DJ Printa shares two patches with the community!
‘Jungle Drums’, a patch for Drum Sequencer meant to play the Reason Drum Kits instrument.
‘Jungle SubBass Bassline’ for Bassline Generator
Download two patches from DJ Printa here
So we’ve chopped the breaks, twisted the funk, and rinsed the rhythm. Now let’s get to the part that really moves your insides: the bass. Because let’s be honest — this is sound system music. And if your ribcage isn’t rattling and the concrete beneath your feet isn’t humming, you’re not doing it right.
Over Jungle’s many evolutions, it’s the bass that’s kept things grounded while pushing boundaries. Producers have stretched it, detuned it, distorted it, reversed it — all in the pursuit of that perfect low-end. Here are just a few flavours that helped shape the genre, and why they still matter today.
Dred Bass
Let’s start with a mutant classic. Dead Dred – Dred Bass is Jungle’s Frankenstein’s monster: raw, unpredictable, and completely ahead of its time. Released in ’94, the title track introduced a warped, reversed bassline that hadn’t really been heard before — a sonic trick that bent ears and rewrote rules. It sounded alien, in the best way possible.
The sample itself actually came from a CD bundled with Future Music Magazine (Volume 1, if you’re digging through crates). Originally an acid bassline, it was flipped and warped on a Commodore Amiga using Music-X — a proper bit of DIY wizardry. That reversed bassline kicked down the doors for a whole generation of UK underground sounds: Speed Garage, Grime, Dubstep, Bassline. You name it — they all owe a nod to Dred Bass.
Reese Bass
If Jungle has a villain, it’s the Reese. That dark, snarling low-end that seems to twist and snarl just beneath the surface of a tune. You might’ve first heard it as the backbone of Terrorist by Ray Keith under his Renegade alias. But its origin goes back further — all the way to Detroit.
Kevin Saunderson (yes, that Kevin Saunderson of techno royalty) created it on a Casio CZ-5000 for his track Just Want Another Chance in 1988, under the name Reese. UK producers got hold of it, mangled it, and made it their own. It didn’t take long for that rolling, detuned bass to become a Jungle mainstay — and a rite of passage for any aspiring bass scientist.
Even if today’s Reeses sound more layered and surgically precise, their DNA still traces back to that CZ-5000 patch from ’88. Proper lineage stuff.
808 Bass
The Roland TR-808 — aka the machine that launched a thousand low-ends. While most heads think of it as a drum machine (which, of course, it is), the 808’s bass tones have always had a home in Jungle. Subby, rounded, and deep enough to make your fillings vibrate.
808 bass in Jungle often came from pure sine tones, sampled and processed through gear like the Akai S950 and slammed through a Mackie desk for that extra warmth and grit. Many producers used their samplers’ built-in test tones to cook up booming sub-bass lines, shaping them into the deep, humming foundations of countless tracks.
You hear it in the early Jungle rollers — that pulsing undercurrent below the frantic breaks. It’s subtle sometimes, but essential.
So What’s the Moral Here?
Jungle is, at its core, sample-based music. It’s about digging, flipping, reimagining — taking something familiar and twisting it into something totally new. The basslines that defined the genre weren’t designed to be perfect; they were discovered, stretched, broken, and reassembled through experimentation and a whole lot of feeling.
So whether you’re firing up Reason, loading up your Amigo sampler, or just messing around in Ableton with some old WAVs — don’t forget where it all came from. Embrace the dirt. Chase the rumble. And never be afraid to flip the bassline inside out.
Because in Jungle, bass isn’t just the low-end. It’s the soul of the sound.
Written by Saul Mountford
https://solomansarchive.com/
https://www.instagram.com/solomansarchive/
‘Jungle Drums’, a patch for Drum Sequencer meant to play the Reason Drum Kits instrument.
‘Jungle SubBass Bassline’ for Bassline Generator
Download two patches from DJ Printa here
So we’ve chopped the breaks, twisted the funk, and rinsed the rhythm. Now let’s get to the part that really moves your insides: the bass. Because let’s be honest — this is sound system music. And if your ribcage isn’t rattling and the concrete beneath your feet isn’t humming, you’re not doing it right.
Over Jungle’s many evolutions, it’s the bass that’s kept things grounded while pushing boundaries. Producers have stretched it, detuned it, distorted it, reversed it — all in the pursuit of that perfect low-end. Here are just a few flavours that helped shape the genre, and why they still matter today.
Dred Bass
Let’s start with a mutant classic. Dead Dred – Dred Bass is Jungle’s Frankenstein’s monster: raw, unpredictable, and completely ahead of its time. Released in ’94, the title track introduced a warped, reversed bassline that hadn’t really been heard before — a sonic trick that bent ears and rewrote rules. It sounded alien, in the best way possible.
The sample itself actually came from a CD bundled with Future Music Magazine (Volume 1, if you’re digging through crates). Originally an acid bassline, it was flipped and warped on a Commodore Amiga using Music-X — a proper bit of DIY wizardry. That reversed bassline kicked down the doors for a whole generation of UK underground sounds: Speed Garage, Grime, Dubstep, Bassline. You name it — they all owe a nod to Dred Bass.
Reese Bass
If Jungle has a villain, it’s the Reese. That dark, snarling low-end that seems to twist and snarl just beneath the surface of a tune. You might’ve first heard it as the backbone of Terrorist by Ray Keith under his Renegade alias. But its origin goes back further — all the way to Detroit.
Kevin Saunderson (yes, that Kevin Saunderson of techno royalty) created it on a Casio CZ-5000 for his track Just Want Another Chance in 1988, under the name Reese. UK producers got hold of it, mangled it, and made it their own. It didn’t take long for that rolling, detuned bass to become a Jungle mainstay — and a rite of passage for any aspiring bass scientist.
Even if today’s Reeses sound more layered and surgically precise, their DNA still traces back to that CZ-5000 patch from ’88. Proper lineage stuff.
808 Bass
The Roland TR-808 — aka the machine that launched a thousand low-ends. While most heads think of it as a drum machine (which, of course, it is), the 808’s bass tones have always had a home in Jungle. Subby, rounded, and deep enough to make your fillings vibrate.
808 bass in Jungle often came from pure sine tones, sampled and processed through gear like the Akai S950 and slammed through a Mackie desk for that extra warmth and grit. Many producers used their samplers’ built-in test tones to cook up booming sub-bass lines, shaping them into the deep, humming foundations of countless tracks.
You hear it in the early Jungle rollers — that pulsing undercurrent below the frantic breaks. It’s subtle sometimes, but essential.
So What’s the Moral Here?
Jungle is, at its core, sample-based music. It’s about digging, flipping, reimagining — taking something familiar and twisting it into something totally new. The basslines that defined the genre weren’t designed to be perfect; they were discovered, stretched, broken, and reassembled through experimentation and a whole lot of feeling.
So whether you’re firing up Reason, loading up your Amigo sampler, or just messing around in Ableton with some old WAVs — don’t forget where it all came from. Embrace the dirt. Chase the rumble. And never be afraid to flip the bassline inside out.
Because in Jungle, bass isn’t just the low-end. It’s the soul of the sound.
Written by Saul Mountford
https://solomansarchive.com/
https://www.instagram.com/solomansarchive/
