'widening' my sub bass... how?

richie_stix

richie_stix

gomby plz
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Aug 14, 2008
hey all, i have got my production pretty much inline except sub-bass... one of the things i thought should be straight forward! :rolleyes:

basicly, i can get it nice and low, and sounding good on my headphones home system... but when i took my tunes to phat PA they lacked the bass induced chest punch?

looking on a spectral analyser, the sub bass is very thin [say only 10-15hz wide]... is this how it should look? It is essentially a sin wave at a low oscilation, should i add some more at different rates to add width or what?

for an example of what i mean, click here and listen to the track 'nazi business'... the track in the player was an early rendition, but i haven't touched the synth or bass since making it...

all help appreciated!
 
id say 10-15 is too low man, aim a bit higher, layer your bass etc .

if you have to compress it, but only wisely (people on here will probably tell me off for saying that). try not to compres it if you can
 
shit, your sub should be hitting in at 80hz notes to 35hz, -35hz is just dc offset mate and you generally lose headroom. waves REQ equalizers usually roll off anything that is within DC offset (y)

as for fattening your sub, dont :)

just go up a few notes in the pattern editor/midi editor (pitch it up.. whatever heh)

sometimes people have two sine waves that play simultaneously at a differential of an octave - just to thicken the low frequency coverage (sub focus does this sometimes.)

hope this helps
 
I dont think he meant his sub bass is AT 10-15hz, think he means it covers a range of about 10-15hz, so it sits from say 40hz across to 55hz when looked at on the analyser.

As for getting a good clear sub bass, try combinations of different effects, maybe different waves to start with, dont just limit yourself to only using a sine or a square just because people say thats "usualy what it is". Using several waves and detuning them a little will help fatten it out (unless theyre sine waves, then you'll get phase cancellations)

If it sounds good, works with the tune and does what you want it to, it doesnt matter what it looks like on an analyser etc.
 
motion audio said:
I
If it sounds good, works with the tune and does what you want it to, it doesnt matter what it looks like on an analyser etc.
Click to expand...

i think sub bass is only exception to that rule...
especially if you only have near field monitors...

you shouldn't be able to hear the sub bass properly...
an analyzer can help heaps in this department...

most subs should be hitting around 50hz and this
is to low for most monitors... you might catch a
bit of sub through the roll off but not much...

one good trick though is to feel the air being forced
out of the ports on your monitors (if they have them)
with your hand...

this is a good indication of the force from the subs
in direct comparison to the volume of the rest of the
track... good subs should be felt and not heard imo...

you want to feel that bass in your chest...
 
yes.... i meant the sub is hitting around 40-50 hz covering only 10-15 hz of width! :D not the sub is hitting at 10-15hz :rolleyes:

the reason i want only 'felt sub' is it's simple relativly speaking) to make the heard bass notes! cheers for the advice though peeps, i will try several layers of differnt frequency sine waves to see if that will warm tings up?

I guess modulating one sin with another aint the way to go?
 
Oh when u said widening i thought i was referring to making it wider in stereo. Why don't u try low pass filtering a square wave, sine waves don't have harmonics so it's pretty difficult to beef it up in any way. At least with square/sawtooth u can low pass it and put the cutoff on a really low setting.
 
dj_bmc said:
Oh when u said widening i thought i was referring to making it wider in stereo. Why don't u try low pass filtering a square wave, sine waves don't have harmonics so it's pretty difficult to beef it up in any way. At least with square/sawtooth u can low pass it and put the cutoff on a really low setting.
Click to expand...

I'll give it a go, but harmonics aint what I'm after... more like that felt presence, as i can 'hear' the bass (which is more like low mids) on a normal system, but on a phat system it lacks that punch in the chest!
 
MrWoggles said:
Tried using a multi-band compressor? I mean just tossing on an exciter or something.
Click to expand...

i was always lead to believe sub bass should be left as clean as possible and with minimal compression.

Not wanting to you sound like a dumb ass.... but a multi band compressor on an instument that falls into only one band defeats the object surely? :confused:
 
@richie

10-15 Hz sounds weird, because when i look on the analyzer of a single sine wave, its width is ca. 100 Hz falling from 0 to -72db in nearly every vst analyzer. Only the ableton built in accurate fast preset shows a really smaller width of ca. 20 Hz. Probably the ableton analyzer has a differing fft algorithm compared to most prof. vst. analyzer. Try voxengo span and u will see a diff. between these 2.

So i dont think u have a need to widen up, also u cant widen up a single sine wave, every sound is built of single sine waves, look wikipedia "fourier synthesis" and additive synthesis. U can add single sine waves besides your first to broaden ur spectrum. Multi compression will not widen up a signal in spectral way. But so far i read like u that for sub bass mostly a single sine wave is used.
 
this may sound obvious, but normally a sine wave suffices as a sub, so try boosting the db of the sub bass channel (sorry if u already did this...seems obvious).
 
sook said:
good subs should be felt and not heard imo...
Click to expand...

The sub that you "feel" on a large sound system is usualy still audiable, you just feel it because its projected at such a volume you can physicaly feel the air being moved. For something to be completely in-audiable, and only detected by feel, it would need to be below 20hz (give or take a few hz for different people), and anything that low is fairly pointless in your mix because it will just take up headroom.

I see your point about not being able to accurately monitor sub bass on nearfields though, completely true, pretty much just comes down to trial and error there! Even when people have a sub with their monitoring gear, it usualy causes more trouble than good due to being incorrectly set up.
 
richie_stix said:
i was always lead to believe sub bass should be left as clean as possible and with minimal compression.

Not wanting to you sound like a dumb ass.... but a multi band compressor on an instument that falls into only one band defeats the object surely? :confused:
Click to expand...

Aye fully but I meant more like throwing it on the master channel and just upping the gain manually in that frequency range or something. I dunno, was just trying to be helpful. I don't know what to say since subbass is one of those things I never have problems with, it's just so simple. 3xosc, sine wave, detune, up volume at will or until voxengo tells me its peaking.
 
no need for trial and error...
analyzer plus air out of ports makes it
quite easy to get right...

subs should hit around 50hz @ -6 dbFS
on a well produced track... (noisias
facade was the one everyone was
referencing for a while... even big name
producers...)

yes 50 hz is still audible.. its over a whole
8/ve above the point most people lose hearing.. .

but considering the fact that our ears roll off as you get
towards that point its all about perceived loudness
you are going to feel the subs in rather than hear
them in a modern full spectrum dance track...
you are going to be hearing more of the other elements
in the mix even though they are not as loud...
its about the perceived loudness...

but you will still feel the subs... believe me...
we have the pleasure of dragging a 15k rig around
to warehaus parties... you will feel them... :)

all thanks to the natural response of the ear
and how we perceive different freqs @ different
volumes... (check the fletcher munson curve and or
equal loudness contours) and a lil psycho-acoustics...

good subs will be felt more than they will be heard
in a well produced full spectrum track...
 
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