Welcome back to SongBuilder! This is the series where we take a selection of amazing Korg gear and build a track episode by episode.
In Season 5, episode 3, we’re using Modwave to lay down a solid bassline and adding some motion to the recording by modulating some parameters with the real-time controllers.
This time around we’re adding a bassline from our Modwave wavetable synthesizer. We were looking for a bass sound that could be manipulated in real-time with Modwave’s controllers to bring some extra colour to the bass pattern. The Performance we have chosen is called Une Souris Meurt, a pulsating synth bass with the ability to add some extra grit at the right moments.
Mod Knob 2 increases the white noise effect that creates the pulse, which has been created by an LFO clocked to the Modwave’s BPM. The Modulation Wheel opens the filter cutoff and Mod Knob 4 adds a “dirt” texture that makes the sound more aggressive. We’ve already set Mod Knob 4 (the “dirt”) at the sweet spot, so now it’s time to record in our bassline into a Logic MIDI track via USB, by playing the Modwave and performing some modulations in real-time using the controllers.
We’re starting our recording at bar 9 because we only want the bass to be present for the closing section of our intro, which gives it more impact when it comes in. At the end of the phrase, we used the Mod Wheel to sweep through the filter, opening up the sound before the track comes to a momentary standstill. Then for the following section, we used Mod Knob 2 to remove the white noise pulse at the beginning of the phrase, gradually re-introducing it through bars 15-20, and then used the Mod Wheel to open up the filter to the climax of the section at bar 24. For the final revolution of the pattern, we ride the Mod Wheel to introduce some subtle changes throughout the phrase, before fully opening up the filter to finish.
Now the MIDI information has been recorded, we can quickly quantize it to tighten up the timing. The Modwave’s tempo is clocked via USB-MIDI to Logic’s metronome, which means that the pulsing bassline will be perfectly in sync. After a small edit to a wrong note in the piano roll, we’re ready to bounce the MIDI track as audio within our DAW to finish up our episode.
You can find out more about Modwave here. Tune in next time to see the return of Wavestate into the mix.
