Learn How to Make Sub-Bass Drop Effects

Have you ever wanted to make those sub-bass drops you so often hear when watching movie trailers? The ones used to create some dramatic effect? People call it a bass drop because, without subs, it does cut out the low end in the entire mix for that moment. At the same time, it does feel like somebody just dropped a bass bomb when that effect is played.  

Bass Bomb

You've'' probably heard this effect many times in popular electronic dance music. Moreover, you can find it in various sample packs. Although the samples make a good starting point, you need to get creative to get the best sound out of them. The problem that sometimes occurs is that the length of the sub-bass is too short or too long. If you try to time-stretch it, it will probably lose its original sound, and you will hear some unwanted glitches. I want to show you how to easily make a sub-bass drop from scratch to fit your song tempo. Using just one VST synthesizer and one oscillator in a few easy steps, you will make sub-bass drops quicklye effect can be ,created eamakelmost every VST. So, without further delay, let's get started!  

Sub Bass Drop Design

The first step would be to place Massive by Native Instruments on a newly created MIDI channel within SoundBridge. After that, I will write just one long note in the MIDI editor window.  

Secondly, I will go to Massive and start adjusting the parameters. In the top menu, I will first select a new sound. In addition, in the oscillator 1 section, I will choose a Sub-Triangle waveform from the preset menu. Furthermore, I'll turn the Wt-Position knob to the left. Now, we can hear the clean sinus signal that sounds like this.

~Clean Sinus Signal

Now let's move to the Envelope one section. I will drag and drop the cursor icon to the SC slot in the left corner of the Oscillator 1 section. After that, let's push down the value of it to, let's say 36.00. This is because we want our sound's pitch to drop instead of rise. Moving forward, we can tweak the Attack knob on the Envelope 1 section, and the attack will determine how long the drop will last.

~Sinus Signal with Modulated Attack parameter

Lastly, to spice it up, let us process the sound with some reverb and distortion to make the sub-bass drop more obvious. In the end, let's hear the fully processed sound.

~Full Processed Sub-Bass Drop