Serum · Deep minimal · Bass design

How to Make Basses Like Alix Perez & Skeptical in Serum

To make basses like Alix Perez & Skeptical, build three sounds in Serum: a short bass stab from a sine wave with a few added harmonics, Diode distortion, a falling LFO on the level and a quick pitch transient; a reverse tail made by resampling that stab; and a moving filler bass from a custom FM wavetable with an LFO on the wavetable position. Our 7-minute video recreates the deep, minimal basses of Alix Perez & Skeptical’s “Elephant Dreams” this way. Here are the steps, with screenshots, settings and audio.

By DNB Academy · Updated 21 October 2026 · 10 min read · Serum, intermediate

New to bass design in Serum? Start with our guide to every drum and bass bass type. This page is a recreation of one deep, minimal style: three short, moving bass sounds that work together.

Our recreation of three deep, minimal basses inspired by Alix Perez & Skeptical, built in Serum inside Ableton Live. Every step below links to the moment in the video.

1.Start the stab from a sine wave with added harmonics

The first sound is a short, clean bass stab. Don’t start from a saw: start from a sine, which on its own is only sub, then draw in just a few harmonics of your own. That gives you a bass with a solid fundamental and a small amount of controlled tone above it.

Initialise the patch, which loads a saw, and switch oscillator A to a sine wave (watch at 0:31). Open the wavetable editor and click the button that translates the sine’s harmonics into the FFT editor. Then add your own harmonics with the bars at the top. In our patch only a few low bars are raised, and the waveform becomes a sine with a couple of extra bumps in it (watch at 0:44).

2.Turn on the distortion and set it to Diode 1

A sine with a few harmonics is quiet and soft in the mids, so the next move is distortion. Go to the FX tab, turn the distortion on and set its mode to Diode 1. Now you can actually hear the bass on small speakers.

In the video the distortion goes on first so we can hear the sound (watch at 1:00), and the mode changes from the default Tube to Diode 1 a few seconds later. You’ll see the full effects chain in step 5.

3.Shape the stab with a falling LFO on the level

To turn a held note into a stab, modulate the level of oscillator A with LFO 1 and draw a falling shape. Set the LFO to envelope mode so it retriggers every time you hit a note, then slow it down and fine-tune the curve until the decay feels right.

Drag LFO 1 onto the level knob of oscillator A (watch at 1:13). Switch the mode to ENV, draw a shape that starts at the top and falls away, then make the LFO slower and fine-tune it (watch at 1:28). In our patch the rate ends up at one bar with BPM sync on, and the curve drops fast before easing out.

4.Add a transient with a short LFO on coarse pitch

For a little click at the start of each note, use LFO 2 on the coarse pitch of oscillator A. Make the modulation unipolar, draw a falling shape that is really short and set it to envelope mode. The pitch drops in a split second, which reads as a transient rather than a pitch bend.

Map LFO 2 to oscillator A’s coarse pitch, then hold Shift and Alt and click the modulation to turn it unipolar (watch at 1:39). Draw a very short falling shape and set the mode to ENV. On screen, LFO 2 runs at 1/4 and its curve falls almost straight down at the very start.

5.Put a high-passed chorus before the distortion, then compress

The chorus is one of the keys to this sound. Put it before the distortion, so the distortion works on the widened signal, and switch the chorus filter from low-pass to high-pass. Then only the top harmonics get the chorus and the sub stays clean and centred.

In the FX tab, add a chorus and drag it above the distortion (watch at 1:58). Change the chorus filter from LPF to HPF (watch at 2:11); in our patch its frequency sits around 315 Hz. Finish with a compressor and add a bit of gain (watch at 2:21). Our patch has about 12 dB of gain on the compressor. That is the first sound.

6.Make the reverse tail by resampling the stab

The second sound is a reverse tail that swells into the next stab. It is simply the first bass, resampled and reversed. Make the tail longer, record it to audio, reverse it and fade it in. To give it more noise and texture, double the clip’s original tempo and try a different warp mode.

