Sound Design Tutorial w/ FM8: Creating Growl Bass Sounds w/ Native Instruments' Komplete

In the latest video tutorial with Dubspot’s sound design course designer and instructor Evan Sutton, we explore designing a ‘growl’ bass sound with vocal characteristics using Native Instruments’ FM8.

There are many takes on the ‘growl’ bass out there, and in this tutorial, we’ll make a version using only Native Instruments FM8.

To get started, we’ll create a sawtooth wave using a two operator structure. This gives us a nice arrangement of harmonic overtones, and gives us a kickstart when setting up modulation. Remember that FM stands for frequency modulation. Think of it as a really fast vibrato. As we increase the amplitude of the modulator, we get more harmonics, which tend to make the sound brighter. We can change the arrangement and character of the harmonics by choosing different waves, altering their tuning, and modulating their amplitudes over time. FM is an extremely powerful approach to synthesis where we are actually building a sound from the ground up. Once the top end character is there, we can add some sub bass to give it some kick.

Evan Sutton
Evan Sutton a.k.a. Astrolith is an electronic music producer, sound designer, and audio engineer, as well as teaching sound design and electronic music production at Dubspot. He also helped develop Dubspot’s Sound Design program.