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Bass Harmonics Tutorial - Nik (Patreon)

Published:
2020-07-17 16:00:05
Imported:
2026-06
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Videos

Content

Hello Patrons, this month's tutorial takes a different approach. Nik guides you through the concept of bass harmonics, and shows you how it's been used in several Noisia tracks. Whip out your notepads and enjoy. 

Files

Previews only

Bass Harmonics v2.mp4

This is "Bass Harmonics v2.mp4" by VISION on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Comments

Jeroen De Meyer

This is genius, thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.

Andrea Rauch

Congrats on becoming a dad <3 I appreciate so much the time and effort you've put into these while having a deep musical career and raising a child at the same time. Thanks Sleepnet you're a legend !

Akuro (James)

I came for the bass tutorial and stayed for the ASMR water sips

Anonymous

Thank you Nik!!!!

Anonymous

Congrats for becoming a father!!!!!!

Anonymous

I would love to see an Owl with Sennheisers on.

Sam crow

It was kind of heartwarming to see how excited you get while explaining/exploring this topic, it makes it all the more engaging. Not to mention a thoroughly interesting topic, thank you Nik!

Anonymous

That was great! I like these technique example videos more than the track walk through. I have the Razor Creative Mixing one pinned in my browser. The phase alignment really gave me some insight into the problems I'm having when multiple bass sounds hit together. What are some tricks for aligning different samples with the same fundamental? Look at the oscilloscope and make millisecond offsets until the waveform cleans up?

michs 29

wimeo is bad in the uk as we have rubbish internet speeds and i live in central london ;-(

Anonymous

I love how sometimes, he's surprised with his own techniques !!

Gabriel Friedli

Hey Nik, First and foremost: CONGRATS FOR BECOMING A DAD! I wish your family health, wealth and safety! Secondly, nice one! I love that finally someone goes a little deeper into theory of the why? instead the HOW? Helps in decision making. And last: During my psychology and neurology studies i came across a body of very interesting research on the effects of music on the human. this goes from cognitive effects (you might know this as the mozart effect - which is debunked in some understanding but kicked the whole thing off) until brain plasticity (used to counter alzheimer development) and gene-expression (holy shit yes!). Look up this, in case you're interested: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep09506 Yes, there is easier lecture but you seem hooked to human-music interaction ;). It's also proof that as dad you will be doing something good letting your kid learn an instrument or something. have fun and thanks

gunther

what a great tips again! Could be cool to have some tutorials on how to transform Basic Drums to complex Drums patterns.

Anonymous

please do part two !! Really interesting, thanks Nik.... but possibly not the simplest thing to put in the practice during writing and sound design. (for me at leas)t. Some more detail on how you apply this principle would be A C E

Anonymous

I find any insight into how you think about sound to be completely fascinating, insanely inspiring and educational. Keep em coming!

Anonymous

Nik, We love it when your get technical!!!

Jukka Karppi

Interesting indeed! Thank you. Definitely gonna investigate this territory more

Anonymous
>>40541823

Yes, next time just keep drowning as deep as you can into that nerdy/technical territory:)

Anthony Lucio

This was insanely mind stimulating 😎 thanks Nik!

Phygment

Easily the best one yet! I find the reasoning behind why you make decisions far more interesting than the decisions themselves. I'd also be super interested in a video similar to this one about phasing and your thought process when making decisions regarding phasing.

Charlie

Linking velocity to the harmonic is great, can make some awesome sounds using just that idea!

Aaron Spencer

Hey, Thanks for the video, I'm quite familiar with some of these concepts but i remember hearing you made all the snares for Get Deaded in FM8 and harmonically (and with kick 2) i struggle to get snares to not sound like shit, a video roughly in that domain would be good . Also, congrats on being a Dad, have you bought the babby Cubase yet? very important for them to get all the shortcuts down asap lol

Don Skotnicki

Random simple question - what sample rate do you guys work in?

Bob Gibson

I also like how you (and/or Phace) used this "chords from harmonics" technique on the Deep Down stabs. Another place I found your harmonic usage very interesting is the Leopard Slug main bass where the harmonics were not part of the harmonic series but still conveyed a very musical idea. That really sent me down this crazy road for a while of experimenting with harmonics, then distortion, then of course seeing how far you can detune harmonics with distortion, which can easily sound like shit because waveshaping will, like you said, work perfectly with the harmonic series, but if you poke an out of tune harmonic or two into a distorted sine fundamental you can get some really interesting wobble if the detuing is judicious, or some nasty earth crust-splitting sounds that can also be more than usable given the right parameters (volume, detuning, duration, type of distortion and spectral range of distortion being the main ones I think).

