Indie Dance Bassline in Repro-5: How to Program a Prophet Style Bass

An indie dance bassline lives or dies on two things: a tone that's fat but still bouncy, and a part that makes people move before the drop even arrives. u-he Repro-5 is one of my favourite synths for exactly that job. It's a recreation of the classic Prophet polysynth, and once you set it up as a mono synth it gives you that slightly rough, round analog bass that sits between disco and techno. In this walkthrough I'll build an indie dance bassline in Repro-5 from the init patch: the voice settings most people miss, the filter and envelope values I start from, three bass patterns that work, and how I get it to sit with the kick in Logic Pro.

Why Repro-5 works for an indie dance bassline

Indie dance usually sits somewhere around 115 to 122 BPM, slower and looser than peak time techno. That tempo leaves room between the kicks, and the bass fills that room. You want a sound with a clear pitch, a bit of grit and a short, snappy filter movement, because the groove comes from the notes and the gaps, not from a huge sustained tone.

Repro-5 is a good fit because the architecture is small. Two oscillators, a noise source, a 24 dB per octave lowpass filter, two envelopes, the VOICE MOD section and an LFO that runs through the mod wheel. There's nothing to hide behind, so you make a handful of decisions and the bass either works or it doesn't. If you've read my post on building classic poly pads in Repro-5, the panel will feel familiar. Bass just asks for very different settings.

Step 1: turn Repro-5 into a mono bass synth

This is the part that trips people up. Repro-5 is a polysynth, and two features you want for bass only work in UNISON mode.

• UNISON on. When it's active, Repro-5 assigns all available voices to a single note.
• VOICES in the control bar. The manual describes this as the maximum number of voices before note stealing, and also the number of stacked voices when UNISON is on. For bass I set it to 1 or 2. Leave it at 8 and you get eight detuned voices stacked on every note, which sounds huge solo and turns to phasey mush under a kick.
• NOTE PRIO set to LAST. It's the UNISON / NOTE PRIO jumper on the lower board of the tweaks section, which you reach with the SYNTH button. It only matters when UNISON is on. LAST means the newest note always wins, which is what you want when bass notes overlap in your MIDI.
• GLIDE low. The manual is clear that GLIDE is only effective while UNISON is switched on. Values above 50 glide very slowly, which is useless at 120 BPM. I start around 10 to 15, just enough to round off the jumps.

With VOICES at 1 you get one clean, centred voice. With VOICES at 2 and a little VOICE DETUNE you get a slightly thicker tone that still holds together in mono. I switch between the two depending on how busy the track is.

Step 2: oscillators and mixer

Oscillator A: sawtooth only. Leave FREQUENCY at the root. This is your bright, buzzy layer that carries the bass through on small speakers.

Oscillator B: pulse shape, OCTAVE one step lower than oscillator A, PULSE WIDTH around 40 to 50 percent. Keep KYBD on so it follows the notes. This is the weight. If the low end gets too hollow, switch oscillator B to triangle instead: it's rounder and closer to a sub.

FINE on oscillator B: the range is plus or minus 20 cents. For bass I keep it close, maybe 2 to 4 cents. More than that and long notes start to wobble against each other, which is lovely on pads and annoying on a bassline.

Mixer: oscillator A and B roughly equal, NOISE at zero. Don't run both oscillators flat out. The mixer drives the filter, and a hot mixer makes the bass grainy before you've even touched the effects.

Step 3: filter and envelopes, where the groove comes from

The filter envelope is what makes an indie dance bass bounce. Each note should open up fast and close quickly, so every note has a little "pluck" at the front.

• CUTOFF: low, around a quarter of the way up. On its own the bass should sound dull. The envelope does the opening.
• RESONANCE: 20 to 30. You hear the filter move without it whistling. The manual notes that above 60 the filter starts to self oscillate, so stay well under that for bass.
• ENVELOPE AMOUNT: 40 to 50. This is how far each note opens. Turn it up and the bass gets more talkative, down and it gets more polite.
• KEYBOARD AMOUNT: about halfway, so higher notes in the line don't sound duller than the low ones.

Filter envelope: ATTACK at zero. DECAY short, roughly 150 to 300 milliseconds. SUSTAIN at zero or very low. RELEASE short. Trust your ears over the numbers: the decay should end before the next 16th note at your tempo.

Amp envelope: ATTACK at zero, DECAY medium, SUSTAIN around 70 percent, RELEASE short, maybe 50 to 100 milliseconds. A long release is the number one reason basslines sound smeared. Each note needs to stop so the next one can punch.

Velocity: both envelope sections have a VEL trimmer. I give the filter envelope a moderate amount. Now accents are just velocity in the piano roll: louder notes open brighter, ghost notes stay dark. That one trimmer gives you more groove than any amount of automation.

Step 4: VOICE MOD for punch and growl

VOICE MOD is the Prophet trick that makes this synth sound like itself. The sources are FILT ENV and OSC B, the destinations are FREQ A, PW A and FILTER.

