Getting sub bass to poke through on crummy speakers

K

Kylec

New Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2010
Hi there, first post. Greetings and all that.

I was wondering what the trick is to get low sub bass to show through the mix on mediocre speakers / headphones. I'm producing a track right now that has a sub bass line that sounds fine on my monitors, but can barely be heard at all on my headphones. I can't go up an octave, and I can't seem to dial anything in on my synth that shows through the mix better.

Here's the track in progress. It needs a lot of mixing work and probably some more content here and there, but you should be able to hear what I mean. Listening to professional tracks on the same headphones yields much better results.


Looking for suggestions. Thanks.
 
Last edited:
Saturation helps with this.. or layering the sub with a sub's note that is 1 octave higher for instance. The sub is quite low in the mix as well, could boost the volume a few db's
 
nacon pretty much covered my whole knowledge of that. it works too, its not as difficult as it may seem, i remember a couple of years ago it seemed to me sub bass was some mythical giant living in the hills its really not as bad as all that
 
Cant listen to you track broken link.
Wouldn't advise you to distort your sub, or duplicate the track and highpass the one with the disto.
Anyway shitty sound systems have poor basses. You have to listen your track on differents system to know how to make a mix which is ok on most of the systems.
If you want some basses on shitty speakers/headphones you should'nt aim at sub which wont get out of the mix. Look and improve 75-200hz content which will get out much more clearly. Btw don't forget to check what it sounds like on on others systems and that electro music is meant to be played on bass-rich systems.
Good luck.
 
I made some progress by scooping out frequencies wih EQ to make room for the bass. I added some very light saturation on the sub (without clipping it) as Nacon suggested. I also changed up the bass patch by adding some higher frequency content, which also helped.

Here's the updated track.


I could use some general constructive criticism on this one too, if anyone is interested. This is my first stab at DnB. One thing I want to do is make the section before the break longer to make it flow better. I also think the bassline is a bit boring.

Tips / Suggestions?
 
Last edited:
The best way to get a feel for the sub without a subwoofer, is to gently rest your finger on the rim of the driver, very gently, you'll feel the subwaves moving thru the rest of the vibrations with a little practice

nice track that, nice squelch n filter changes, but a bit messy, need to get all the sounds flowing together with the precussion, possibly the longer tails on some of the sounds need shortening, or mayb sc with kick/snare. do you usually make breaks by any chance? got 'that' sound to my ears, dnb requires much faster attack/decay on most sounds to get the flow right, keep at it tho, coz u got a kool sound, post up more!
 
if your talking about producing for radio and radio edits, and for those that arent in the position to feel the bass on their system, do what nacon said. it'll help give them a taste of what to expect in the club / sub-positive environments. That's where you can unleash that real bass that shakes a man. ;)
 
miszt said:
The best way to get a feel for the sub without a subwoofer, is to gently rest your finger on the rim of the driver, very gently, you'll feel the subwaves moving thru the rest of the vibrations with a little practice

nice track that, nice squelch n filter changes, but a bit messy, need to get all the sounds flowing together with the precussion, possibly the longer tails on some of the sounds need shortening, or mayb sc with kick/snare. do you usually make breaks by any chance? got 'that' sound to my ears, dnb requires much faster attack/decay on most sounds to get the flow right, keep at it tho, coz u got a kool sound, post up more!
Click to expand...

Exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I can hear what you mean, it is a bit messy. Too many reverbs and delays going off all at once. I'm used to dubstep where you want lots of tails, but it makes sense to tighten everything up in DnB.

Thanks for the replies, I look forward to more!
 
Yep, Logikz is right, use multiband distortion (ohmicide for exemple)if you want your sub to stay clear.
Richie i think that sub bass and infra bass should be identified here. For me infra can be a part of sub if it's really low, but around 50 hz i hear something. Not really defined but i hear it.
Btw you are right, it's done to be felt more than heard.
 
harmonics plus mix around your sub get the sub perfect befor anything else. most people thing is a shit plug but ive been using waves maxx bass recently to add harmonics to my sub, oh and dont limit your sub just use compression and use linearphase eqs on subs if you can
 
As regards the original thread title, good luck.

As Nacon said, make something that pretends to be like sub but isn't really.

Or as Sammy said, get a better monitoring setup.

And thanks to Logikz, downloaded and looking forward to trying.
 
Back
Top Bottom