What are your favorite baseline synths?

camel crusher is the "update" of camel phat free.

i'm kinda surprised no-one has mentioned any 303 emulators (i like the cm303 from computer music)--no acid tweakers in this tribe? i also like to use mr. ray (kinda like the "donationware" version of lounge lizard) for that "rhodes bass" and there's a minimoog emulator for free (minimogue) that i think is great.

Rick,

By all means, do what you need to in order to get the most use of the machine -- I was just trying to express that Macs running Windows are just as vulnerable to Windows viruses as a normal Windows machine is, so running Windows virtualized would offer greater protection from that threat (viruses can't modify your boot sector, for instance, because the hypervisor in Parallels or WMWare would intercept that). If a certain discipline is followed i.e. "never use Windows to get on the internet, i'll boot into OSX first", then Boot Camp is fine ...

Regards,

John, who likes his black MacBook quite a lot (and thankfully, doesn't need to run Windows on it)

Falling You - exploring the beauty of voice and sound
www.fallingyou.com

I always HPF on the subs at 20-30 hz which cleans up the sound a bit.
I also LPF at 200-400 depending on the sound I am going for (muddiness in tracks are in the 250-800 range)
Sidechaining is essential for music where the kick and bass overlap at all, but I usually just have them playing at different times.
I also have a full pro-audio mackie system, so I bring my mix to the "big speakers" to test out the bass response.
Finally, I find it very useful to A/B your track with commercial releases that have the same kinda sound you are looking for.
Also once the bass is how you want it, HPF everything else in your track.
I usually have a bus that is this HPF that I route everything that isn't bass into. It is also helpful to EQ these frequencies out of any reverb bus.
Hope this helps.

Actually, I don't have a formula for my own mixes.
I just am a firm believer in the power of timbral masking (which is a psycho acoustic effect) to fuck up any mix.

Essentially, I try, within reason, to make sure all of my elements are in different timbral ranges so that they don't
mask each other until the hi midranges when they can be separated in the stereo field to exist simultaneously.

Since bass waves are percieved monophonically (waveforms to large for the short distance between the stereo
field that is our head and ears) masking is especially tough.

I may have already posted this, but a trick we used to use back in the analogue recroding studio days was to
put the kick through one side of a 31 band graphic eq and the bass guitar (or synth) through the other.

then , beginning with each frequency, you boost 3 db at 30 cycles on the left side and cut 3db at 30 cylces on the right side
then do the opposite: cut 3db at 60 cyles on the left: boost 3db at 60 cyles on the right, and so on and so forth.

This creates a zipper looking equaliation across the board.

Fascinatingly, if you solo either track they sound weird and wimpy..................put them together and the brain automatically
fills in the missing frequencies and yet, VOILA, you can clearly hear both sounds.

Of course, this means you need a really nice tight kick with attack on it if you use a huge sub bass sound or
a nice tight lo-midrangey bass sound with a lot of attack if you use a huge kick drum with a lot of subsonic.

You know, people forget that for the better part of recorded music's history that subsonics weren't even in the mix.
Records couldn't handle them , or at least not at any volume or the needle would literally jump out of the groove.

Now, every fucking live show you go to, they have the kicks cranked up unmercifully.

I just saw PINPACK live at the Catalyst and they destroyed the mix. The kick was enormous and the snare drum was so compressed and turned down that it had no balls at all. Additionally, the vocals were so heavily compressed that the whole mix sounded like it
had a double condom over the entire thing.

I've even noticed that this prevalence for cranking the hell out of the subsonics (which has become a complete trend in the past five years at big and small concerts alike) has started to change the kinds of drum kits that are being sold.
I just went to Guitar Center and half of their kits had enormous 26" double headed kick drums.

I 26' double headed kick drum does one thing really well: BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!

Bonham, who made that sized drum famous was not tightly miced like everyone is in live concerts.
You tight mic a 26" and the kick drum has such a loud and deep boomy envelope that it masks everything in the mix.

I saw the Police and you could frequently not hear Sting's basslines because they were so muddy and the kick drum was so
overly loud and boomy.

I know this is getting to be a rant, but if you put some of the live mixes that I've heard this year
(Bjork, the Police, Springsteen, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Skinny Puppy, KMFDM, Robert Pollard, Gwar (?) and
several goth/industrial bands) on a recording and people would bring the CDs or Vinyl back thinking there was a mistake.

The subs at the Bjork show were so heavy that my wife and I left after 2/3 of the show, literally nauseated from the pounding we were taking
8 rows from the front. ............depressing when you are going to see a favorite artist and spending $200 to do so.

IMNSHO, this trend just makes things sound like crap.

<politely steps off of soapbox>

There, I feel better (though I had that horrible cold everyone's got in my hometown tonight).
Thanks for putting up with that.