The bass move hiding in your convolution reverb
Julian Jordan's 'Bad B' has no sub bass at all. The move that replaces it is sitting in your convolution reverb — and it's dirtier than a clean sine wave could ever be. One watch, and you'll be auditioning guitar‑cab impulses on everything.
▶ The guitar‑cab impulse trick that makes tech house bass filthy
Load a guitar‑cab impulse into your convolution reverb, toss it on a bass, and the low end disappears — that hollow sound is the exact opposite of what you'd do for sub, but after distortion it turns into a razor‑edged tech house bass. The order matters: reverb into pre‑filter into distortion, and it flips the usual 'make it huge' instinct on its head.
◢ learn
▶ Every note is A: wavetable layering and Auto Pan sidechain from Ninajirachi's camp
Most of the perceived bass comes from main layers; the glitch basses are sporadic. Using the same wavetable across patches, duplicating sub oscillators as separate layers, and sidechaining with Auto Pan instead of a compressor makes the low end tight and the movement snappy.
▶ Haas effect: how much delay before the sound splits into two
A short delay on one side creates width, but push it past 20 ms and the ear hears two distinct events. This video demonstrates exactly where that line is on a voice, and how to blend panning with Haas for a stereo field that works on speakers.
◢ free & gear
Helio adds per‑track time signatures and microtonal tuning to your toolbelt(free)
Helio is an open‑source sequencer that lets you compose in 19/22/26/31 EDO without extra math — useful for microtonal sound design in Pianoteq or Surge XT. Per‑track time signatures mean odd bars sit alongside 4/4 loops without workarounds.
The inside of a grand piano, modeled as a real‑time reverb(free)
230 strings respond to incoming audio based on note and scale, not a static IR — so piano sustains ring realistically, and a freeze button turns anything into a pad. Stick a drum loop through it for something convolution can't do.
◢ the word
Audient Horizon: mastering‑grade conversion and 0.99 ms latency over Thunderbolt 3
£2,199 / €2,499 / $2,799. Round‑trip latency at 192 kHz measures under a millisecond, and you can daisy‑chain four units for 200×200 I/O. If you're moving to a Thunderbolt studio hub, this is the new serious contender.
Control 120 locked grooves from DE9: Closer To The Edit in your browser
The original vinyl had 120 single locked grooves with track elements. This interactive page brings them all together with a built‑in MIDI controller and effects — perfect for an hour of beat dissection and loop mangling.
| = #06 | ANOTR, 54 Ultra — Talk To You (Extended Mix) 49 days on · ▶ hear |
| ▼ #32 | Jackie (IT), AVIV SAB — Sexy M.F. (Extended Mix) ▼ 1 · 7d · ▶ hear |
| ▼ #92 | Inflair — The Percussionist (Original Mix) ▼ 67 · 1d · ▶ hear |
| ▼ #80 | Paco Caniza — Sweet Talk (Extended Mix) ▼ 57 · 1d · ▶ hear |
| ▲ #72 | Sean Doron — Little More (Body Action) (Original Mix) back on · ▶ hear |
- sample: Disco horn loop (likely a 1980s boogie cut, kept anonymous) — The whole tune hangs on a two-bar disco horn stab, lifted and looped in an Akai S950. That 12-bit crunch and tight transient gave it the punch no stock DAW loop pack ever matches.
- technique: Manual filter sweep as arrangement — Van Helden ran the loop through a low-pass filter and opened the cutoff by hand over 8-bar phrases. No riser, no build sample—just the horns creeping back in as the highs return.
- technique: 909 kit programming (four-on-the-floor foundation) — The rhythm section is a Roland TR-909 kick and clap, with the open hat riding a busy 16th-note pattern. So simple it reads as a drum loop, but every hit was placed.
🔮 Producer Horoscope (for fun) — Your reverb send will collapse into mono without warning — check that utility plugin before you pull your hair out.
See you in the project file.
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