Serum · Bass sound design · Deep & minimal

How to Make Basses Like Monty’s F4DE in Serum

To make basses like Monty’s F4DE in Serum, start from simple waves (sines, a saw, two detuned saws) and get the movement from modulation rather than heavy distortion: a triggered LFO on a filter, a fast LFO for the flutter, FM driven by an LFO, and hand-drawn LFO shapes on the oscillator levels. In our tutorial we recreate all four basses from the track in Serum. Here are the settings, with screenshots and audio of each recreation.

By DNB Academy · Updated 21 October 2026 · 9 min read · Serum, intermediate

New to bass design? Our guide to every drum and bass bass type covers the basics. This page rebuilds four specific sounds, so you can see the principles at work.

Our 17-minute Serum tutorial recreating the four basses from Monty’s F4DE. It’s our own recreation by ear for learning, not the original patches. Every step below links to the moment in the video.

1.Bass 1: a sine and a saw with a filtered whoop

The first bass fuses a sine-like wave with a saw and makes a “whoop” by sweeping a low-pass filter with a triggered LFO. Only the saw goes through the filter, so the low end stays solid while the top opens and closes on every note.

In oscillator A, load the Basic_McB wavetable instead of the basic sine and move the wavetable position until the wave changes shape. Turn on oscillator B and load BS2 - Subby Saw rather than the regular saw (watch at 1:18). Turn on the filter (MG Low 12), send only oscillator B through it, and map LFO 1 to the cutoff. Set the LFO to trigger mode and draw a shape that rises, then curves down. If the modulation shows as bipolar, hold Shift and click it to make it unipolar, then bring the cutoff down and dial in the amount until you hear the whoop. For a consistent sound, turn the random phase all the way down.

The effects stay simple: a chorus left at its default settings, then Serum’s FX filter set to low-pass with LFO 1 on its cutoff too, again unipolar, to “double down on the low-passes”. After Serum comes the post-processing (watch at 3:16). In Trash 2, turn on multiband mode and right-click to remove a band so you have two. Load the Crispy mode on the low band and boost it a little; load Blues Driver on the high band and boost it a lot for energy on top.

That combination creates a weird feedback-like resonance. It can sound cool, but it isn’t wanted here, so add an EQ that boosts the mid-range to make the bass fuller, then a second EQ with a low-pass whose frequency you automate in your DAW (watch at 4:16). That gives you your own wobble and gets rid of the resonance. Add or remove filter resonance depending on how clean you want the filtering, and try other waveforms in oscillator A; we wanted solid harmonics in this one.

2.Bass 2: phasing saws and the flutter

The fluttery bass is built on phasing: two saws slightly out of tune with each other, through a steep, driven low-pass filter. The flutter itself comes from a fast LFO on an FX filter, with its rate set in hertz and automated so the flutter slows down.

Play the same D sharp a couple of octaves up. Turn on the sub and oscillator B, load the basic saw in both oscillators, and set oscillator B’s fine tuning to 60 to get the phasing (watch at 5:25). Send both oscillators through the filter and change it to MG Low 24: a steeper filter stops a lot of the harmonics bleeding through. Boost the drive and enable key tracking so the filter follows the keyboard. Then bring envelope 1’s sustain all the way down so the sound fades over time. If you want more on detuned saws, our reese bass tutorial goes deeper.

In the FX rack, turn on the distortion (Tube in our patch) and boost the drive a lot, then turn on the chorus, boost its mix and move its filter a little higher. Turn on the compressor just to add gain. Last, add a filter and map LFO 1 to it: bring the cutoff all the way down, make the modulation unipolar and set the amount to around 75. Turn off the LFO’s BPM sync and experiment with the rate (watch at 7:23).

In our arrangement, the rate is automated in Ableton from 0.62 down to 0.58, which is 14.3 Hz down to 7.7 Hz: the flutter drops to about half its speed. For post-processing, add Erosion, a noise generator where you choose which part of the frequency spectrum gets the noise (watch at 8:02). Then add a Utility and automate its gain to shape the amplitude yourself, the same idea as the EQ on bass 1. Without it the sound is constant; with it, it plays like a one-shot. A subtle EQ to bring out the harmonics you want finishes it.

3.Bass 3: a sine with LFO-driven FM

The third bass is deep and clean: sines, a sub and a little noise, with FM from oscillator B adding harmonics. An LFO on the FM amount makes the harmonics progress over the note, and a drawn LFO shape on the levels gives the sound its rhythm.

Move down to a deeper D sharp (watch at 9:00). Load a sine in oscillator A and another in oscillator B, turn on the sub for an even bigger sine, and turn on the noise. Set oscillator A’s warp mode to FM (from B) to add harmonics and map an LFO to the FM amount, slowed down. At first it’s hardly noticeable, because oscillator B’s own sine swamps it, so bring oscillator B’s level down: now B is mainly a modulator of A. Bring the sub down too. A distortion in the FX rack lets you hear the subtle movement the FM adds. For extra evolution, set oscillator B’s warp to Sync and map the LFO to that as well.

