What makes a bass growl? It’s a lot of peaks and notches in the sound frequency. That Growl Bass sound is very common in bass music such as Dubstep and Riddim genres. How can you achieve that growly bass sound in the free Vital VST?
Saw waves work great for growl bass sound design. What makes the sound tone good? It’s the harmonics.
The sound should be at minimum of 50% harmonics.
The sound should be at maximum of 75% harmonics.
A SineFold distortion type adds even more peaks and notches. Summary:It’s the harmonics that make the sound tone good. It’s the SineFold distortion that makes the sound growl. Knowledge of harmonics is important to sound design, especially in synthesizer programming.
Using SineFold distortion type and adjusting the settings, you can make a growl bass in Vital.
Step by step:1) Make sure you have Selective Folds turned on;2) Pick a waveform and set it to operate at maximum of 75% harmonic amplitude (75%) with default settings;3) Play with other parameters to get an even more intense distorted sound.
Another recommendation is to make sure you are using the built-in distortion effect. I would recommend the “Saturated Chorus Flanger” preset, with a drive level of about 5%. The frequency ranges around 100Hz to 500Hz will be where the Growl Bass sound lives. Use octave and third buttons to change the octave range on your bass sound. This is where your growl will come from: by boosting frequencies in this area with lots of peaks and notches. You could do this manually or use an EQ tool to do it for you (the one I’m using is called “Frequency Splitter”).