Making a (sub) bass sound good or full in your mix.

[koen1978]

I messed around with my kick vs bass sound and pitched it higher and tuned it a bit with cents knob like you mentioned and suddenly i heared this open sound as if they clicked in eachother and became one new sound. That was nice to hear. Besides that i filtered every sound i used and rendered the whole track to wav again. It sounds realy full and nice now, can't believe what i'm hearing. Only my bass is still sounding bit distorted (not in ableton). If we don't talk about that youtube-track... Do you use EQ/ multibandcompression on your bass or other effects and if so, how do you use them and in wich order?

BTW I noticed this article, very inteteresting: http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1211

Many thanks again Steevio. Realy appreciate you taking the time to clarify some stuff to me. Can't wait to start with this SAE study in april. Will be great to see how they work and curious what i do wrong if they look at my projects.

[astley]

I've read that noisia don't use a lot subfrequency in their kicks; so more emphasis on the punch of the midrange frequency of the kick. So their growling monster basslines have all the room


I think that's also important: deciding where to put the emphasis in the bass region of the track and not letting the frequencies clash


btw great studios in noord

[steevio]

Do you use EQ/ multibandcompression on your bass or other effects and if so, how do you use them and in wich order?

in a word - no

i spent years using compression and EQ as a studio and live band engineer, and now i dont use it at all, which might seem a bit weird.

basically ive changed my beliefs when it comes to production over the years, i believe in getting your sounds right from the very start and making sure all the sounds have their own frequency space then you dont need to use compression, unless you want things like pumping effects.

i may use very light compression or limiting and a tiny bit of EQ on a whole mix just to pull it all together, but apart from that i want dynamics in my music, so i let it do its thing. compression can kill your grooves.

this is much easier to achieve if youre building all your own sounds from scratch with waveforms like i do, but much less easy if you're using samples. theres no need to EQ a sound if you put all the right frequencies in there in the first place, i make sure each sound has exactly the right balance of frequencies for where it will sit in the mix when i make the sound.

[tone-def]

I've read that noisia don't use a lot subfrequency in their kicks; so more emphasis on the punch of the midrange frequency of the kick. So their growling monster basslines have all the room

yes thats fine for D&B but wouldn't really work in techno, which is more kick driven.

[steevio]

I've read that noisia don't use a lot subfrequency in their kicks; so more emphasis on the punch of the midrange frequency of the kick. So their growling monster basslines have all the room

yes thats fine for D&B but wouldn't really work in techno, which is more kick driven.

thats it, all styles have their own system, psy trance for instance has that small knocky kick so that it doesnt compete with the complex and full basslines.
i'm talking techno here. but theres nothing to stop anyone using ideas from other styles, it helps give variety. i try to mix techno and dub techniques, its difficult to get that balance between big kick and big bass, this is why its a complex subject.

[astley]

I've read that noisia don't use a lot subfrequency in their kicks; so more emphasis on the punch of the midrange frequency of the kick. So their growling monster basslines have all the room

yes thats fine for D&B but wouldn't really work in techno, which is more kick driven.

well, the point I was trying to make was that you have to make sure the frequencies don't clash... in techno you also have tracks with kicks that have more topend like that recent pfirter dub track remix from len faki. You have to decide where to put the emphasis: on the bassline or the bass of the kick. You cant have a big bassline with big 909 kick mushing into that

[steevio]

You cant have a big bassline with big 909 kick mushing into that

i think the whole point of this thread is that you can, but you have to be careful.
plenty of early techno had big basslines or subs, + a big 909 kick.

the trend for kicks with high mid-energy became popular in the mid 1990s.

and nobody has even mentioned, dont put a bass note on the kick ! let the kick be the bass note in that part of the bassline.

[steevio]

ok this is going to be my last post till next august, as i'm going to be too busy till then, but i hope it may help some beginners who might have got confused by all this info on frequencies and spectrums flying about.

i dont have all the answers, all i can do is relate my experiences, and as i'm working on a track right now, i thought i'd explain what i'm doing. hopefully this material will be released in the new year, so i'll be able to post some clips later.
this all might sound complicated, but actually if you read up about harmonics, it all makes perfect sense.
i hope some of you will get at least something from all of this, unfortunately theres no easier way to explain it.

i started with the bass. its in the key of D, and the pentatonic bass line has mostly the root note plus pefect fourths and fifths in it, so frequency wise its;
D 37Hz
G 49Hz
A 55Hz
+
E 82Hz
C 131Hz

these are the fundamentals of a squarewave bassline, so there will also be odd numbered harmonics above these frequencies, (a square wave has only odd numbered harmonics) and i'm filtering out just about everything above the third harmonic with a 24dB lowpass filter, and everything above 165Hz.
so there will be these additional frequencies but at less volume;

3rd harmonics;
A 110Hz
D 147Hz
E 165Hz

in addition i have a kick drum which has a fundamental tone of A 55Hz but has a pitch envelope which adds frequencies descending from about 147 Hz to 55Hz

i make sure that when ever a kick fires, there is either nothing else layered with it or the D 37Hz, which then acts as a sub harmonic reinforcement to the kick, (a perfect 5th below the kick)

so thats my entire bass spectrum, there is nothing else in this region, as everything else is high-passed above 165Hz

except that is my synth sound which is a kind of 'chord' on the Moog ( 3 oscillators tuned to a sort of diminished chord;
E 165Hz
F# 185Hz
G 392Hz


its intesting to note that deep sounding chords will have notes in the bass part of the spectrum, so if you use basslines rich in harmonics they may mingle with your chords, and you will lose definition.
so the bassline is heavily filtered so that it is mostly a sub bass line reinforcing the chords above it, but with a steep envelope on the filter creating a burst of higher harmonics for punch, but quickly closing down to the sub frequencies so there is no interference with the chord for any noticeable length of time.

now most of the oscillators on my moog chord are slowly evolving pulse width modulated pulsewaves, centered around square waves, so for all intents and purposes they are squarewaves alot of the time, and so have odd numbered harmonics;

3rd harmonics;
B 494Hz
C# 554Hz
D 1175Hz

it also has even higher harmonics, but these are mostly being filtered out.

so when i look at my spectrum i can see that there is nothing much happening between 185 Hz and 392 Hz, so if i'm going to have any other sounds in this part of the spectrum, thats where they want to be so that they stand out, and dont double up frequencies with the other sounds,

so i added a conga type sound at C 265 hz and the fundamental frequency of my snare at F 349 Hz.

and so on upward, always looking at the harmonics of each sound and where they fall in the spectrum, and taking advantage of holes in the spectrum to add new sounds.

all of the frequnecy info above is approximate, as i tune everything by ear, so it wont be exact 12 tet tuning.

ok off now to make some music, happy xmas / solstice / new year / whatever you celebrate.

peace