From our Deep House Series:

Hello producers, how’s it going? This post will attempt to identify 6 common bassline patterns, progressions and techniques used in Deep-House. So, whether you’re looking to learn some new tips and tricks or you just can’t find your inspiration for your next track, we hope this will be a useful read, but be aware, it is a long one!

Summary:

The “Bam-Bam-Bam” in the second bar The Ten Walls Bassline The Classic Deep House Pattern The Simple 4-notes Bassline The 2-notes Deep Tribal Bassline The Double On Beat Bassline

We’ll use Ableton Live 9 as our workstation, but you can follow this with any DAW. Most of the bassline sounds are coming from the Massive and Sylenth1 VSTs. We’ll show how to create not just the bassline pattern, but also how to write the entire midi sequence. We could just give you the .midi files, but there’s a greater chance of learning something from this post. Just make sure to pay attention to the Ableton grid settings in the right corner of every image. Also, if you have any questions or suggestions just get in touch with us at hi@promusicproducers.com! And a final note, don’t take this post too seriously. Okay then, let’s start.

6 Deep House

Bassline Patterns

1) The “Bam-Bam-Bam” in the second bar.

As in EDX – Reckless Ardor, or as in Construction Kit 1 from our Deep House Maniac Pack:

The tempo is 121 BPM and the track is in the D# minor scale. The big thing here is the impact of the three notes just before the end of the second bar. So, let’s jump into it.

STEP 1 – Create a 2 bars long clip and insert 9 D# notes:

It should sound like this:

STEP 2 – Starting with the third D# move all the notes to F#:

It should sound like this:

STEP 3 – Duplicate these 2 bars so you’ll get a 4 bars clip. In the last 2 bars, move the D# to F# so the bassline will continue the progression from the first 2 bars. Now, to create an ascending sequence, move 2 notes to G# and the rest of the notes to A#:

It should sound like this:

STEP 4 – After we inserted our progression, it’s now time to create that “bam-bam-bam” effect at the end of every 2 bars. This is why we left that space empty so far. So, just before the end of the second bar, insert a B (1/8), followed by F# (1/16) one octave lower and D# (1/16). To distinguish the second bar from the fourth bar, we’ll do something similar, but with a different sequence of three longer notes: D#, G# and F#. And we’re done!

The bassline should sound like this:

And with all elements:

2) The Ten Walls Bassline

As in Ten Walls – Walking with Elephants, Luca Guerrieri – Harmony, or as in Construction Kit 10 from our House Constructor Pack:

The tempo is 121 BPM and the track is in the C minor scale. The Ten Walls’ bassline is described by the unique trombone/tuba texture. For this demonstration, we’ll use the Synth Lead preset called “Detune1 Reso Female Lead” that comes with Ableton Live 9. Okay, let’s start.

STEP 1 – Create a 2 bars long clip. Insert 5 long C notes (3/16) such that the the 1st, 3rd and 5th are hitting with the kick. The 2nd and 4th C will play off-beat:

It should sound like this:

STEP 2 – Now let’s create a progression that climbs up towards the second bar but then descends back to C. So, move the notes to D, D#, F and then back to D:

It should sound like this:

STEP 3 – Notice that we left a space of 3/16 between each note. Now we’re gonna fill this space with the same notes, but one octave higher. Here the second note will always be one octave higher:

It should sound like this:

STEP 4 – Extend the length of the clip to 4 bars. In these 2 new bars, we’ll stop the motion from the the first 2 bars by inserting a long C note. This gives the bassline some time to prepare for the next motion that we’ll create in Step 5:

It should sound like this:

STEP 5 – Duplicate these 4 bars that we created so far, so you’ll have a 8 bars clip. Delete the notes from the 5th and 6th bar as we’ll do something different here in order to completely change the vibe of the track. Here, instead of ascending, the notes will be descending. So, instead of the progression C – D – D# – F – D we’ll be creating G – F – D# – D and back to C. Not only this, but now the higher notes go first. So instead of C1 – C2 – D1 – D2 it will go G2 – G1 – F2 – F1. This creates a big impact after the long break in the 3rd and 4th bar:

