Future bass is my specialty I'd be happy to help if you have any specific questions!

I know for a fact that WRLD only uses Sylenth and Soundfonts for his sounds.  Most Future Bass sounds are just simple waveforms (saw/square or sine for those nice plucks).  The key is all in the voicing of chords and writing the music, which for me has always been the most difficult

Future bass is my specialty I'd be happy to help if you have any specific questions!

Do you know anything about doing the huge supersaw-esque leads in tracks like



Also what kinds of chords that are used in future bass?
Thanks!

Also what kinds of chords that are used in future bass?

In the Ekali remix you posted, I'm hearing... Well, it feels to me like it's in the key of D minor. Around the 1:25 mark, I start hearing a progression based on jazzed-up versions of chords like Bb, Gmin and Dmin.

Jazzed up means... maybe there are 7ths in there? Definitely suspended 2nds: if you're in Dmin and you play the Gmin chord, but you add in a 2nd (play an A over your Gmin), you get this beautiful rich, ambiguous, melancholy tension... in fact you get a semitone dischord (the A vs the Bb in the Gmin chord). But... if you're heading towards a Dmin chord... well, that Dmin contains an A note. So... there's a dischord in the Gmin sus2, that suggests the Dmin.

One of my favourite things ever (which I got from listening to music like the original Bladerunner score by Vangelis) is... imagine you play a D note for the bass. That says to the listener "I'm currently playing a Dmin chord". BUT over the top of it, you play an Amin chord. Well... what are you doing at that moment? Are you playing an Amin chord with an extra D (Amin sus4)? Or, are you playing a whacked-out Dmin chord, with a minor 7th AND an extra E? Either way, it brings this rich, bluesy, jazzy, soulful, melancholy vibe.

So yeh. I got carried away there in my 1st post but Ekali seems to be adding 2nds, 7ths and 4ths to chords to make them express doubt, vulnerability, human moral weakness, I'll get my coat.

Quick update - that Lorde remix also has similar chord tricks:

The chorus seems to be in A min... but the chords seem to be something like Dmin7 (minor D chord with a C natural), an Emin7 (E minor chord, plus a D natural), then a Fmaj7 (F major chord, plus an E natural).

Those chords are quite easy to play on a keyboard: at their heart, the Dmin7 is a D, an F, an A and a C (alternate white notes) and you just need to move your hand one note up the keyboard for the Emin7, and another note up for the Faj7.

But there's much more to it: I bet they're playing with different chord inversions, and the Flume rmx seems to play a higher Amin chord across the whole chord progression (similar to that Vangelis trick I mentioned before)... and also to mix up the progression a bit.

Awesome to get mentioned on here already! 

I bet about 95% of my synth sounds are probably made in Sylenth. I like to keep my sounds simple and clean.

I'd say future bass is definitely more about songwriting than it is about sound design. Like a few people here already mentioned, adding 2nds, 4ths and 7ths to your chords will help give them a bit more depth and emotion (not just for future bass obviously). I tend to use a lot of dissonant harmonies in my chords as well, I think a lot of people aren't used to using those types of harmonies in their chords. My music teacher in high school once asked me to describe a dissonant harmony and I answered "they always sound ugly" and he said "not if you use them in the right way", and that actually completely changed the way I wrote my chords.

Also something I absolutely looooove is using nice clean sounding, slightly detuned saw (most of the time using 2 voices) synth leads for my main melodies or solos. I use an LFO to add vibrato and then I automate the gain to make it sound funkier, I also use a lot of pitch bending and/or portamento as well to give it a bit more depth. To make it sound smoother I always use a nice lowpassed ping pong delay. Highpassing out anything below 120 Hz on the leads always seems to help with that as well.

One little trick I always use is slightly bit crushing the leads to give them a little 'crunch'. If I'm using a bit crusher though, I always lowpass anything above 20K, you might not hear those super high frequencies but your dog might. Even if you're not hearing it it might still clean up your mix and bit crushers always add nasty unwanted frequencies.

Awesome to get mentioned on here already! 

I bet about 95% of my synth sounds are probably made in Sylenth. I like to keep my sounds simple and clean.

I'd say future bass is definitely more about songwriting than it is about sound design. Like a few people here already mentioned, adding 2nds, 4ths and 7ths to your chords will help give them a bit more depth and emotion (not just for future bass obviously). I tend to use a lot of dissonant harmonies in my chords as well, I think a lot of people aren't used to using those types of harmonies in their chords. My music teacher in high school once asked me to describe a dissonant harmony and I answered "they always sound ugly" and he said "not if you use them in the right way", and that actually completely changed the way I wrote my chords.

Also something I absolutely looooove is using nice clean sounding, slightly detuned saw (most of the time using 2 voices) synth leads for my main melodies or solos. I use an LFO to add vibrato and then I automate the gain to make it sound funkier, I also use a lot of pitch bending and/or portamento as well to give it a bit more depth. To make it sound smoother I always use a nice lowpassed ping pong delay. Highpassing out anything below 120 Hz on the leads always seems to help with that as well.

One little trick I always use is slightly bit crushing the leads to give them a little 'crunch'. If I'm using a bit crusher though, I always lowpass anything above 20K, you might not hear those super high frequencies but your dog might. Even if you're not hearing it it might still clean up your mix and bit crushers always add nasty unwanted frequencies.

Thanks so much for your input dude. LU #nohomo