• FILT ENV to FREQ A, small amount. Oscillator A gets a tiny pitch blip at the start of each note. It reads as punch, not as an effect. Push it and you're in zap and brass territory, which is fun for a breakdown but wrong for the main groove.
• OSC B to FILTER, very small amount. Oscillator B modulates the cutoff at audio rate, which adds a growly, slightly metallic edge. A little goes a long way. Sweep it in for the second half of a drop and the bass gets angrier without getting louder.

For a sharper variation, press SYNC on oscillator A. The manual describes it as forcing oscillator A to reset whenever oscillator B hits zero. Combined with FILT ENV to FREQ A, you get the classic sync sweep on every note. Great for a B section or a variation after the break.

Step 5: effects inside Repro-5

Repro-5 has a full effects section, but bass needs very little of it.

• Distortion: it's polyphonic, each voice has its own processor. Pick Soft Clip, keep AMOUNT low and use MIX to blend it in, maybe 20 to 30 percent. Use TONE to keep the fizz under control. This is what helps the bass cut through on a phone speaker.
• Velvet: a little INPUT GAIN for tape warmth. It rounds the top and glues the two oscillators.
• Lyrebird and Drench: off. Delay and reverb on a bass blur the low end. If you want space, send only a high passed copy to a delay in the DAW.
• Sonic Conditioner: keep WIDTH narrow. Bass belongs in the centre.

One more check while you're in the TWEAKS view: the row of voice pan trimmers. If you started from a pad patch instead of the init patch, those trimmers might still be spread. For bass, keep the voices you're using centred.

Step 6: three indie dance bassline patterns

The sound is half the job. These are three patterns I come back to. Write them in a minor key over a four on the floor kick.

• The octave bounce. Straight 8ths that alternate between the low root and the same note an octave up, so the high note lands on the offbeat. It's the disco move, and in indie dance it still works because of the filter pluck. Keep notes short, around a 16th long.
• Rolling 16ths with gaps. Straight 16ths on the root, then delete the note that lands on each kick. The kick and bass now take turns, which does half your mixing for you. Use velocity to accent the note just before each kick.
• The syncopated walk. Root, fifth and minor seventh in a one bar phrase with notes on the "e" and "a" of the beat. Here's where a touch of GLIDE pays off: slides between the fifth and the seventh give the line that lazy, rubbery feel.

Whichever you use, change something every 8 or 16 bars: one note, the ENVELOPE AMOUNT, or the VOICE MOD growl. A bassline that never changes gets boring long before the track ends. Indie dance sits close to the melodic and progressive house I release on Spotify, so this way of keeping a simple part moving carries straight over to those genres too.

Step 7: making it sit with the kick in Logic Pro

This is my chain on the bass channel in Logic Pro:

• Channel EQ: a low cut around 30 Hz to clear rumble, then check where the kick's fundamental sits. If the kick is around 50 to 60 Hz, a gentle dip in the bass at that spot helps more than any compressor.
• Compressor with sidechain: kick as the side chain source, fast attack, release timed to the groove, a few dB of gain reduction. For indie dance I keep it subtle. The rolling 16ths pattern needs almost none because the notes already avoid the kick.
• Mono check: flip the output to mono for a moment. With UNISON and VOICES at 1 or 2 it should barely change. If the low end drops, lower VOICES or VOICE DETUNE.

If you produce more on the techno side, my guides on melodic techno bass in u-he Diva and rolling basslines in Serum 2 use the same kick and bass thinking with a darker sound.

Common mistakes

• UNISON off, then wondering why GLIDE does nothing. Glide only works with UNISON on.
• VOICES left at 8. Fine for a lead, too much for a bass.
• Too much resonance. The level jumps from note to note and the mix gets hard to control.
• Long amp release. The notes run into each other and the groove disappears.
• Reverb on the bass. Keep space on a high passed send or leave it out.

Questions producers ask

Why doesn't glide work in Repro-5?

Because UNISON is off. In Repro-5, GLIDE is only effective while UNISON is switched on. Turn UNISON on, set VOICES to 1 for a true mono bass, and keep GLIDE low.

Can Repro-5 do a proper mono bass?

Yes. UNISON on with VOICES at 1 gives you a single voice, and the NOTE PRIO jumper decides which note wins when notes overlap. I use LAST for basslines.

Repro-5 or Diva for indie dance bass?

Both work. Repro-5 has a slightly rougher, more direct character with fewer controls, which I like for bouncy basslines. Diva gives you more oscillator and filter models to choose from. If you already own one, learn it properly before buying the other.

What tempo is indie dance?

Most tracks sit around 115 to 122 BPM. At the slower end you can use longer notes and more glide. Closer to 122, short notes and a snappy filter envelope work better.

Build this patch once, save it as your starting point, and you'll have an indie dance bassline in Repro-5 in a few minutes every time. If you'd rather start from sounds I've already used in my own tracks, have a look at VOLTAGE for Repro-5. And if Hive 2 is more your thing, MOVEMENT has dynamic basses for indie dance and progressive house too. For the plucks and arps that usually sit on top of a bass like this, my Hive 2 arps and plucks walkthrough picks up where this one stops. I also post full track walkthroughs on my YouTube channel, where you can see how bass, kick and the rest of an arrangement fit together.