How do you achieve that 'bass drop/bass explosion' sound?

doc-phil

I've wondered how to achieve this kinda sound for a while now... But I never seem to be able to get it right. The kinda thing I'm looking to do is what you would typically hear at the beginning of a break down in metalcore.. kinda almost sounds like an underwater explosion. How is this done? Is it just a savage amount of low boost on the bass guitar's eq?

Below at 1:49 (following the synth choir ah ah's) is an example of such a bass explosion... probably not the best but it should hopefully give you an idea of the sound I'm trying to achieve.

PeteM

It sounds like a guitar synth to me that is triggering tuned tympani to play in unison with the guitar.

Jack-Flash-Jr

Fun track, lots of drama (although I kept expecting Dio to chime in). It sounds to me like it's just a dropped tuning with distortion. Maybe an octave pedal...

BMU

Good track, never heard of these guys. There's too much metal out there...

If I had to try to achieve that I'd layer four or six guitar tracks palm muting the open B (or whatever the lowest string is tuned to), add the floor tom, bass guitar open B, bass drum...everything low and heavy at once. The track will redline way over 0 dB, then compress the s*t out of it to get it back under control to get that saturated, flatlined sound. On the guitars, light palm muting right near the bridge so that the note sounds BIG and rings out a bit... you don't want tight palm muting in that instance. I don't know, that's just what I think.

DonovanB

There's also that function on an electronic kit. It is a really low Boom that rings for a while.

The video is different though.

PeteM

Phil - what sound are you actually talking about. Is it that explosion that sustains 2 bars or the power chords behind?

AlanRatcliffe

It's a floor tom behind a low bass note and some discordant drop tuned guitar. Has more impact because of the dynamics - it's coming in after the quiet vocal pad. Bass and tom are tight enough that I think the engineer has keyed the bass note to the tom using a compressor sidechain.

Skywalker

Donovan's got a point with the electronic kit.

Morgan Rose from Sevendust uses "tricks" like this in most of their tunes. Tasteful use of electric kit sounds combined with an acoustic kit sound PHAT!!!

doc-phil

Thanks guys, very interesting responses. I need to learn about compression.. not too clued up in that regard. I've experimented by layering a few guitars coupled with a kick and tom, but I never seem to be able to get that sledghammer effect. Maybe fiddling with some compression will help if I add a few more guitar layers. Maybe I can just chuck in a soundbyte of a torpedo going off underwater who knows ?

PeteM wrote: Phil - what sound are you actually talking about. Is it that explosion that sustains 2 bars or the power chords behind?

Its the two bar sustained explosion thingy. The palm muted chords behind it basically reads as:

e ---------------------------------------
B ---------------------------------------
G ---------------------------------------
D ---------------------------------------
A --0-0--0-0------0-0--0-0----------
D --1-1--1-1------1-1--1-1----------

I was quite surprised that the track was in drop D and not something lower. And ya it is quite a wierd video... Its all gangster rap in the beginning, then it switches to impaled samurai heads and stuff ?

PeteM

doc-phil wrote:
PeteM wrote: Phil - what sound are you actually talking about. Is it that explosion that sustains 2 bars or the power chords behind?
Its the two bar sustained explosion thingy.
In that case I think it's his voice that's been processed - dropped down an octave and a slow flange.