Harmonic Bass Machine

The bass chain Unglued kept rebuilding, turned into one MIDI instrument. A solid sub, harmonic tones, moving noise and filthy distortion, with the low end kept under control. Built by Unglued for the sounds he actually uses in his records.

Unglued made Harmonic Bass Machine because he kept rebuilding the same bass chain in his sessions. He wanted to get straight to the sound without loading a whole rack of instruments, distortion and clipping every time.

It starts with two sine oscillators: a clean fundamental and an upper tone you can place anywhere from the first to the twentieth harmonic. Choose the tone on the harmonic ladder and see its relationship to the note you are playing.

Add up to eight unison voices to the harmonic oscillator, dial in detune and stereo width, and keep the sub centred underneath it.

Shape the sub and harmonic separately with their own envelopes or LFOs. Add one of six noise characters and use the follower to make it breathe with the notes. The distortion band follows the played note automatically, so the fundamental can stay clean while the mids take the damage. Twelve distortion shapes, drive, dynamics, bias and mix give you plenty of ways to push it.

A final hard or soft clipper finishes the chain, with its own crossover to let the low band pass through clean. Master Trim sets the output level.

Simple view gets you straight into the factory sounds and harmonic selection. Advanced opens the full chain. Both edit the same sound, so you can start quickly and go deeper when you want to. Save your own presets, compare A and B, undo changes or roll the randomiser for a new starting point.

Clean lows. Filthy mids. Fizzy tops.

Features

• Monophonic MIDI bass instrument with last-note priority, glide and pitch bend.
• Clean sine fundamental and selectable harmonic oscillator, H1 to H20.
• One to eight harmonic unison voices, up to 50 cents detune and stereo width.
• Centred sub and Extra Sub for additional clean low-end weight.
• Separate sub and harmonic envelopes or LFOs, including tempo sync, dotted and triplet timing.
• Six noise characters: Motor, Hiss, Radio, Tape, Hum and Crackle.
• Noise filtering, stereo width and follower attack/release.
• First-stage clipper and note-tracking distortion crossover.
• Twelve distortion shapes with drive, dynamics, bias and wet/dry mix.
• Final hard/soft clipper, independent low crossover and Master Trim.
• Live spectrum, harmonic ladder, transfer curve and output metering.
• 24 factory presets, user presets, favourites, preset import/export.
• Four assignable macros, A/B comparison, undo/redo and musical randomisation.
• Simple and Advanced views share the same sound engine.