Sub Bass Techniques

[hasezwei]

lfo -> volume of a sub = yummy
that or fastly alternating 808's with reversed ones, different amounts of pitchbend and length and volume (be sure not to limit/compress the shit out of it otherwise the effect gets lost)

the latter method gets you very lively basslines that are very flexible too, kinda like hihats. you can always shift the velocities around a bit or drop one hit, syncopate some bits...

straight sines limited to hell and back are seriously boring and always kill my vibe when i hear them on a system.

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

yes sometimes.

[mthrfnk]

Making a more subtle calvin harris effect in disguise.

hahah.

I use straight notes always, no wobbles, so shoot me.

[bassinine]

Making a more subtle calvin harris effect in disguise.

hahah.

I use straight notes always, no wobbles, so shoot me.

i make my 'wobbles' by chopping up and glitching straight notes. no wrong way.

[Marzz]

i hate distorted wobbles but i do use lfo sub basslines in my tracks

[MassAphekt]

I know what you mean, sometimes it can actually sound nice tho, like if you had a chord that didn't go with the wobble or some sort of continuous tone of sound that originally creates the groove of your entire drop then it would be best to experiment. sometimes it's best to leave it at that but majority of the time I usually LFO the volume of the sub to the LFO of that filters. There's no right or wrong way, keep in mind that long continuous notes of subbass with barely any silence can make a tracks groove boring quick. With clever use of silence and breaks can create some amazing shuffle and groove to your low end, which imo is an important factor in this type of shit we make.

[Sinergy]

I'm noticing when I'm getting to the end of tracks my sub bass is all over the place. I think this stems from splitting frequencies and grouping together the midrange part of a sound with its sub counterpart.

But when I get to the mixdown its really difficult to mix that way; end up ungrouping all these different subs from their mid range counterparts, grouping all the subs, and then getting there levels right. This is difficult because a lot of these subs are split frequencies from midrange sounds that I've gone into the patch and simplified down to as close to sub as I can get without messing with how it flows with the midrange sound (i.e. complicated reeses/growls/morphing sounds that a simple sine underneath would sound flat and without movement)

I thought about, why not just use separate sine wave patches for these sounds? Hell, i'm sure there are producers who use a single sine wave patch for their bassline and thats it, no complicated mixing and EQing.

Just wanted to hear, what are some strategies to layering bass efficiently and getting it even.

[big_lurch]

most people are gonna tell you that they just duplicate their synth track for sub, and make it a single osc sine with or without lfo modulating the volume to match the wobbles, possibly an envelope on the pitch for movement. of course some people will just leave the sub in their main synth patch and frequency split like you're talking about, but giving your sub it's own dedicated track seems to work a lot better for me.

if you're concerned with the way the sub flows with more complicated midrange parts, you can always try this and see if it works for you:

[Sinergy]

I'll watch that later tonight.

the only fear I have with just frequency splitting is that you don't get a very clean sub, like when listening to it alone it's got all kinds of weird stuff going on (mid range stuff, weird distortion) not that nice sweet sine wave. And once again using just a sine wave makes mixing the sub much easier...

[big_lurch]

I'll watch that later tonight.

the only fear I have with just frequency splitting is that you don't get a very clean sub, like when listening to it alone it's got all kinds of weird stuff going on (mid range stuff, weird distortion) not that nice sweet sine wave. And once again using just a sine wave makes mixing the sub much easier...

yeah that's why i said to give your sub it's own track, and eq out the very bottom end of the mid range bass. that way you can process the mids without having to worry about frequency splitting out the sub frequencies.

[blinx]

I used to just put a sine under the mids, no modulation... and i thought it was "ok" until i heard my tracks on a bigger system or in a car.. the basss with no movement really sounded lame and after a whole track of BWAH BWAHs with no movement it fatigues my ears/senses.

Next two singles im going to try and automate the volume/pitch with lfo/env and see if i cant get a little more "fun" sounding sub bass that doesnt just blast low frequencies out.

[Swelly]

I use the sine sub to accent the midrange. It makes you think that the sub is really nuts like the midrange is, but really it's just accenting. For example, the midrange might be doing 16th notes, but I'll make the sub accent the 1/8 notes...and usually my sub isn't just one note held down, it's played more than it is sustained.

[neonmansion]

I working on a song with heavy bass and I just got new studio monitors (yamaha HS50's) they don't really have low bass extension so I was wondering what the proper decibel to mix subs in is.

I've got voxengo span and I wanted to get some feedback from you guys about mixing sub by sight. Almost everything in my song is 150 hz or above. Got a 100 kick in their at some point but all my kicks are tuned and shit so i'm not worried about it. I am worried i'm mixing the sub too loud. How high to you guys let your subs sit ?? /

Right now mine is peaking at -35 DB.. thats seems pretty low. although its hitting the top of my master fader

[royalB]

check the money shot thread...should find some reasonable advice there

cheers
rB

[Genevieve]

I generally have my sub about 2 to 3 db below my drums' peak. Tune I'm writing now has drums at -11 and sub at about -13. Seems decent to me.

...Which I think Mac is also saying in the moneyshot thread haha

[ill mindset]

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[skills4kills]

1)ill give you the answer everyone on the forum likes giving now days since it is so much fun to say "do whatever sounds good"

now that we got that out of the way, I will give you the answer you are looking for:

2)have your mix peak at about -14 to give plenty of headroom for the mastering stages
if your drums are sitting about there, I would make your sub 3db lower then your drums.

Final disclaimer: do not take anything stated in 2 as stone advice, refer to 1 before continuing.

[Artie_Fufkin]

Take a reference track that has a mixdown like you want yours to sound like and low pass filter to get the sub and see where it peaks.

[DMenis4822]

lots of times my sub vanishes when i have my patch play over it, usually c-e only. Is there any good techniques to increase the fatness of it in that note range? I use reason 6.5
Soundcloud

[RandoRando]

plain sine. 3-5 db saturation, high-pass to taste.

why would you hi pass a sub.

op, for dubstep there is a couple methods you can do.

1. make your midrange cack in massive, then duplicate that patch, but change the wavetable to sine, then just have the lfo/performer on the volume of the sine to follow your midrange (then just record that to audio, you dont need a instance of massive for everyone, just keep recording audio clips)

2. or you can write a sub bass line doing its own thing, which adds another musical element to your song and can make it even better.