Zebra CM go-getta bass

Creating a square bass with movement is a cool commercial trick. Let's widen the pulse of Zebra CM's oscillators, David Guetta-style

- Dave Gale

If there's one thing that has to be abundantly obvious, when it comes to contemporary music production, not all bass sounds are equal. While many producers still yearn for the classic bass sounds produced by Minimoogs, 101s and 106s, software provides the ideal portal to creating substantial and impressive bass, inviting modulation for movement and interest.

A recent example would be David Guetta, Becky Hill and Ella Henderson's Crazy What Love Can Do, where we hear a bass sound that began life as a good old-fashioned square wave, but mutated into a sound with morphing tendencies. There are a few ways that we could seek to emulate this style of sound, which includes the use of oscillator sync; this method can be pretty variable, as results are entirely dependent on the choice of synthesiser, so we have sought to create a very similar sound, but using a more orthodox and simplistic approach.

Our main thrust here is that by working with our Zebra CM plugin, we can use a primary oscillator with a degree of modulation across the wave shape. We can then underpin this by using a traditional sub oscillator, generated by our second oscillator. The result is incredibly appealing. So let's go-getta bass!

Step by step

Create a go-getta bass

1 We'll begin by initialising a patch on the ZebraCM. Load your DAW with a copy of Zebra CM on a spare instrument channel. Locate the central display at the top of the plugin, which also acts as a menu dropdown, and select Init from the bottom of the menu list. This will initialise the patch.

2 Before we begin creating our sound, it will be worth reducing the Master volume, so that we don't overpower the instrument channel as we are creating. As a reminder, when you change the value of a pot, the parameter value will be displayed in the upper display. In the case of our Master, reduce the volume level to a value of 50.