Adam Burucs

Great tutorial thanks! I'd like to see a video on extremely panned small glitch sounds left and right. How you do that, and a couple of examples about them, best practices etc.

Anonymous

Thanks Nik, I'm a trained Berklee musician originally and did know the extent of harmonics like this in mixing/sound design. Very relevant and explained very well.

Nick Sullivan

Great video, very insightful and interesting. I like the idea about more practical tips in future tutorials but these explorations into sound are so cool.

Georgie

Hey Nik, Please explain how to build that Sin to square to fold ! Or even better can you share the preset and a midi map incl. the Modulation. Congrats on fatherhood and sweet nerdtalk video .. gobbling it up!

John Adkerson

coolest tut yet! Would love to see a "what to watch out for" tutorial like you mentioned

Anonymous

Congrats on being a parent! Could you do bass/drum design or workflow videos

Trentcast

I just want you guys to know just how appreciative we are for everything you do for us here. After 15 years of being self taught with very, very little outside guidance, your Patreon has given me the opportunity to finally make sense of everything I’ve tried to learn on my own after all these years. The three of you are my hero’s.

Yung-e

They should of played the owls some Noisia haha !!

Luke Thompson

I'd love to see some in-depth tutorials on the different ways you go about designing drums :)

Joe Bennett

Really, really loved this Point, Explanation, Example style of video. Really interesting concept and then amazing to see a couple of really different ways it could be used in practice.

Anonymous
>>40684824

The track that was played to the owls was a version of Strauss’s “The Blue Danube Waltz”. But I prefer the idea of the owls having a Noisia track played to them ;)

Anonymous

I want to see that applied on a Peak!

Anonymous

positively bangin

Moe NoTone

Great Tutorial!!!!! I would be really interested in your way of thinking about applying inhamonic frequencies to a fundamental.

Anonymous

Thanks Nik! Could you please tell us what books have you read on harmonics and its effects on the brain?

Nico Stadi

Would love to (like you already mentioned) to see you go practical with these ideas and, like someone mentioned, take some time to look specifically at the alignment of frequencies. Maybe take a look at how you'd analyze and align lets say Kick, Snare&gt;Sub&gt;Synth layers to make sure they are all functioning how you'd want them to function in terms of the phase and to get things "controlled" with the wave cycles like you were showing. Maybe would be cool to see that process done with both types of wave forms: the ultra controlled ones and then the more "loose" creative ones and how you would go about solving those puzzles. But realistically, anything you'll do will be rad! Huge congrats on being a dad!

Anonymous

i like the story about the owl resynthesizing. that sounds like a bad ass owl

JP

That was really great, thank you so much. No request here, keep following your interests. Sincerest congratulations on becoming a father !

Uriel

Thank you! High quality tutorial :)

Stuart Anthony

One topic I feel isn't covered very often (by anyone) is how you take sound design recordings and actually put them to use in a song. I know Thijs did that Razer video a while ago about playing with his modular setup, but it would be really interesting to see how you take those audio recordings and pull pieces from them to work into songs!

Anonymous

Hi Nik ! Thanks a lot for this tutorial, it was very interesting. I've learn so many things ! You're very pedagogical. And congratulations for becoming a father !

Gareth Stones

Absolutely fantastic Nik! So much information, and I felt like I can follow what you're saying pretty well, will of course be watching this multiple times to take it all in however! :D Big ups on becoming a daddy! Yaaahooo!!! Very much looking forward to your future videos, either in this series or for drums as people seem to be asking for hahaha! :D

Anonymous

Hey Nik ! That was very interesting. Go for BASS treatment tutorial, would love to see it ! Big up for becoming Daddy ! Thx u !

David May

Very interesting, connected some dots for me. Thanks

Anonymous

Hey Nik, awesome tutorial, would love to see a sound design session focusing on the wavetable editor in serum, and some cool tricks you do to start off a few different types of sounds Noisia has used in their tracks, like the one you showed here with adding the harmonics and adjusting the phase of the sub bass.

NoOne

Fascinating indeed! I'd love to see you go deeper in such subjects. Haveyou tried making a track,in which every element is made out of harmonics of the same note?

David May

Do you use the same technique for synthesising kicks? I imagine you could use this to add harmonics while minimising level increases. Also, I did some digging after this and discovered that the harmonic series can be plotted as a spiral, which has the same shape as a cochlea. I think this could explain why frequency cognition is this way. I also found this calculator. http://mustcalculate.com/electronics/harmonics.php?f=222

Jake Woolley

loved this nik, thank you. i personally would like to see more videos on theory and techniques like this, as opposed to track breakdowns. cant wait for the next one!

