Max Styler’s minimal, bass-heavy sound is built for the dancefloor: groovy, powerful, and engineered to keep the energy high all night. This breakdown takes his bass work apart into five layers, each with a different timbre and role: the main bass, the accent pluck, the response, the phase-distortion refresh, and the wow fill. Keep it minimal and let the bass do the work.
Step 1: The Main Bass Line
The core groove, a simple phrase with a semitone twist and an end-of-phrase figure for movement. The rule of thumb: amp straight, filter plucky.
Key settings:
- Amp envelope (ENV 1): straight and clean so the note hits as-is
- ENV 2: plucky and short, assigned to the filter cutoff
- Oscillators: a pure sine for the sub, plus an ICanHasKick-style wavetable for body and crunch
- FM and LFO modulation for movement
- EQ Eight boosting the upper mids for presence
Step 2: The Deep Bass Pluck
An accent layer that pushes the end-of-phrase melody, sitting deeper than the main bass so the two never fight.
Key settings:
- FM-style and ICanHasKick-style wavetables for grit
- Filter cutoff mostly closed so it sits deep
- ENV 2 to filter cutoff for pluck and movement
- ENV 1 shorter and snappier than the main bass
- A dimension widener for stereo width, and a low cut to leave sub space for the main bass
Step 3: The Response Bass
The response to the pluck’s call, with a contrasting, more forward character. A half-step movement gives it that classic tech house low-end motion.
Key settings:
- More grit than the pluck, from phase distortion (find the sweet spot) and tube distortion
- More forward and audible in the mix
- Distinct oscillators, filter and envelopes for a clear contrast against the pluck
Step 4: The Phase-Distortion Bass
A short, punchy bass placed right before the loop restarts, refreshing the loop with a new, narrower character.
Key settings:
- A narrower character built on phase distortion
- A short, punchy envelope
- Placed just before the loop restart as a refresh
Step 5: The Wow Fill
A longer-attack bass used as a fill at the end of a phrase, before the next one kicks in. The filter opens gradually for that “wow” lift.
Key settings:
- A single note or short figure at the phrase end
- A longer attack on the amp and/or filter
- The filter opening gradually for the wow effect
Grab the full project
Want the full project? Drift has 8 Ableton project files, 300+ samples, and 50+ Serum 2 presets with matching MIDI, including the bass patches behind this breakdown.
Watch the full breakdown
See all five bass layers in the video:
Reference tracks
Typical reference tracks for this style are:
- Piatto – Things We Never Know
- Mihai Popoviciu – Here
- Mau P – Merther
- Kolter – Liquor Store
- Chris Lorenzo – Appetite
- Chris Lorenzo, Max Styler – London’s On Fire
- EdiP – Lock Y Phone
- AYYBO, Discip – 4 Ya Mind
