The Top 5 Tech House Basses for 2026 (And How to Make Them in Serum)

In tech house, the bass IS the track. You can have perfect drums and a catchy vocal chop, but if your bass sounds like a stock preset, the drop falls flat.

Over the past year I've designed hundreds of tech house basses and studied hundreds of tech house records to figure out what's actually working right now. These five bass styles are the ones showing up again and again in the biggest tracks of 2025 and 2026, from Prospa to Cloonee to Sosa. If you're making tech house in 2026, at least one of these belongs in your next track.

I break down all five in the full video, including how to build each one from scratch in Serum:

Prefer reading? Here's the full breakdown, with timestamps if you want to jump to a specific sound in the video.

1. The Low Dissonant Pluck (Prospa)

Hear it in: "Don't Stop" by Prospa (2025), "Break Free" by Prospa (2026)
Watch: 0:30 in the video

Prospa has a massive influence on tech house right now, and this bass is a big part of why. The trick is simple but weirdly effective: it's a plucky filter bass played LOWER than you'd think. So low that the notes start to sound slightly dissonant, almost out of tune, when you hear the bass on its own. That "wrongness" is exactly what gives it its underground character.

The recipe in Serum:

• Start with a saw wave at -2 octaves. Set voicing to mono (randomness at 0 for the mono version), or use 7 voices of unison with the width pulled down to around 50% for the wider "Don't Stop" feel.
• Assign Envelope 2 to a Low 24 filter cutoff. This is your pluck.
• Crank the resonance. On most filters, anything above 20% reads as high resonance. On the Low 24, even 10%+ starts to bite. You want to hear that resonant edge on the attack of every note.
• Add a sub oscillator one octave up (yes, up) to add a harmonic so the bass reads on headphones and laptop speakers.
• Finish with tube distortion for dirt, and if you go wide, EQ the low end out of the sides so your lows stay mono.

Play it low. Lower than feels right. That's the sound.

2. The Dirty M1 Organ Bass (Prospa Again)

Hear it in: "Baby" and "Dreams" by Prospa
Watch: 9:26 in the video

If you know the classic Robin S organ sound, you already know this bass. It's built on the legendary Organ 2 preset from the Korg M1, one of the most famous house sounds ever. Prospa's version takes that DNA and makes it darker: more filtered, dirtier, with the top end tucked away so you only get a hint of that organ shimmer.

The structure is what matters: a root bass note, plus another layer one or two octaves above that's tuned +7 semitones (a perfect fifth). That fifth is the "organ" in the organ bass.

The recipe in Serum:

• Build two layers. A wide layer with that root-plus-fifth structure (two oscillators, one at the root, one an octave up and +7 semitones), and a middle layer that's basically just a sub playing the root.
• Cut the low end from the wide layer and add reverb to it, so all the weight comes from the mono sub layer.
• For the signature "knock" on each note, assign an extra envelope (Envelope 3) with a very fast decay to the oscillator tuning and the filter cutoff. That quick pitch-and-brightness blip on the attack is what makes it sound clicky and percussive.
• An MG Low 18 filter with key tracking works great here, plus tube distortion to dirty everything up.

You can also literally start with the M1 plugin's Organ 2 preset (multi > organ > Organ 2, with its chorus and hall reverb switched off) and build your modifications from there.

3. The Bass That Thinks It's a Lead

Hear it in: "Push It" by Disco Lines, "La La Land" by MEDUZA & Green Velvet, "Caramelle" by Mesto (2025), and "Diet Coke" by Fallon (2025)
Watch: 21:52 in the video

This one is everywhere right now. The bass runs driving, straight eighth notes with occasional glides (portamento), and it's so constant and so bright that there's no room left for a lead. So the bass IS the lead.

The signature move is filter automation: the bass starts filtered and dark, then the cutoff opens up in the drop and reveals a ton of harmonics, plus a bright white noise layer that gives it this papery texture as the filter moves.

The recipe in Serum:

• Start with a saturated saw, or go straight to the Icanhaskick wavetable in Serum's digital folder. For the "Diet Coke" style brightness, try the BS2 Filthy wavetable, which has those extra harmonics baked in.
• Turn on portamento for the glides.
• Set voicing to mono, randomness to 0, and run it into an MG Low 24 filter.
• Add a bright white noise layer. You'll mostly hear it while the filter automation is moving, and that's the point.
• Automate the filter cutoff across your arrangement: closed in the breakdowns, wide open in the drops.
• Pro tip: weird wavetables shine here. Sounds that seem like nothing with the filter closed can sound incredible once that cutoff opens up. Experiment.

4. The Compressed Pluck with Delay (Cloonee)

Hear it in: "Ecstasy," "One Question," and "I Rhyme Quick" by Cloonee
Watch: 30:31 in the video

Cloonee's sound is minimal: short, stabby pluck notes with lots of space around them. This bass makes the minimalism work by adding a delay that fills in the empty space, so the groove never feels thin. You'll hear this same pluck all over minimal and deep tech too, usually with heavy multiband compression squeezing it into that tight, analog-feeling pocket.

The recipe in Serum:

• Two saws: one at the root, one an octave above. Square waves work too for a bassier version. Mono voicing.
• Envelope 2 to an MG Low 24 cutoff for the pluck. Add a little release on your amp envelope so some bass tail comes through.
• Multiband compression is the glue. If Serum's compressor adds distortion you don't like, brighten the sound first or try a different filter.
• Now the signature: an eighth-note delay, kept MONO. No stereo spread. A mono delay is what gives it that analog, old-school character instead of a modern wide wash.
• Soft clip and EQ to taste.

Keep the notes short and leave gaps. Let the delay do the talking.

5. The Wide Evil Pluck (Sosa)

Hear it in: "Be Without You" and "Just Like That" by Sosa, plus "Let's Get High" by Michael Bibi
Watch: 37:39 in the video

This is my personal favorite of the five. It's related to the Prospa pluck from #1, but wider, brighter, and meaner. The filter opens up way more, the resonance is way higher, and the whole thing has this dark, underground, almost evil quality, especially with the quick stabby melodies these tracks use. I keep spotting it on the Tech House Operator playlist, so it's clearly having a moment.

The recipe in Serum:

• Main oscillator at -2 octaves with 7 voices of unison. You can even set unison width to 0 for a "wide but mono" thickness, or open the width up for the full stereo version.
• Add a sub underneath to guarantee your low end.
• Envelope 2 to a Low 24 filter, and here's the key: resonance ABOVE 50%. Way higher than bass #1, with a brighter cutoff position too.
• Add an oscillator an octave above for extra harmonics.
• Distortion chain: soft clip plus downsampling (easy in Serum 2). Then mono the low end with a utility and EQ to taste.
• The reference tracks have reverb on the bass. I'd reach for something like Valhalla VintageVerb rather than Serum's built-in reverbs.

Want These Sounds Without Building Them From Scratch?

Every technique above is doable in stock Serum. But if you'd rather spend your studio time writing music instead of tweaking filter envelopes, I've done the sound design for you.

The Sam Smyers Serum Tech House Collection Vol. 1–7 is everything you need to produce tech house, in one place: 400 Serum presets and 400 matching MIDI files covering basses, leads, FX, stabs, and synths, inspired by Fisher, Chris Lake, Dom Dolla, Mau P, PAWSA, James Hype, and more. Basses just like the ones in this video are in there, ready to drop straight into your next track.

🔥 Grab the Serum Tech House Collection Vol. 1–7 here

Which of these five basses are you trying first? Drop your track using one of these sounds in the comments on the video. I'd love to hear it.