Xantorias Lor

great video ! I tried this technique in my basses and it sure helped with the dulling experience i had before when i played every bass note seperately!

Anthony J

awesome video, i never knew about how the harmonic series was actually different than the classical tuning, the efficiency of the waveform and making it louder by using the harmonic series instead makes a lot of sense.. thanks!

Martin Åberg

Great tutorial Nik!! Will definitely go back and watch this again. I would love to hear an in-depth on mid/side mixing. Also - Congratulations for becoming a father! Hope you have a great summer!

Tom

This is by far one of the most interesting and thought provoking videos I've seen on synthesis.. Big upzzz =) I'd really like to get an insight on your snare processing and the theories behind/ approach towards layering.

sigjir

This will be committed to my Bass Bible! So when's that 174 Pleaure Model VIP coming then?!

Malte Beyer

Amazing tutorial nik! I'd love a tutorial on how to achieve that lower pitched layer in your basses (sometimes reeces sound like they have a lower-mids-layer moving along with the rest) and how you achieve that rich stereo sound and movement on basses. Also how to get basses to "talk" - wondering if that is a specific way of filtering and processing.

Giemsa

I was just trying to solve for this problem last night with a patch. I'll be implementing tonight. Thank you so much for this explanation. Congratulations on being a dad!

Anonymous

Watched this for the third time, it continues to be inspiring. Brilliant, thank you.

Martin Åberg

Just watched it my third time as well. This is one of the best tutorials I have personally ever encountered. Would love to see a part 2 / more in-depth with the harmonic series. Once again, fantastic job! Thank you!

Arttu Tick

One of the best tutorials i have ever seen tbh

Veil.Combine

This has answered a lot of half answered questions for me and I'm extremely thankful for you putting this together and sharing it. Congrats on becoming a dad :)

Kieran Unsworth

This is mind blowing stuff, may I ask how you made the key map patch for F? Like, how do you actually adjust the note envelope so that you know which note the harmonic series is going to be playing? I have managed to get half way there, but there is a vast difference when only slightly adjusting the attack part of that harmonic note envelope, if that makes sense?

Bartek Industries

Love this one. Super clear and functional ways to deploy the harmonic series.

Anonymous

This is great Nik! Thanks for sharing.

cb1

This is the best tutorial ive watched so far from you guys, thank you so much!

Anonymous

I can also recommend This Is Your Brain On Music, great book

Anonymous

this was awesome, please do more like this and less track breakdowns, i find these so much more helpful

Anonymous

a sequel to this where you go deeper would be great too

Anonymous

this was great and filled in some of the blanks. i did not know why moving bass around on the keyboard sounded so ugly. i appreciate this a lot!

dw

thanks for your time and effort. you're a great teacher and artist.

Francis

Best tutorial yet! really well explained. :- o ) thanks nik

Anonymous
>>47596741

hi mate, dunno if you got an answer but is it in F because he pitched the waveform up 5 semi tones?

Anonymous

Yooo all older videos are unwatchable :(

Owen Edwards

Damn, hadn't had a chance to watch this one fully yet

Anonymous

I remember watching a youtube video about how Nic Explained resonant peaks. Used EQ3 to cut all the mid range for the drums Etc.... Could you maybe talk more about those peaks and maybe how you create or distinguish them between eachother. hopefully that makes sense thanks!

wigb

this is one of the juiciest tutorials. sooooo good. bring on the stimulating tutorials!

Darren Cooper

Very interesting. Especially the concept of making a "chord" with bass sounds. This tutorial got me thinking about a request for a new tutorial and I'm going to preface that request by disclosing that I just picked up a Moog Subharmonicon so the following concepts are currently at the forefront of my musical thinking: subharmonics, polyrhythms and how the two are related. Granted there are some videos on YouTube covering these concepts, but I'd really like you guys' take on these.

EWOX

Would love to see how you were able to program that key-mapped patch! Great video Nik &amp; congrats on becoming a dad!

Matthew Murphy

So many ideas generated from this!! Brilliant tutorial. I’d love to see one discussing your use of convolution. You mention some very interesting uses of convolution and self made IR’s in the collider breakdown and would love a more in depth breakdown!

Jayde K

I keep coming back to this tutorial in particular - harmonics have been my obsession for the past few months!

James cook

awesome content. i'd love a video talking about phase. especially pertaining to phase alignment in drums and bass (emphasis in kick/sub interaction)