Adding SUB to an existing bassline ?

[t-mus]

whoomp, my first 'producerquestion' (just started really)

so here's the thing:
i want to make a 'refix' or whatever from a minimalistic dubby/reggae song. (called Situatie from Doe Maar, a Dutch ska/reggae-pop band from the 80's)
it has a lovely bassline, but i want to use it in my sets, so i figured i should add some sub and maybe a smacking snare here and there.

i'm using Ableton ATM (and hoping to be able to stick with it)
i've already filtered out the bassline, and tried some EQ and transpose stuff:
2 layers, one transposed down 8 oct.'s and added an EQ for the lowest parts, and a filter to cut it till 120Hz. and one layer for the original sound and filtered out below 120Hz.

but it still doesn't sound that fat, and doesn't feel that heavy when i compare it with other similar dubstep tracks.

SO, the question:
what am i doing wrong?
is it even possible?
tips hints do's dont's and all that, please

cheers,
T

[forensix (mcr)]

Id say a lp filter set to 100Hz on a pitched down version would give you only the deep elements, hard limiter on it and make sure the rest of your elements have nothing below 100Hz then adjust the levels to suit, or try and play (:o) the bassline in yourself using a vsti with just a sine wave and then hp the original and stick your bassline underneath

[shonky]

If you want' just the sub, you'd probably be better off filtering lower than 120, probably 70-80 so that you just get the bass without any of the other instruments.

Really don't think dropping it 8 octaves is going to work as you'll get the frequency but none of the punch and I doubt you'll be able to add it back later. Probably better to see if you can get a groove template of the bassline to get the notes in the right place and then just figure out what the notes of the bassline are and then double them with a standard sub.

[fubar]

I would probably just figure the melody out for the bassline and layer a sub underneath with a synth perhaps.

[t-mus]

thanks lads.
so you all suggest to synth a sub underneth the excisting..

i havn't started trying to make something like that, altough it should be easy to get a fat sub.
but i don't expect myself to be able to recreate the melody and dynamics of the excisting bassline at this point.

isn't there some sort of effect which converts audio into 1 tone or something like that?
(sorry for the noobish)

but i'll try to make some sub from scratch (will be my first attempt)

[forensix (mcr)]

try doing a search to find a midi file for the track and use the notes from that if you cant find that then just try and recreate it

[shonky]

You might be able to find an audio to midi converter, but they're a bit hit and miss and don't usually work on polyphonic sources. You'd need to try and figure out a way of removing all of the other instruments, and it's more than likely that you'd remove part of the bass whilst doing this. Audio to Midi converters generally don't seem to work that well on bass either.

I think MDA do a subsynth, which will add in frequencies an octave lower, so maybe you could send the signal from the original to a bus, stick this in as an effect and then roll off using a low pass filter. It's a free bundle that you can download from http://www.mda-vst.com/

They used to do this on old hip-hop records (thinking Cypress Hill and old Diamond D) but I think it was just lowpass and then boost the bass frequencies.

Midi to Audio vst's here http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php?mode=re ... t=3&rpp=30

[lycaon_prod]

to be honest a reggae track should have a fair bit of bass goin on, so i reckon you could brobly just make a send, 24db lowpass at 50-60hz n cane it with a limiter. that should get the woofers movin. replacing the bline with a synth could work well but will digify the track n it wont have been quantized so it could be a pain in the arse...