Create an Epic Sub Bass Kick in Logic Pro X

This is maybe not so much a question, but more of a contribution to the community. My hope is, to spur and excite a new conversation on tricks of the trade and ask: "What do you do and are you willing to share it here?" Here goes:

Firs let me say: You would think a simple sub bass sound could be easy to make, but some of these bass sounds can very tricky or difficult to replicate, due to the nature of how they were originally recorded. Were they made from a Roland TR-808 or an old smelly EMU Sampler or some other POS analog hardware that sells for twice the value on Greed Bay! But maybe, that is why there so expensive - it has a unique sound.

Here are some helpful tips from my process, that may help you:

1. Sample the Audio: A great place to start is to find a good good sample from a YouTube video and then covert it over to an audio file. There are many ways to do this, but I found this site to be the easiest: http://www.youtube-mp3.org/ This is where you can take any YouTube Video and convert into an MP3, which is good enough to be edited in Logic Pro or any other DAW. Just keep in mind and try to find videos in the best possible resolution, i.e. 720p, 1080p. Some videos in lower resolutions, like 420p or 320p, will have a horrible sound quality, like it was encoded at 64 Kps compression, which is worse than SoundCloud.
2. Find the root note: Once you have your newly converted sampled imported into your DAW. You now want to find out what key the Sub kick / Bass sample is in? Half your battle is trying to figure out the root note of the Bass / Kick sound. Now Logic has a nice Guitar Tuner Plugin in the metering section, but I find it's not that good and does not show the frequence level.. My favorite is from Melda Production, they makes a great plugin for identifying what note or frequency the sound is in, link here: https://www.meldaproduction.com/MTuner Just keep in mind, some kick sounds are just crap, and will be a combination of two different notes, plus a lot of noise; so don't expect to find a clean root note. Plus, some meters, just can't measure beyond a a certain range, which leads us to Step three.
3. If you can't get a meter to measure, you will then have to use your ears. I find that most times, your ears are more accurate than any meter could ever be, if trained right, and if you know what to listen for. This part here comes with some practice, but can be done with ease, once you get the hang of it. Basically, just use a reference tone from your DAW or Keyboard and just match it up. Create another instrument track, this could be another bass, even a low note on the piano can work really well. Then put both of the them together and listen to the sampled bass and your reference tone, at the same time. Go up and down the scale with your reference instrument, until you hear what note sounds the best. Again, this can take some practice, to get your ears to hear it, and you will know once you find it. For me, when I hear two notes that don't sound the same, it's like fingernails on the chalk board! Maybe this is why I don't really like to use 9th and 11th chords, LOL!
4. Match the rhythm / Groove: Probably the hardest part of your battle is just getting the right groove. From my experience, it is best, to start with measuring, with a good BPM meter. Logic's BPM meter is not the best and sometimes unreliable. From what I recall, MixMeister BPM is pretty good, OR... You could be like an old school DJ, and just count it out, (Skills Bro!). Just don't forget to set the master tempo of your project, once you find the BPM, from your sample.
5. Now this is where patience comes in and by doing this you will become the Jedi Master of Groove. Cut up a 4 or 8 bar piece of your imported sampled and zoom in real close and look at the wave patterns of the sampled file you just imported in.
6. Create a simple MIDI clip: Can be any instrument you want for now. The real sound design comes into play later. Match the tip of each wave apex to a midi note manually, like how you can tell a kick looks like in a wave audio file, it has huge peak, that would be one MIDI note. You would create a note for every peak in your midi file to match all of the bass / drum peaks in the Wave file. Don't worry if the MIDI note does not align to the gird of the MIDI editor. What you are after here, is the groove and most grooves will never line up anyhow. Just be sure to not un-warp the audio file if your using Ableton, b/c that will throw off the groove. See my attached screen shot to see how I have mine set below in Logic Pro X:
   
   
7. Yes, this a very tedious part, but most grooves are only 4 or 8 bars long and you will only have to spend about 15 ~ 10 minutes, eyeing it out and your done. By doing this, a couple of times you will get the groove pattern right on every time and it beats any generated swing quantization.
8. Now just a take a break, and let the energy flow and close your eyes and just listen for irregularities from the original sample. IMO, what makes a great bass or Kick sound is in the imperfections that reside from the sound, like the synth or drum that created it. Is there noise in the signal? Is there a little distortion at the upper end of the EQ? These are defining characteristics that give any sound a life and energy of its own. Take notes of what you hear, because you may want to repeat the process again or blog about it. :-)
9. Create the Sub: all good bass or kick sounds have a fundamental sub/ sine wave sound. Just make sure you adjust the ADSR in your synth to match the original sample. Did it have a short attack and is there a pitch decay from the start of the sound, etc. This is where you put all of your earlier notes into play. I like to use Logic's ES2 for Subs, but any synth will do. Here is link to a great tutorial on how to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEcSJwJl1i4
10. Create a 2nd synth instrument in a new track. You'll want it layered for the top or High end of the EQ Spectrum. Just copy over the same MIDI notes you created earlier, but just be sure to adjust the EQ of the synth to cut out the low end or just raise the midi notes in the 2nd synth up one or two octaves. You don't want it to clash and muddy up your hard work - just be safe and put an EQ on it. Every good bass sound is not just one sound there are multiple layers of sounds in them.
11. Create a new track and find a good "normal-sounding kick" that you like and be sure to EQ the low end out it. What your after here, is the noise and attack of a regular kick sound. You are looking to give your bass sound a cool signature effect that makes it unique and true; so by adding in a third layer of sound from another kick that has been EQ'ed right, it will always sound great, loud have that epic punch!.
12. Put all three tracks you just now created into a track summing stack: see video on how to do this here: https://youtu.be/TjWuQDQqHI4?t=2m15s And put an Opto Compressor on the Master of three summing track you just created.
13. Add in compression, Most great Bass sounds are compressed to **** and back! Logic has some great modeled Compressors and they work really nice for the bass, especially the Vintage Opto. I just love Logic's Vintage Opto! I use it on my piano sounds, just love this version of the compressor. The Opto, is Logic’s take on the old Teletronix LA-2A. IMHO, The Teletronix is the best of all hardware compressors, it's original hardware had an all-tube design and optical circuitry... Anyhow, the Opto compression is great for adding a lot of compression without really sounding compressed!
14. This is optional, but can add a nice effect: Just add in a some a small amount of bit crusher or distortion on the end of your FX chain and put it on the master of the summing track or maybe on one of three layered sounds inside the summing track stack. see video here: https://youtu.be/AzDVVbnJiB4?t=9m
15. Bonus: I found a cool trick by sending a bus channel to any kind of reverb that offers a high diffusion setting, like the fee one from Ambience Reverb will make a bass sound really, really good, the icing on the cake. see youtube tutorial here: https://youtu.be/FnpCW57DAzU?t=16m35s and the plugin can be downloaded here: http://magnus.smartelectronix.com/
16. Merge everything together in a nice layered stack and bounce it out into a new file, just be sure to keep your all of your original stuff, because you can use the same process to find any bass synth groove agin, it will be much faster the 2nd time. :-)

Master all of these steps and you could possibly be the next future star with you own signature sound. :-)

BTW, here are two videos, where I show this process in more detail:

1. How to make a Deep Sub Tech House 808 Bass & Groove Template in Logic Pro X:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEcSJwJl1i4
2. Convert Audio Drum Loop to MIDI - EXS24 Tricks - Logic Pro Tutorial:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAh8hF8Qp8