Recently I got my hands on Enforcer by BOOM Library. Enforcer is a plug-in that could be described as a swiss army knife of bass. It can add more sub to your kicks, texture to claps or make your trailer drops/impacts even more epic. There are endless ways to use this plugin. At the moment my favorite thing to do with Enforcer is make excellent sounding 808 bass drums.
In my video I show you how you can take a basic kick drum and transform it into an epic 808 bass with Enforcer. In the process I am also hoping to show you a couple tricks you could do with your 808 patterns to help them stand out from the crowd. So here is what you need to know:
- Put an instance of Enforcer on your kick drum channel.
- Using the detector feature makes it super easy to get your kicks and your 808s in perfect sync. Set the bands so they are capturing the sound of your kick drum.
- On the default setting, set your Low pitch to a note value and select a note that corresponds to a key of your song (In my video the key is D Minor so I used D1)
- In the Amplitude section extend the decay out to your taste. The longer the decay the bigger the 808 tail and the more obvious the effect.
Essentially these are the main steps you need for an 808 style bass. But as Enforcer is so powerful, there are many other techniques you can implement to get even more epic 808s that will help you stand out from the crowd.
- CUTS: Sometimes having the 808 going on every single kick can be too much. Try automating the dry and wet to get various levels of 808 action in your track and let the bass breathe.
- DROPS: with Enforcer it is fairly easy to get epic sounding drops. The best way I have found is set your HI Pitch to a note that is an octave above your LO Pitch Next, in the pitch section automate the decay up on certain notes to create a bass drop effect. I found that around 800ms worked well for me.
- PITCH: You can send midi to your Enforcer to change the pitch of your 808 notes and create a bassline. With this feature you can create complex bass lines and follow the harmony of your track with ease.
Enforcer is a great plug-in and can get you professional sounding 808s very quickly. I highly recommend this plug-in to anyone that is excited about sound design or wants to take their bass to the next level.
Jonny Dyas
