Hey Olav! Loved your tutorial on the sound design. Great stuff! But I do have one question about your utility bass... Is that supposed to be a sound placed underneath the "main" bass patch which share the same midi notes and general envelope parameters? Just for fun I placed your patch as a separate entity within an instrument rack that has a bass patch I definitely want to use in a song, but they don't quite sound like one "glued" sound when played together. I did do some tweaking of both patches, but they still sound like two different basses playing the same notes. Is that the purpose? Or do you have any layering techniques that would make it sound like one "phat" patch? Thanks in advance! Jamie

Hi Jamie Sorry I'm not Olav, but I was waiting to hear the answer to your question too. I made the utility bass in the ES2 on Logic.... I think it is either standalone or can be mixed with another bass with a different tone and plaiyng a different pattern, eg a disco groove over the top of a deep simple utility bass line. I'm basing this on listening to some of Olav's tunes: for example "Push Me (the Original Mix)" I think is all utility bass and nothing else. It is really good too so worth checking out. Maybe you could have a listen to some too and get back in touch? I'd like to hear your opinion

I haven't seen this tutorial yet due to a time-consuming project I'm on....but I almost always double the bass with the same midi info but different VI's. I'm addicted to it. I usually use one deep bass and one with a little more attack and "shimmer" for lack of a better term. It takes a little time to blend together but the results are usually pretty cool. The blend is subtle and takes some experimenting but it is well worth it..... Just my two cents:-)

Hamish, Yes, I checked out a few of Olav's songs including the one you mentioned and it does seem as if it can stand alone and be effective. One thing I have noticed is that bass sounds are kept VERY basic. Nothing usually more than a typical filtered saw, a sine sub, or a pulse/square wave that is made to bend. Honestly, I try to use all three at once, but have always avoided layering actual sounds because of the problems met trying to glue them together. I think it's because I have a tendency to put sharp filter envelope settings on Frequency and resonance to give the sound a bit of life. This might be the reason why the utility bass is hard to mix. One has life and the other doesn't. Steve, Thank you! I have noticed that the "saturator" helps make the bass sound so much warmer. When I get some extra time I'm going to experiment much more with that and try to get a more cohesive bass sound through that. Jamie