when they sampled Dune in Propane Nightmares and no wonder that’s their best single to date. DJ Fresh got something similar with Hot Right Now.
That’s enough theory let’s go and practice now
“…gently eases the fillings from your teeth.)
I had never heard of this band before…but they really do sound like a visit to the dentist!
From someone who’s been producing bass music for a while I offer some “Don’t make the same mistakes I did/still do”:
1. If your ‘mixdown’ already sounds like what you want it to regarding low end, then you’ve already headed down the wrong path..the deepness should be brought out during the mastering. When you limit the mastering dude’s ablities to tweak frequencies, you
‘re gonna wind up with a muddy or badly distrorted final track.
2. In doubling bass, you take a chance of major harmonic distortion if your levels are too hot on both tracks, you use different wave types, or you’re running stacked stereo tracks. Make those puppies mono, bounce them to a single track and chain compress them to the kick.
3.when you create your music, write in a the keys that would allow the bass to move between 40-80hz, nothing above or lower. Think of instruments of your tracks like street gangs; one gang member gets on another’s turf, conflict will ensue.
4. The last one only works for those of us who are the evil-doers of the “loudness war”: for ultimate pump N smack on the bass lines, side-chain the bass channel to the kick and pump the living hell out of the bass. This makes the bass really come alive, rather than just low background noise.
oh, and P.S. – Pendulum used be straight-up UK DNB before they got all mainstream-commercial-sounding. That’s why they have Bass roots.
Precise! Straight to the point and very useful!
Thank you very much Ian!
Good luck with all of your creative work!
You rock!
Pendulum are australian
I’ve started to layer my bass track Just like they do In dubstep Mostly my bass tracks are me on a Bass Di an Amp plugin Guitar rig 5 being my goto and then a distorted one Into the Lair Dave Pensado’s website is real cool He suggests putting a low cut on the master buss at 170 hz to hear whats going on down there . I think all the pro’s who are giving us advice are Real cool and we can learn from all of them Thanks Ian for your time and energy my mixes are def sound better How do I know Hey I cant listen to my old mixes without pulling them apart So its Back to square one for me with My old Songs I Can really now get them how I wanted to sound in the first place now and my new songs just evolve
Once again ta Ian
Pleasure, glad its useful !