Make It Funky: Bass

A solid bassline is the foundation of funk, be it Nu, Old or merely middle-aged.

So here at NuFunk.net we're going to point you towards some of the best free resources to keep your bottom end super phat.

First up some very nice multi-sampled electric basses.

Soundsnap has a mean Fender Jazz set, lovingly recorded by 'Soundgram Post'.

Over at the Freesound Project, jdstarrett has put together a nice set of contrabass sounds recorded from an 'Electric Six' bass. Grab it here.

Also on Freesound, there's a nice fretless pack compiled by FaireDesVagues, which you can download here.

But electric bass is only one way to skin the cat - how about some synths for those hard-hitting trouser-flapping b-lines?

De La Mancha's 'Subfreak' is a great freebie - simple interface, not too many controls, but a solid little sub-bass generator. Grab it and check out his other excellent plugs here.

Andreas Ersson has created the 'Iblit' synth, which is monophonic with 3 oscillators, pulse and sawtooth waveforms, a noise generator, a 24dB/octave LP/HP filter, two LFOs and loads of other features. But most important of all, it sounds great. Grab it here.

Cakewalk's Triangle 2 is another great sounding synth, capable of some really funky 70s-style Moogy synth basses. Get yours here.

Finally, if a mad wobble is the flavour you're after, why not try Angular Momentum's 'Analog Warfare'? It has two analog-modelled oscillators, three independent amp envelopes three filters each with their own envelope, two BPM-synced LFO's with many sources and 2x78 destinations.

With a total of 234 routing options, it's a semi-modular monster, capable of some devastating sounds.

Check it out here.