How to Make Sine FM Basses

The sine FM is all based on the blend between A and B. A is the sub part, which is low, and B is the high part. Put LFO 1 in envelope mode on the levels of A and B, and you determine the tone and the character of the sound just by how you blend them.

I use harmonic series on both, with plus 7, plus 5 or plus 4 on B, the most classic semitones. The blend between the semitones and the harmonic series gives you very nice different variations.

When you boost the sub and then distort it, the sub is prominent. Remove the sub and the mids are prominent, so you can really open up that FM sound by automating the sub. In Serum that's an HP 12 filter on A and B, with LFO 1 on the cutoff.

I don't want to eliminate the sub. I just want to go into the mids, distort the mids and come back to the sub and the crunch, because distorting the crunch together with those mids really gets you that crunchy FM sound.

The trick is FM, and on the B part you go with FM from A or FM from sub, so you FM it based on the lower sub frequency. FM from sub is kind of the same, since the sub is also minus two, but you have more flexibility, because you can put it on minus one without changing the sound. Make sure you use a sine wave and just add a little bit of it.

FM from B on the A sub part sounds like a saw cutting into the sub, and if you overdo it you get that jump up-y sound immediately. I don't really like that one if I want a clean sine FM, so it's FM sub or FM A.

In front of the distortion is where a chorus really changes the sound. Chorus can go there because it's aiming at the highs, and changing the highs before the distortion is fine. Hyper dimension there really plays with the phase, and you can hear the sub go left and right on your headphones. That's not what we're looking for.

I like the chorus on around 10,000, with the depth down and the feed up, to give it a little bit of room.

You get different types of sounds if you change the distortion, and diode 1, tube and sine shaper are my favorites. Diode 1 is really crunchy immediately, that's if you want that really heavy stuff. Sine shaper is only good if you keep it in the right range, or you get that noisy stuff. I use tube because it's not too overdone.

For clean drum and bass sounds, go low, don't open B up too much and don't distort it too much.