You think its ok to have a tune where the bassline is only driven by a Sub?

[parsons19]

Howdy yall,

I am working on an old sounding dark dubsteppy track. It has quite a big bassline but it is literally just Sub Bass. You reckon this is acceptable?

I have heard it done before by artists like Skream, Breakage, etc.

Cheers

[EvezDroppin]

if skream and benga are using it I'd say its definately not acceptable

nah but.. its all good, depends on track, nice to have some mid range stabs tho

[spyre]

do YOU think its acceptable? all that matters innit

[Attire]

if skream and benga are using it I'd say its definately not acceptable

nah but.. its all good, depends on track, nice to have some mid range stabs tho

Ahahaha.

No but tunes like Sato - Clap Your Hands are kinda sub driven?



And many more, I just picked that one as it stood out.

I like distorting sine waves, and then low passing them.
That way you get some extra frequencies than just a clean sine makes it more interesting.

[parsons19]

I like distorting sine waves, and then low passing them.
That way you get some extra frequencies than just a clean sine makes it more interesting.

Cheers for the tip dude, I will try that one out!

Cool tune too

I might throw in some stabby midrange bass sound. I don't know what to do with this tune

[fractal]

depends what u mean by sub. if you mean strictly sub 80Hz then your tune will sound very weak on a lot of home systems.

but ye, maybe make a send from your bass, drive it and shit and then lowpass it again to taste to add a bit more audibility (word?) to it rather than just pure vibrations.

of course i havent heard the tune so cant really give specific opinions

[Innovine]

sounds interesting to me, i'm sick of all the midrange bassy twisty shit. having just a sub would give your drums loads of attention, so they better be full of intricate changes and things to keep the tune interesting. or a few stabs and fx sounds, as mentioned.

[parsons19]

give your drums loads of attention

That's what I was thinking :P Check out Sub Island by Skream ;D

Yeah, that's my concern fractal, about a lot of people not actually picking up the sub properly...

Thanks for all your pointers guys Hopefully I can do something interesting with this one!

[ApeCat]

I'd layer a sine with just a touch of square and low pass it, it'll give your sub a little bit of texture.

Basically turn the square up until you can just hear it, then turn it down again until you just can't.

Listen to your tune on different systems to check if the sub pops out or not.

[parsons19]

Cheers dude, sounds like a good technique with the square. Thanks

[subprime]

Ah ffs, the dog pulled the cable out, take 2.I love a sub driven track, a low 40hz sine wave sounds wicked in my beyer 770pros. Trouble is half the people who listen on soundcloud(realistically my only audience) are on laptop speakers, that's pointless.So I've started trying the lowpassed saw/square, or detuned sines (one sine, one -7 cents, one +7 cents and up an octave, drop the level to suit), also sometimes distortion. I guess the thing is to have some higher harmonics without muddying it all up.So 2 things, who is your target audience and what are they listening on? what will you put in there for the people on average systems, and 2.mixing down, i see a lot of people say the sub should sit 3db below the kick, but to sound good on my headphones it sits 3/4db above the kick, so it's just guesswork really.

[T:M]

I would generally do as the rest of these guys said, its fine as long as there is something audible enough to make it interesting on laptop/cell phone speakers (saying this cause I find myself on the SC mobile app quite a bit). Some effects or nice reverb/delay to fill out the upper frequencies is probably a good idea to maintain interest too, maybe even layer up a midrange sound every once and a while on certain notes to break up any monotony that there may be. Certainly nothing wrong with it at all though