It should sound like this:

STEP 6 – Finally, for some finishing touches we’ll do something similar as in the first bassline style from this post. Just before the end of 4th bar, decrease the length of the long C note, and insert three shorter notes (1/8) – one octave lower – G, G# and A#:

The bassline should sound like this:

And with all elements:

3) The Classic Deep House Pattern

As in Construction Kit 7 from our Deep House Maniac Pack:

The tempo is 123 BPM and the track is in the F# minor scale. The bassline follows a very common pattern in Deep House (also common for chords) and a very common progression: playing a higher note each bar. Okay, let’s take a look.

STEP 1 – Create a 1 bar long clip and draw this common pattern of 5 notes with F# (every 3/16):

It should sound like this:

STEP 2 – Duplicate this bar four times, so we’ll have a 4 bars clip to insert the progression. The 2nd bar ascends to B. The 3rd bar will go even further to D. The last bar will come back to E. Thus, we have the progression F# – B – D – E:

It should sound like this:

STEP 3 – So now that we have our progression, we can create a smoother transition between these bars. Between the 1st and 2nd bar, insert an A. Between the 2nd and 3rd bar and between the 3rd and 4th bar insert an E. At the end of the last bar, insert the F#. And we’re done!



The bassline should sound like this:

And with all elements:

4) The simple 4-notes bassline

As in Construction Kit 10 from our Deep House Maniac Pack:

The tempo is 124 BPM and the track is in the A minor scale. This is a simple and quick way to create a Deep House bassline. However, the track needs a solid melodic structure which builds on this bassline, so the attention will be shifted towards other instruments (the pad in this case). This is so simple that it requires a single step!

STEP 1 – Create a new clip, one bar long and insert 4 notes, on beat (hitting with the kick): A1 – C2 – D2 – G1. That’s it.

The bassline should sound like this:

And will all elements:

5) The 2-notes Deep Tribal Bassline

As in Construction Kit 3 from our House Constructor Pack:

The tempo is 125 BPM and the track is in the E minor scale. For Deep-Tribal-House tracks, when you got a solid groove of organic percussions, stabs, mallets or vocals, you can get away with a very simple 2-notes bassline. Let’s see how to do it.

STEP 1 – Create a 1 bar long clip and using the E key, draw this simple pattern:

It should sound like this:

STEP 2 – Duplicate this bar once, so you’ll get a 2 bars long clip. A simple common technique is to insert an additional, lower note, off-beat, just before the end of the 2nd bar. In this case, D. A very simple bassline but it goes well with the percussion:

The bassline should sound like this:

And with all elements:

6) The Double On Beat Bassline

As in Construction Kit 5 from our Deep House Maniac Pack:

The tempo is 126 BPM and the track is in the D minor scale. This bassline follows the old-school trance style double off-beat bass, known as the “gallop”. Basically, the trance pattern plays two short notes (1/8) in an off-beat sequence. However, for our Deep House bassline, we’ll play these notes on-beat. Let’s take a look!

STEP 1 – Create a new clip, one bar long. On the 1st beat, insert a D (1/8), followed by another D (1/8). Now copy these notes on the 3rd beat and move them to A#:

It should sound like this:

STEP 2 – Duplicate this bar four times, so you’ll have a 4 bars clip:

We didn’t do anything to the actual notes, we just increased the length of the clip to 4 bars so we can insert some additional notes.

STEP 3 – Let’s add more notes, but this time, off-beat. So, on the 2nd off beat spot in the 2nd and 4th bar draw a similar structure of 2 A keys:

It should sound like this:

STEP 4 – We can add some small changes in the last bar to make the bassline sound not so repetitive. For example, move the group of D notes to F. And there goes our last bassline pattern for today!

It should sound like this:

And with all elements:

That’s it!

We hope you enjoyed this post and if you found it useful, don’t forget to share it! If you have any questions or suggestions get in touch with us at hi@promusicproducers.com.