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Walked in on a tutorial this morning that rebuilds a Chris Lake bass from a Diva init patch — two sine waves, two LFOs doing completely different jobs, and an Ableton CC Control trick that maps the mod wheel to LFO rate. It’s the kind of reverse-engineering that makes your next session better before you’ve even dragged in a sample. That plus an Abbey Road freebie, a free stereo modulation plugin I’ve actually been using, and a no-nonsense fix for bass that doesn’t hit.
📅 Today · Time-Sensitive
Grizzly: Gristleizer-Inspired Stereo Modulation (free)
A free VST3/AU modulation effect where the LFO goes as low as 0.01 Hz — slow enough to shift a sound’s character over a whole arrangement. The drive stage adds character before the modulation, so it’s as much a saturation box as a wobble machine.
published today · 1 min read · claim →
▶ Rebuilding the Bass That Chris Lake Played
Starts from a saw template in Diva, then layers two sine waves — root and a minor third — to get that UKG weight. LFO1 is routed to the filter on a 16th-note triangle gate, while LFO2 hits volume through the mod matrix, making the classic pumping bass shape. The Ableton CC Control trick assigns the mod wheel to LFO rate so you can ride the speed live.
gold at 00:00, 00:27, 01:55 — Starts talking about Chris Lake at LA Historic Park; intro. · watch →
▶ One-Finger Groove Chords in Live
Stack a Chord device at -12 semitones under weird +6 semitone voicings, then shape the attack to zero for punchy stabs. The call-and-answer MIDI trick — copy the pattern, mute one voice, unmute the alternate — creates instant rhythmic movement from a single idea.
Sewing Machines Through Abbey Road’s Redd.17 Desk
Big Nessie is Abbey Road’s first in-house built sampled instrument, and it’s free. Fabric sounds, shoebox hits, and knitting-needle piano plucks processed through a valve desk and tape machines, then mapped across a Kontakt instrument with creative macro controls named Scowl, Chomp, and Fang.
▶ Your Trackspacer, Already in Ableton
Use the Envelope Follower to duck only the low end of a guitar when the vocal hits, then fully duck the reverb return on the same trigger — clean separation without a multiband sidechain plugin. It’s a smarter, free way to carve space inside Live.
What a Producer Did When Their Bass Was Weak
Layers a lowpass-filtered Serum sub playing chord root notes with a separate plucked bass driven by an envelope on the filter cutoff. Sidechains the sustained sub to the kick with Kickstart 2 for separation that also creates the groove — no sidechain on the plucked layer, so it bites through untouched.
— LarryLuxe's pick
Back on the board: Mau P — The Less I Know The Better (Extended Mix)
"The Less I Know The Better (Extended Mix)" by Mau P (Nervous Records) has re-entered the Beatport Tech House chart in the deep end after dropping off — a comeback worth noting.
Producers: A re-entry signals durable demand — Nervous Records's record is charting again on its own pull. DJs: Back in the mix in the deep end after falling off the chart — renewed demand with buyers.
Back on the board: Amedeo Picone, ABOUTME — Sunny Grooves (Extended Mix)
"Sunny Grooves (Extended Mix)" by Amedeo Picone, ABOUTME (NUSONIDO) has re-entered the Beatport House chart in the deep end after dropping off — a comeback worth noting.
Producers: A re-entry signals durable demand — NUSONIDO's record is charting again on its own pull. DJs: Back in the mix in the deep end after falling off the chart — renewed demand with buyers.
Back on the board: Luke Alessi — Dr Bongo (Original Mix)
"Dr Bongo (Original Mix)" by Luke Alessi (Coffee Cola) has re-entered the Beatport House chart in the deep end after dropping off — a comeback worth noting.
Producers: A re-entry signals durable demand — Coffee Cola's record is charting again on its own pull. DJs: Back in the mix in the deep end after falling off the chart — renewed demand with buyers.
Most Reached-For
Producers' most reached-for this week: ableton live (35 mentions across 22 sources)
Tori Amos – Professional Widow (Armand's Star Trunk Funkin' Mix) · mid-'90s (1996 release)
Armand Van Helden took a piano ballad, pulled a two-bar funk break from 1972, lopped it into a one-bar bass loop, and ran it through a low-pass filter that opens over 16 bars. The result is still one of the most ruthless bass hooks in house—instantly recognizable, and still wrecks a floor when the filter sweeps into the drop.
- sample: The Jimmy Castor Bunch – It’s Just Begun (1972) — The source is the first two bars of the track, a single-note bass riff doubled by horns. Van Helden sampled it clean from the intro, then chopped it to a tight one-bar loop. The riff’s rhythm—dotted quarter, eighth, quarter—gives the track its jacking swing.
- artist: Armand Van Helden — A remix assignment that sounded terrible on paper became Van Helden’s signature crossover. He’d already been cutting up funk breaks on Henry Street Music; this applied the same approach to a major-label vocal, proving a simple, well-filtered loop could anchor a chart hit without a kick drum for the first 16 bars.
- technique: Filtered funk break re-pitch — The loop is pitched up roughly a perfect fifth from the original 98 bpm funk tempo to match the house groove around 128 bpm (tape-speed or sampler pitch). A resonant low-pass filter (24 dB/oct, cutoff ~200 Hz, resonance around 50%) sweeps open over 16 bars, revealing the horn overtone layer only at the drop.
Enjoy this section?
🔮 Producer Horoscope (for fun) — Tonight your LFO will sync perfectly to a tempo you never set. Do not question it. Turn off the ceiling light and turn on a desk lamp. Good night for it.
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