How to keep basses fat when cutting/highpassing for sub?

[samdam1]

Yo!


So basically, i'm having a little trouble here, I go to high pass my basslines to make room to layer the sub bass on, but when I do this, they all just lose their fatness...

I'm cutting at around 140hz, so there is pretty much none of the bass touching the sub, and the sub is a low e, which is pretty damn low down, so everything is sounding real thin, unless played on a massive system How do I fix this? I do realise I could change the key of the track to a higher one to have the sub sitting higher, but with the amount of stuff going on, I do not want to change that now..



Thanks for all help!

[Augment]

I never cut over 90 hz. Imo you're cutting waay too high. Try moving the hp filter to 70-80 hz, and you should get the fatness back.

[samdam1]

I never cut over 90 hz. Imo you're cutting waay too high. Try moving the hp filter to 70-80 hz, and you should get the fatness back.

The only problem is then, i still have the bass itself hitting the sub, clashing with the sine wave sub

[swerver]

I never cut over 90 hz. Imo you're cutting waay too high. Try moving the hp filter to 70-80 hz, and you should get the fatness back.

The only problem is then, i still have the bass itself hitting the sub, clashing with the sine wave sub

low pass the sub a bit lower?

[Augment]

Thought you said you played a low E? A low E hits around 41 hertz, which should not interfere with frequencies above 80.
You could always lowpass it if it does though. Sub shouldnt go over about 80 hz imo

[outdropt]

I HP my mid range bass at 160-200hz, you need to leave room for the snare and kick. Then ill LP my sub around 60-70hz, maybe a little higher, but at that point ill slightly sidechain to my kick. Is the sound fat before you cut? Are you having your sub follow your mid range?

The mid range looses a lot of power when you high pass until you add the sub in. Try adding in another oscillator to your mid range that is -12 semitones to see if you can add some harmonics to the lower FQ's.

[Augment]

You can make room for the kick and snare when they are there, I find it meaningless to cut out an entire section of frequencies for something that is not a constant problem. If you cut it out when it's needed, it will make for a much fuller sound. Imo ofc

[outdropt]

You can make room for the kick and snare when they are there, I find it meaningless to cut out an entire section of frequencies for something that is not a constant problem. If you cut it out when it's needed, it will make for a much fuller sound. Imo ofc

That is true, it depends on what your going for.. I talked about reactive eq'ing before, You could sidechain your kick/snare so that it ducts the specific fq range that they are producing, but i hear that leaving that space gives your sound more dynamics.

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

Ever thought about just making the tune with clashing involved? then when ur groove is how you want it, bouncing the bass riff and literally editing the audio waveform so it stays out of the way of the kick. You only need to cut off a few milliseconds from the bass as the kick/snare attack transients hit. Also cutting the decay down on the kick could help, leaving the bass acting in place of the low end for the kick. It works surprisingly well. depends on the style of tune tbh but give it a go see how it turns out.

[Burgeamon]

Maybe try being a little more clinical with where you high pass your bass and low pass your sub.

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

You could even try low passing / high passing at a frequency in the middle of your two notes, then duck out some space for your kick and in theory, everything will have its own space (obviously with distortion etc.. this wont make things quite as clinical but by knowing where the root freq of your note is you can ensure that part is clear).

[Tracks To Wax]

^
as Turnipish Thoughts said...unless it's causing an audible problem, clinically trying to give everything it's place, could lose more character and weight than you need to. Alternatively you could try to carefully notch out any unwanted hum/boominess/low-end as opposed to high passing it.

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

Uploaded a video of what I'm on about from this months CM



If it helps...

[bassinine]

don't cut any lows and then side-chain the mid range to the sub.

or, if your mid is following the sub, just do like these guys said, high pass around 70hz. but if you highpass the midrange at too high of a frequency, then you're going to be cutting the low-mid range harmonics, which is where all the "fatness" comes from.

[outdropt]

You could use a multiband compressor to side chain the mid/low end (80-200/300hz) so it only lowers the volume of that range..

In ableton you can use an audio effect rack, create two chains, place a multiband dynamics plugin on each....

Have one solo everything above 200/300hz and the other play everything below that, then place a compressor on the low end and sidechain the kick and snare.

Just thought of this but i haven't tried it out yet.

[bassinine]

You could use a multiband compressor to side chain the mid/low end (80-200/300hz) so it only lowers the volume of that range..

In ableton you can use an audio effect rack, create two chains, place a multiband dynamics plugin on each....

Have one solo everything above 200/300hz and the other play everything below that, then place a compressor on the low end and sidechain the kick and snare.

Just thought of this but i haven't tried it out yet.

hmm, that's a pretty efficient way of doing it actually.

personally though, i chop the FUCK out of all my basslines (after i side-chain - love glitching out a pumping side-chained bassline). but could always bounce that out and use your technique on the already glitched copy if it conflicts... i assume that's what you do.

[outdropt]

You could use a multiband compressor to side chain the mid/low end (80-200/300hz) so it only lowers the volume of that range..

In ableton you can use an audio effect rack, create two chains, place a multiband dynamics plugin on each....

Have one solo everything above 200/300hz and the other play everything below that, then place a compressor on the low end and sidechain the kick and snare.

Just thought of this but i haven't tried it out yet.

hmm, that's a pretty efficient way of doing it actually.

personally though, i chop the FUCK out of all my basslines (after i side-chain - love glitching out a pumping side-chained bassline). but could always bounce that out and use your technique on the already glitched copy if it conflicts... i assume that's what you do.

I like to have a default setup in ableton so I don't get conflicts like that... A group is just a bus pretty much.

Ill have 5+ groups that each start with a blank massive instance, and an audio instance that is silent and is listening to the group (so its easy to bounce down, all i have to do is hit record)

Synth
Bass
Sub
Vocals
Atmosphere

In these groups ill do my main eq cuts (roll off synths at 800hz, sub bass LP at 60-80hz, ect), compression, maybe filtering.

Then i have each of those pointing into there own bus with the respective names

synth/vocals
sub/bass
atmosphere

These are then getting sent to a master bus.

Here is where i do my master work (i might have filtering effects going on the sub/bass, Ill put sausage fattner here, And here is where i would put the multiband compression)... So if i bounce down my bass from the bass group.. I can just create another audio instance and play out to the Bass/sub group, avoiding the problem you mentioned.

I try to keep things cohesive so i don't get lost in automation overload.... That is when shits happening and you dont know whats causing... That has happened too many times

[Genevieve]

Are you sure you're playing your bass at the right octave? Pitch up or down an octave and then see how it sounds.

I don't get people saying hipass 90 hz? There's almost nothing good going on abetween 100 and 200 hz. It's what I notch the fuck out to get rid of muddiness.

[drake89]

There's almost nothing good going on abetween 100 and 200 hz. It's what I notch the fuck out to get rid of muddiness.

hmm...talking about everything or drums or bass or what? cause i disagree on a number of fronts. but do what sounds good to ya...

[HoogerJ]

^ what Genevieve says ^

[Hircine]

holy fuck you guys overthink stuff a lot