Producing bass house music is about maximizing the impact of just a few dope elements in your track. And while it might seem like this compositional simplicity in many of the bass house tracks being released means that they are easy to produce, this couldn’t be further from the case.
So, to celebrate the release of his latest track on the legendary Night Bass label, we invited BIJOU to share which plugins he uses to achieve the minimal, warm, punchy, and groovy sonic character all of his releases have.
So, let’s dive into the best plugins to make fantastic bass house tracks.
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Stream BIJOU’s Latest Single Below
In a genre as saturated with copy-cats as the bass house scene can be, BIJOU is alone as one of the few producers who can transcend the genre’s tropes and sound authentic and unique in his own right.
Having followed him for years now, his sound has always managed to stay ahead of the curve, defining the sounds of the modern bass house instead of chasing its coattails. These merits have attracted the attention of some serious heavy hitters in the industry, and the props could not be more well deserved. “Gang Gang” is a testament to the circle you build when you chase what you love.
“‘Gang Gang’ is all about being with your people and setting the vibes anywhere you roll. Strictly good vibes and good people = Gang Gang.” – BIJOU
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Nectar 3
This is such a staple for me when it comes to vocal processing. The presets Izotope has within Nectar are INSANE. You can take completely dry vocals and manipulate them to basically any sound you want. Ranging from a super clean pop vibe to a real grit and raw UK hip-hop sound. I’ll be using this plugin for the rest of my production days. Something I utilize this for is the built-in effects within each preset.
There’s built-in auto-tune, compression, delay, distortion, reverb, and more. This allows me to get into the nitty gritty is processing the vocals, which is a huge part of my production style
Sylenth
This is my go-to for anything Bass/synth related. It’s a classic plugin that’s been around for years that is widely used with endless limitations. One record that I used this extensively on was my song “Chop It Up”.
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The Bass lead on this was Sylenth all the way, which was super necessary as this record was also very West Coast influenced and required a warmer saw-like G-House bass to really drive the record forward. The lead synth in Chop It Up was also an arp from Sylenth that I used to give the record some melody while also adding some layering to make it a bit more interesting.
Snag Powerful Sylenth Presets Here
Vacuum Pro
This is a secret weapon of mine for anything bass-related and also what I used for the bass in “Gang Gang”. This synth is warm and powerful, you can’t go wrong.
I’ve been using this for 80-90% of my basses for the last 6-12 months. There’s something about this plugin that makes it sound almost analog.
Bass is crucial in house music because you want it to sound as warm as possible, especially within the style that I make. This is the closest digital synth I’ve found to being analog.
Little Alterboy
I use this mainly for transposing vocals to give them that deep, dark sound or a nice harmonic layer for something that might be higher pitched.
It allows me to pitch things uniquely and get accurate specific tones needed when working with vocal layering. I used this on “Gang Gang” for the vocals to give it some melodic layering by utilizing the rich fifths preset.
Basically what this is doing is adding a vocal layer within the channel itself, five semitones down to give the vocal some richness while also thickening it up a bit.
Pumper 3
This is something I recently started using, but has become one of my Top 3 favorite plugins.
It’s an all-in-one Compressor, saturator, & stereo imager. It allows me to get super detailed with these three specific audio effects to create super unique grit in my bass and synths to punch through the mix.
It’s something I’ve also started using on vocals to give them a bit of width. The built-in stereo imager gives me the capability to spread vocals to provide them with width, therefore making them sound much bigger in the mix. I like to imagine playing a big festival and the fans feeling like the vocals are reaching every part of it.
Neoverb
There are a ton of different reverb plugins out there but Izotope really hit the nail on the head with this one.
With three different settings, including reflections, plate, and hall, within each preset, you can get VERY specific on how you want the reverb sound on whatever it is you’re using it for. One of my favorite ways to use this is to create reverse vocal effects.
I’ll take a short clip of the first word of a phrase and add a reverb with a very long, sustained tail. Freeze and flatten this, then reverse it and you have a perfectly harmonic reverse vocal effect leading into your verse.
You can’t go wrong with this one, that’s for sure!
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
