There is always a sense of chasing the dragon with Dubstep and the search for Phat Wobble Bass. This article will take you through the basics of creating a simple dubstep bass to then more advance grooving wobble.

Simple Dubstep Wobble

Getting that simple wah wah wah is really easy. Here are the steps in creating it.

  1. Get a good bass that has lots of high accents. Like a sine wave bass with operator that also has a square wave bass with it.
  2. Write out your bass line and then drop an LFO, ‘Low Frequency Oscillator’  on it. 
  3. The LFO is the amount of wobble. By setting the filter to a lower setting and then getting the llfo% you will create the Wah Wah sound. 

Dubstep wobble bass autofilter

That will give you the basic sound of the dubstep wobble.

 

Advance Dubstep Bass

Most of the big artist are not getting that funky bass like by setting a bunch of auto LFO filters. The secret key is drawing in the filter by hand. It is a pain in the ass, but totally worth the time. It will humanize and add such a better and tighter sound.

To do this you will:

    1. Get a good bass that has lots of high accents. Like a sine wave bass with operator that also has a square wave bass with it.
    2. Drop down a EQ8 on the bass. Then take the 4th eq and make it an lfo.

eq8 lfo ableton

  1. Then when you are in your midi clip you can draw out the lfo changes.

wobble dubstep bass

 

This way your groove can be really tight. You can have the effect sync with your drums and have a rad swing to it. Drawing in the lfo is key to having a really rad dubstep wobble.

Below is the ableton set you can download to demonstration this technique. 

Here are some other advance techniques to keep in mind:

  • Having two basses, one being the sub bass, and then an accent bass with the wobble.
  • Using the Multiband Dynamic Effect to add verb to the top of the bass and keep the low bass solid.
  • Always have your sub bass mono and in the center.
  • Add crunch to your final mix or a redux to add a unique and phat sound.