How to Create Reese Bass in Serum 3

Most producers grab a Reese bass sample from Splice and drop it straight into their project, but the real magic happens when you learn to build it yourself. Recreating a sound you love trains your ear, sharpens your sound design skills, and helps you understand why it hits so hard. I found a Reese I liked on Splice and challenged myself to recreate it from scratch, here’s what I learned along the way.

Jordan Wu

3 min read·Posted Sep 21, 2025

How to Make a Reese Bass

The Reese bass is one of the most iconic sounds in electronic music, especially in drum and bass, jungle, dubstep, and modern bass-heavy genres. At its core, a Reese bass is a thick, evolving low-end sound created by layering detuned oscillators. The slight differences in pitch and phase between these layers cause a natural “phasing” effect, a swirling, moving texture that feels alive. Producers love it because it adds both weight and motion to a track, filling out the mix with rich harmonics while still providing that sub-heavy punch.

Low ranges usually sound the best:

• E, F, F♯, G, A → These sit comfortably in the sub-bass range without being too muddy or too high.
• G and A are common in drum & bass because they balance sub weight with clarity.
• F and F♯ are very popular in techno and house since they hit hard on club systems.
• Avoid going too low (like D or below) unless your track has lots of headroom and you’re sure the system can reproduce deep subs — otherwise it may get muddy or inaudible.
• Avoid going too high (like B or C in the mid-octave), because the Reese will lose its weight and feel more like a mid-range pad.

Genre Considerations:

• Drum & Bass / Jungle → F, F♯, G, A
• Techno / House → E, F, G (sometimes A for darker moods)
• Trap / Hip Hop → F and G (but often tuned to match the 808s)

Frequency Ranges of a Reese Bass:

• Sub bass (fundamental) → Typically 40–60 Hz (depending on the key you’re in).
• Low mids (body of the Reese) → 100–300 Hz
• This is where the phasing and movement are most noticeable.
• High mids / presence → 500 Hz – 2 kHz
• Adds grit and aggression, makes it cut through on smaller speakers.
• Air / harmonics → 2–8 kHz+ (optional with distortion/saturation).

Most producers split the Reese into layers:

• Sub layer: mono, clean sine or lowpassed Reese (40–100 Hz).
• Mid layer: stereo, the detuned saws with movement (100–400 Hz).
• High layer (optional): distorted harmonics for bite (1–5 kHz).

I was digging through Splice for Reese bass samples I liked, and decided to recreate the sound myself.

https://splice.com/sounds/search/samples?filepath=reese+bass

Next, I looked up how to recreate the sound and ended up watching Virtual Riot’s YouTube video on three different ways to make a Reese bass.

I played around in Serum 3 until I created a similar sound. Made a lot of mistakes on the way.