Your run of the mill bass house relies on basic FM - Sine waves being modulated by higher pitched sine/triangle/occasionally saw waves, run through a low pass filter. Attach an envelope to the cutoff of the cutoff of the filter, and play with some different melodic phrases.
FM a sine wave by another simple waveform by 2-4 octaves, and you get the first level. Start FMing that second waveform, and things get interesting.
EDIT: adding in the my post from
this threadIt's one of the most basic "Bass House Wubs", and can be made in any synth capable of FM (including massive!):
- Oscillator 1 should be a sine wave playing in the bass/sub bass range (C0-C1), and Oscillator 2 should be a sine wave playing 2 octaves above it but with the output volume all the way down. (If you're using something like FM8, you want the second operator to be set to the ratio 4, aka the third overtone)
- Frequency Modulate/Phase Modulate Oscillator 1 with Oscillator 2, and run Oscillator 1 through a low pass filter.
- Apply an LFO or an envelope to the FM amount and the cutoff of the filter.
Everything beyond those three steps are just bells and whistles - he probably used serum's "Hyper" effect to add stereo width and character, added some reverb, then used a second LFO to slowly open up the cutoff of the filter and pitch the synth up a step so he didn't have to draw in any automation and could just hold a single note down.
Here's the fundamental patch, recreated in Serum, Massive, FM8, and Operator.