Now open LFO 1 and use it to create the whole shape of the sound (watch at 10:43). Map it to oscillator A’s level and to the noise level, bring the amount down, and draw the movement you want. We drew it to emulate the shape of the bass in the track, and set the LFO to trigger mode so it restarts on every note. Back in the FX, turn on the compressor to add gain, then add a chorus after the compressor. To vary the riff, try raising oscillator B by an octave or two.

4.Bass 4: layered sines with a 7th harmonic

The last bass is built like a jump-up bass, but without much distortion. It layers sines, adds a third harmonic in the wavetable editor, and tunes a second, separately shaped sine to the 7th harmonic. A reverb throw drawn with an LFO gives it a tail.

Play an F sharp and layer sines in oscillator A, oscillator B and the sub (watch at 11:57). Set LFO 1 to half rate and envelope mode, draw a shape that resembles the movement in the track, and map it to oscillator A’s level. Turn on the noise and map LFO 1 to the noise level too, which gives you two pulses. Then open oscillator A in the wavetable editor: keep harmonic 1, the plain sine, and add harmonic 3, which multiplies the fundamental frequency by three and adds a fifth on top. For more on keeping sines clean in the low end, see our DnB sub bass guide.

Keep oscillator B a plain sine: oscillator A’s phase is flipped, and you want this layer clean. A neat trick: hold Alt and drag LFO 1 onto another LFO slot to copy it (we use slot 4). Give the copy a bit more tail and map it to oscillator B’s level. It doesn’t sound special until you tune oscillator B two octaves and 10 semitones up, which gives you the 7th harmonic (watch at 14:02).

In the FX, add some distortion and a chorus, but switch the chorus filter from a low-pass (which would affect everything below 1,000 Hz) to a high-pass that affects everything above 600 Hz. Add gain with the compressor, then an EQ with a sharp bell to boost whichever harmonic you like. Finally, turn on the reverb and map an LFO to its mix: set the LFO to one bar and envelope mode, bring the mix down, find where the sound ends and draw the tail from there (watch at 14:57). That’s a reverb throw made by hand. Shape the reverb to taste (size, decay, low cut, plate or hall) and keep adjusting the EQ until you have the harmonics you want; we added some highs.

Hear them in context, then make them your own

The video ends with all four basses playing together in the arrangement (watch at 16:03). It isn’t a one-to-one remake, and that’s the point: the value is in the principles behind each sound, so you can turn them into basses of your own.

Swap the waveforms, change the octave of a modulator, redraw the LFO shapes to fit your own riff, or try the flutter LFO on a different sound. If you like this deep, minimal end of drum and bass, our drum and bass subgenres guide explains where it sits.

Common mistakes making basses like F4DE

• Reaching for distortion first. These basses get their character from modulation on filters, FM and levels; the distortion is there to bring out the movement.
• Bipolar modulation by accident. If a filter sweep goes the wrong way, make the modulation unipolar and bring the cutoff down.
• Free-running LFOs. Use trigger or envelope mode, and turn random phase down, so every note starts the same.
• A flutter locked to the tempo. Turn BPM sync off and set the rate in hertz, then automate it.
• Sustained notes where the riff needs one-shots. Pull the sustain down or shape the level with automation.
• Letting resonance run wild. Tame harsh feedback with a mid boost and an automated low-pass EQ.

Free download

Free sounds to build a track around your bass

A bass only comes alive against drums. The 174 Marathon Sample Pack was made for International Drum & Bass Day and our 174 Production Marathon:

• 100+ samples
• Drums, bass, FX, melodics and more
• Audio samples that work in any DAW
• Royalty-free, so you can release what you make

It’s one of seven free sample and preset packs in DNB Academy Free Access, along with the mixing and mastering e-books and the 3‑day DnB challenge. Join 40,000+ producers in Free Access. Free account, no card needed.

Get free accessWhat’s in the pack

• Bass · GuideHow to Make Drum and Bass Bass: A Guide to Every Bass Type15 min read · Video + guide
• Serum · BassHow to Make a Techy Roller Bass Like DLR & Sofa Sound in Serum7 min read · Video + guide
• Serum · ReeseHow to Make a Reese Bass for Drum and Bass15 min read · Video + guide
• Vital · NeuroHow to Make Neuro Basses Like Noisia in Vital9 min read · Video + guide

FAQ: basses like Monty’s F4DE

Next steps

Open an initialised Serum, pick one of the four basses and rebuild it from the steps above, then change one thing (a waveform, an octave or an LFO shape) until it sounds like yours. To put it in a full tune, follow our step-by-step guide to making drum and bass.

50,000+ producers have joined DNB Academy, and our producer Discord has 5,300+ members.

Get free access