A fundamental part of “groove” is sub-bass, and I’ve been trying lately to make a more conscious effort to have a single, good source of sub-bass to turn to. Especially as the same sub-bass can be used over and over and in multiple scenarios and genres. Recently I decided to explore self-resonant filters and results are a bit boring but interesting. I tested the Intellijel uVCF, the 2HP MMF and they Tiptop Audio Z2040. I essentially found that they all serve the same role in sub-bass. They could all make a nice resonant sub-bass. The four poles of the 2040 versus the two of the other filters do not seem to make much difference. To be clear I did not test these tracking actual notes but instead just going with what felt good – sending a CV sequence and then using an attenuator to get the feeling and sound that I was looking for.
I also tested all three as a general filter source, and again it was hard to find a clear winner. The MMF seemed as if it had the fullest sound. I don’t know if either my signal going in was hotter or it distorts some. It did not do not sound distorted at all, but did feel strangely fuller. I Feel like the “loser” in this was the Z2040 only because it offers only the low pass output where the other two are multi-mode and seem to still do the same quality of job with low pass filtering. I ran some finished music through all three for low pass filtering, and very some amount of resonance, and they all worked about the same so pressed for money or space the 2040 would probably go and then between the other two I suppose the best would be the MMF paired with an attenuator as there is no onboard attenuation that combo would give the same hp usage as the uVCF but also give the option to use the attenuation for totally different task if used in a very small hp case (which we all dream of, right?).
Related to this I got out the Moog Minotaur and tested it as well. Initially it seemed to fail my sub-bass test as far as having anything unique with sub-bass in particular. You definitely need to add a bit of attack and decay to stop any clickiness, but for pure sub-bass, it nearly was no different than using a self oscillating filter. However, I did find that the general interface is nice and being to add glide or the second oscillator at a strange DTuning even had extremely filtered amounts does give interesting variations to the bass, in addition, I remember years ago using this and being very happy with it adding a bit of LFO to the pitch to give interesting groove again and slightly non-pure musical or non-traditional musical settings obviously, with more standard music LFO to the bass pitch would be at least odd, and usually not very useful.
Interesting thing about the Minotaur once I began testing it in general and there is an a very distinguishable mook oscillator sound particular the square sounds just I don’t know if it’s more hollow as a sound and then the filter residence doesn’t go totally out of control, but definitely gives that moose sound s very interesting to confirm that many cases if one wanted a full synthesizer pallet on does need some sort of Moog and the Minotaur fills that role at least in bass up to middle tones. It is not allowed to tune higher than some particular frequency, but even for a lot of my quasi TV, 303 type sequences it had most of the trouble that I needed.
Started with me using traditional bass type sounds with an additional layer filtering because knew but somewhat refused to accept that even a good sub-bass needs an additional amount of filter on top to get rid of any clicks or other artifacts of the envelope so I use the Michigan Michigan synth works SY 0.5. It’s a setting and had great results very good results and then I tried the two HP kick which actually had decent results to a different flavor but definitely could be used as a sub-bass type voice especially filtered through a through a another low pass fi.
When I said that, I refuse to accept that Lopez filter was deed what I mean is that so many times I would be frustrated by inconsistencies in the cake or the bass or small envelope artifacts, and the whole time I knew that adding a low past filter, but basically solve this, but somehow I kept looking for that perfect sense of voice or other tool that gave it without the filter. And obviously this is a silly time wasting thing to do when literally had a filter in front and the problem is solved so that is what I finally did and it worked out quite well.
Course now my task would be to pick one and keep it patched up as the permanent sub-bass solution, which again does make the Minotaur more attractive, and that it can also serve as a decent full scent voice for a lot of purposes. Also, something like the role in SHO1A, S1, etc. As usual, as hard to tell, what are the mental trickery of “real analog” starts and stops part of me would love to keep the Minotaur another part of me says I could both get good money out of it, and also more compact or reusable set up to just use some bit of your rack for sub-bass, which I could also use for other purposes, when not being the bass voice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A fundamental part of “groove” is sub-bass, and I’ve been trying lately to make a more conscious effort to have a single, good source of sub-bass to turn to. Especially as the same sub-bass can be used over and over and in multiple scenarios and genres. Recently I decided to explore self-resonant filters and results … <\/p>\n