Hello producers!

This post is a step-by-step tutorial, re-creating 14 of the bassline patterns from our Future House Basslines Pack.

So if you’re looking for some tips and tricks on the techniques behind programming bassline patterns in Future House, we hope this will a useful read, but we aware, it’s a long one. Below is a preview of what we’re gonna cover. You can pick & skip to your favorite or go through all of them. We’ll be using Live 9, but you can follow this easily with other DAWs. Just pay attention to the grid settings in the bottom right corner of every image.

Okay then, let’s start!

Future House Bass 01

STEP 1 – We start from the following 1-bar pattern. There’s a continuous flow of 1/8 notes, except for the first beat which plays a 1/4:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Let’s get some swing in there by adding an off-grid sixteenth:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - Now let’s change the pattern every four bars. So duplicate this bar four times and in the last bar, copy the group of three notes from the second beat (the one with the off-grid 1/16) on the third and fourth beat. Now that off-grid sixteenth will be triggered three times in the fourth bar:

It sounds like this:

STEP 4 – Now that we’ve created the main pattern, let’s add the actual notes. The first three bars will repeat the ascending progression C – D# – F – G – A#:

It sounds like this:

STEP 5 - And finally, let’s break that ascending motion by going downwards in the fourth bar:

It sounds like this:

And here’s a single-layer instrument playing this bass-line pattern:

Future House Bass 02

STEP 1 - We start from the following 1-bar pattern on B0:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Now extend this to two bars. In the second bar, change the pattern so that the notes are triggered every 3/16:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - Let’s add the main progression now. The first bar goes from B1 down to D1, while the second bar starts to climb again:

It sounds like this:

STEP 4 - And now, some tricks to extend this to a 4-bars clip and make it less repetitive. Duplicate these first two bars and just double the B1 and F#1:

It sounds like this:

STEP 5 - And finally, add a little twist at the end of the fourth bar:

It sounds like this:

And here’s a single-layer instrument playing this bass-line pattern:

Future House Bass 03

STEP 1 - We start with from the following 1-bar pattern on D#. There’s the usual quarter note on the first beat, followed by two 3/16 and a group of 1/8 at the end of the bar. Quite a common pattern:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Extend this to two bars and copy the same pattern in the second bar. We start from the progression B – A# – F# in the second bar:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - Duplicate these two bars so we’ll have a four-bars loop. In the first and third bar, move the last two hits on D# in the upper octave:

It sounds like this:

STEP 4 - And finally, let’s add some variation across these bars. For instance, in the first bar, we could also play the first two hits on D# in the upper octave. Now there’s a slight difference between the first and third bar. In terms of the fourth bar, we could double the first hit on B3. Now there’s also a difference between the second and fourth bar, so we end up with a 4-bars loop:

It sounds like this:

And here’s a single-layer instrument playing this bass-line pattern:

Future House Bass 04

STEP 1 - We start from the following 2-bars pattern on C#. The difference between the bars is highlighted:



It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Move the second hit on C# in the next octave. Also, move the last two notes of each bar to G# and A:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - Now let’s turn this into a four-bars loop, so duplicate these first two bars. In the first bar we could insert an additional hit on A2. In the last bar, we could move some of the C# hits in the next octave:

It sounds like this:

And here’s a single-layer instrument playing this bass-line pattern:

Future House Bass 05

STEP 1 - We start from the following 2-bars pattern on C. This is the classic pattern where the notes are triggered every 3/16. However, in the first bar, the fourth hit is delayed 1/16:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Now let’s move some of these notes around:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - Now let’s turn this into a four-bars progression so duplicate the first two bars. The third and fourth bar will follow the same pattern, but the entire sequence was moved into a lower octave:

It sounds like this:

STEP 4 - We can take that extra step and turn this into an eight-bars loop, so once again, duplicate the entire sequence. First thing we can do is to change the group of 3x C4 that are triggered every 3/16 (first bar) into a group of 3x C4 that are triggered every 1/8 (fifth bar). There’s also an additional C5 in the fifth bar.