Go back to the original patch, make the tail longer and make the MIDI note longer too (watch at 2:51). Add another channel and resample the bass onto it. Select the sample, hit R to reverse it and fade it in. For extra noise, open the sample, double its original tempo and change the warping mode to Complex, Complex Pro or Texture (watch at 3:20). Each one gives the sound a different texture. Then cut the sound where you want the tail to end, fade it in once more and repeat it through the sequence. More ways to reuse a bass like this are in our techy roller bass in Serum tutorial.

7.Build an FM wavetable for the filler bass

The third sound is a moving filler bass, and the key is the wavetable. Ours is a custom one made from sine waves modulating each other: two sines, FM from oscillator B, a random LFO on the FM amount and lots of unison, resampled back into an oscillator.

Load a sine wave into both oscillators and set oscillator A’s warp mode to FM (from B) (watch at 4:35). Play with the octave of oscillator B; on screen it ends up at +2. Then use another LFO to automate the FM amount with a random shape, drawn as a jagged line of peaks and dips. Add a bunch of unison (16 voices on A and 10 on B in our patch), then open Serum’s menu and choose Resample to OSC A or B (watch at 5:00). Serum renders what you hear into a new wavetable that you can scan through.

8.Move the wavetable and finish the filler bass

With the wavetable in place, map an LFO to the wavetable position and make it slower, so the bass scans through its frames as it plays. Then add chorus, a multiband compressor, an EQ and a sub layer underneath.

Drag an LFO onto the WT POS knob and slow it down (watch at 5:28). In our patch it is LFO 2 with the default triangle shape at a one-bar rate. Add a chorus and a compressor (watch at 5:41). You can set the compressor to multiband mode, take out the upward compression on the high band, set the threshold a bit lower (around -26 dB on screen) and compensate with the gain. Add an EQ to bring out the frequencies you want, and layer a sub under the bass; here Serum’s own sub oscillator is switched on with a sine (watch at 6:09).

The shape of that LFO is where you can experiment: try different movements and listen to how the bass changes. In the video it stays on the default shape. For more bass movement ideas in Serum, see how we make a liquid DnB bass like Random Movement.

The video then plays the three basses together in the loop. The sounds are short and sparse, with lots of space between them, which is typical of deep, minimal drum and bass. Our drum and bass subgenres guide explains where that style sits.

Common mistakes making deep minimal basses

• Starting with a saw. Saws give you lots of harmonics to control. Start from a sine and add only the harmonics you want.
• Chorus on the whole signal. A low-pass chorus spreads the sub too. Switch the chorus filter to high-pass so the low end stays clean.
• Chorus after the distortion. In this patch the chorus sits before the distortion, so the distortion works on the widened tone.
• A free-running LFO. Put the level and pitch LFOs in envelope mode, or the stab won’t retrigger on every note.
• A pitch transient that’s too long. Keep the coarse pitch LFO really short and unipolar, or it turns into a drop in pitch you can hear.
• A reverse tail that ends abruptly. Fade it in, cut it where it suits the next hit and fade it in again.
• No sub under the filler. A wavetable full of unison moves a lot. Layer a clean sub underneath.

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• Serum · Bass designHow to Make a Techy Roller Bass in Serum7 min read · Video + guide
• Serum · BassHow to Make a Liquid DnB Bass Like Random Movement in Serum18 min read · Video + guide
• Serum · BassHow to Make a Reese Bass for Drum and Bass15 min read · Video + guide
• Guide · BassHow to Make Drum and Bass Bass: A Guide to Every Bass Type15 min read · Video + guide

FAQ: basses like Alix Perez & Skeptical

Next steps

Open Serum, initialise a patch and build the stab first: a sine with a few harmonics, Diode 1, a falling level LFO and a short pitch transient. Then resample it for the reverse tail and make your own FM wavetable for the filler. For the bigger picture, our guide to making drum and bass walks through a whole track.

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