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Butter Up The Sub

Current Status: Structure Complete – Gathering feedback for changes.

About the track:

Ive been in a bit of a rut for about a month.

Failing to find inspiration on tracks, I thought maybe a change in environment would help. We had a family vacation planned this week so I packed up my MPC finger drums, my 4 string bass, a kids electric guitar, a line 6 pod xt, a laptop and my audio interface. Each night I spent some time working on tracks, but ultimately came out with 2 partial grooves that didn’t really inspire me enough to finish.

My vacation house mini studio. Check out that wallpaper!

Despite the effort, I threw out the 2 grooves I made that week and wrote them off as uninspired.

Frustrated with the lack of new track coming out of vacation week, on the drive home I was scanning the local radio to see what was played. A trap rap station came on somewhere along the drive in New York State. Trap music has some pretty cool beats and grooves. I had also recently purchased Sublab, a trap-like super low 808 kick/bass hit thing.

I went into this thinking about those radio trap tracks, and wanting to play with Sublab to get a trap kind of vibe. I also knew I had to find a way to get a bass guitar in there, because… well I just have to.

The Lyrics:

Nobody listens
Grassroots yeah
Real big
100 individual listens
yeah im a big thing
you wanna push my buttons?
do you wanna make a big stink?
I dont give a crap
Im doing my own thing
oh my
its a mumble rap, oh
somewhat incognito now doing some trap
i heard it on the radio and said
i wanna do dat
ill just copy those guys and do it in my own track
making music
such a bitter end
its just same kind of thing
time and time again
ill do it a little bit different
just to get in the mood
i think ill butter up the sub bass
and get in the groove

butter up the sub bass and get in the groove

Nobody listens
Grassroots yeah
Real big
100 individual listens
yeah im a big thing
make a track like the radio
see what people think
wont matter what i do
what i make is my thing
lets make a trap track
lets make it real whack
put a bass guitar on the bottom
way under that
gunna make a pop slap
gunna make a foot tap
gunna make a wiggle like a earthworm
in the ground

this wont get on playlists
noones going to pick this
do i make decisions?
can passion be a sickness?
you know what i think i really need to do
i better butter up the sub bass and get in the groove

butter up the sub bass and get in the groove

The Sublabs

Sublab is split into 3 layers. Each with varying settings and effects chains, but similar overall in sound. The 2nd layer is used to butter up the sub bass of course. These are the main new thing im playing with on this track.

808 Nascar preset:

Sublab Effects Chain (Layer 1)

The Electric Bass

Theres a couple but the coolest one is that super low nasty distortion one. The effects chain to get that sound is this. I do a ‘thumb palm pop’ slap here and there with this on for a pretty cool sound.



You may be wondering….
Whats this all about anyways.

Its about buttering up the sub bass, and getting in the groove.