It sounds like this:

Future House Bass 06

STEP 1 - We start from the following 1-bar pattern on A#. Notice the off-grid sixteenth:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Add to this pattern the progression A# – F# – F – G#:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - To extend this to two-bars, simply move the second A# 12 semitones up in the first bar:

It sounds like this:

Future House Bass 07

STEP 1 - We start from the following 3-notes-per-bar pattern:

It sounds like this (there’s no sub yet):

STEP 2 - Let’s add a D# at the end of the first bar and two hits on A# at the end of the second bar:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - Now we add the common group of three sixteenths starting from the second beat of each bar:

It sounds like this:

STEP 4 - And finally, we could extend this to four bars with a simple change of pattern in the fourth bar:

It sounds like this:

Future House Bass 08

STEP 1 - We start from the following 1-bar pattern. There’s a mix of 1/8 and 3/16 notes:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Now duplicate this bar and add a small change to the pattern in the first bar. The differences between the two bars are the highlighted notes. These notes are triggered off-grid for some swing:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - Let’s add the progression, starting with the first two beats:

It sounds like this:

STEP 4 - The last two beats of each bar will play G0:

It sounds like this:

STEP 5 - The first two beats of the second bar will follow the progression D – D# – F:

It sounds like this:

STEP 6 - To extend this to four bars, duplicate the entire sequence and just change the D1 – D1 to G1 – G1 in the fourth bar:

It sounds like this:

And here’s a different sound playing this bass-line pattern:

Future House Bass 09

STEP 1 - We’ll start from the following 2-bars pattern on A. Notice the sixteenths that are played off-grid:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Now we just add the progression A – F# – E – C – D# – G# – D#:

It sounds like this:

Future House Bass 10

STEP 1 - We start from the following 2-bars pattern on E. The similar notes between the two bars are highlighted below:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - With the pattern done, let’s add the main progression:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - Let’s extend this to four bars by adding a little twist in the second bar. C and D were moved to D and F, with the D playing two sixteenths now:

It sounds like this:

And here’s a single-layer instrument playing this bass-line pattern:

Future House Bass 11

STEP 1 - We start from the following 1-bar pattern on E:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 – Copy and paste this pattern over four bars and add the following progression:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - A common technique in Future House is to have the mid & high bass layers play the entire sequence 7 semitones higher every four bars. So duplicate the first four bars, and in bars 6-8 move all the notes 7 semitones up. Note that the sub-layer is only playing the first four bars:

It sounds like this:

Future House Bass 12

STEP 1 - We start from the following 2-bars pattern on C#:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Extend this to four bars and insert a slightly different pattern for the third and fourth bar. You can hear the difference between the first two bars and the end of clip:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 - Now that we’ve created the main pattern, let’s add the following progression:

It sounds like this:

Future House Bass 13

STEP 1 - We start from the following 1-bar pattern on G. Notice the off-grid notes used to create some swing in the pattern:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - Let’s add the main progression. The first note was moved 12 semitones up. The second half of the bar was moved to A# and D#:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 – Now let’s extend this to two bars. Add a small change in the second bar by moving the D#2 to D3:

It sounds like this:

STEP 4 - We can extend this to four bars now, by duplicating the first two bars and adding a small change at the beginning of the fourth bar:

It sounds like this:

Future House Bass 14

STEP 1 - We start from the following 1-bar pattern on F:

It sounds like this:

STEP 2 - We’ll use a 2-bars pattern so duplicate this bar and just change the first quarter note into two 1/8 notes in the second bar:

It sounds like this:

STEP 3 – With the main pattern done, let’s add the progression for the first two bars:

It sounds like this:

STEP 4 - Now let’s turn this into a four-bars loop. Duplicate this bar and move the first hit on D# to G# and the second hit on C# to G:

It sounds like this:

And here’s a different sound playing this pattern:

The End

So there you go. Hope you got some inspiration out of this. Let me know which of the these bass-line patterns you liked the most. Finally, if you found this post useful, don’t forget to share it!

Check out all 50 bassline patterns: Future House Basslines

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