Legend4ry's sub bass tutorial

[step correct]

another lil' tip is, if you want your sub to tickle a bit more, use an lfo on the pitch (or vibrato)... very small amplitude (so that it doesn't detune) very high frequency (16th notes works nicely)

lfo's on amplitude can be nice... keep in mind though that if you are lfo'ing amplitude AND using a limiter on the sub channel, you are going to lose some amplitude to your lfo'ing... using velocities would be a much much better idea

Anyone know of a way to do this, modulate a pitch with an LFO and keep it in Key? SO I'm just hitting one note and it slides around but still in decent key?

[SunkLo]

It's not supposed to be moving that much, just a slight warble. Turn down the modulation amount or LFO envelope if it's moving too much.

[tylerblue]

It's not supposed to be moving that much, just a slight warble. Turn down the modulation amount or LFO envelope if it's moving too much.

I don't think he's asking about vibrato on sub bass. Pitch envelopes and/or MIDI notes with proper glide time would ensure you're staying in key as opposed to LFO's. Or you could monitor the LFO pitch movement with a spectrum analyzer. That's how I would do it anyway.


Biggups to Santa Barbara dubstep!

[Sirius]

Square waves lack the first harmonic above the fundamental. Try using a saw if you want a beefier sound, or just layer another sine osc an octave up. Remember though. beef = mud depending on how you look at it so be careful about space in the mix.

actually sunk...

square waves do not lack the first harmonic...
they lack only even numbered harmonics!!

!!chea

[SunkLo]

Depends on if you consider the fundamental as a harmonic. If so then yes it would be the second harmonic. Most people would class 'harmonic' as a tone above the fundamental and thus consider the first partial above to be "the first harmonic". It's all semantics really, people use harmonic, overtone, partial, etc. interchangably, which can get confusing in situations like this. Partials would be all frequencies that make up a sound including the fundamental. Harmonics would be all frequencies that are multiples of the fundamental. Overtones are partials above the fundamental that don't nececarily have to be multiples of the fundamental (they can be inharmonic)

You're correct regarding square waves missing the even partials. You'll find a lot of places saying harmonics instead which is a bit misleading.
Chea back at ya!

[Sirius]

Depends on if you consider the fundamental as a harmonic. If so then yes it would be the second harmonic. Most people would class 'harmonic' as a tone above the fundamental and thus consider the first partial above to be "the first harmonic". It's all semantics really, people use harmonic, overtone, partial, etc. interchangably, which can get confusing in situations like this. Partials would be all frequencies that make up a sound including the fundamental. Harmonics would be all frequencies that are multiples of the fundamental. Overtones are partials above the fundamental that don't nececarily have to be multiples of the fundamental (they can be inharmonic)

You're correct regarding square waves missing the even partials. You'll find a lot of places saying harmonics instead which is a bit misleading.
Chea back at ya!

nah its not the even partials.. its the even harmonics!!
the fundamental can't be classed as the first harmonic because without a fundamental there can't be any harmonics ay
& yeah the partials are not mathematically related to the harmonic!
love these convos!!chea

[staticcast]

Depends on if you consider the fundamental as a harmonic. If so then yes it would be the second harmonic. Most people would class 'harmonic' as a tone above the fundamental and thus consider the first partial above to be "the first harmonic". It's all semantics really, people use harmonic, overtone, partial, etc. interchangably, which can get confusing in situations like this. Partials would be all frequencies that make up a sound including the fundamental. Harmonics would be all frequencies that are multiples of the fundamental. Overtones are partials above the fundamental that don't nececarily have to be multiples of the fundamental (they can be inharmonic)

You're correct regarding square waves missing the even partials. You'll find a lot of places saying harmonics instead which is a bit misleading.
Chea back at ya!

nah its not the even partials.. its the even harmonics!!
the fundamental can't be classed as the first harmonic because without a fundamental there can't be any harmonics ay
& yeah the partials are not mathematically related to the harmonic!
love these convos!!chea

Haha, this is such an utterly pedantic argument, but I'm going to jump in anyway:

- A harmonic is any integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, so the 1st harmonic is the fundamental.
- A partial is a component of a complex waveform. In many (most?) cases the partials are the harmonics. However, if the complex waveform (say a guitar string) isn't exactly periodic, you can have inharmonic partials which aren't integer multiples of the fundamental, which create dissonance. So it's probably best to steer clear of this term in this context.
- Overtones and harmonics are the same, but overtones don't include the fundamental. So the first overtone is the second harmonic and so on, and therefore even overtones are odd harmonics.

A square wave contains 1/3/5/7/9/11/....etc with decaying amplitude
A sawtooth wave contains 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/.....etc with decaying amplitude

/thread

[step correct]

It's not supposed to be moving that much, just a slight warble. Turn down the modulation amount or LFO envelope if it's moving too much.

I don't think he's asking about vibrato on sub bass. Pitch envelopes and/or MIDI notes with proper glide time would ensure you're staying in key as opposed to LFO's. Or you could monitor the LFO pitch movement with a spectrum analyzer. That's how I would do it anyway.


Biggups to Santa Barbara dubstep!

YEs basically I was trying this out last night and almost had it.. wondering if there were a rhyme or reason to just being able to modulate it so it sounds musical . I guess portamento would do the same thing.. but I have other automation that's kind of playing off the pitch modulation.. So you say use a spectrum analyser.. hit the range of keys that I want to glide around on.. Think the bass on "The Humpty dance" . I just think it sounds smoother modulated than hitting keys.

SB blowin up right now come check us out sometime!

[LX_Nen]

Some more tips...

Sub bass should be monophonic. If you play 2 sub notes at once, things will get very messy, and you'll have to turn the volume down to stop distortion. Don't forget that decaying notes count too, if (like Reason's Thor) the synth you are using has the ability to add polophony for release tails, turn this off as well as the normal poly.

Sub Bass will be louder if it's in mono. Simple maths really: 2 speakers cranking out your mono sub is louder than 1 pumping out a sub panned hard left or right.

Sticking effects on a sub very rarely leaves you with a usable sub. Reverb and delay are especially unlikely to give good results, because they introduce polophony. Vibrato, portamento, pitc-bend and tremelo work fine, while shapers, octave shifters and so on can give useful results, but they tend to turn sub bass into plain old bass - not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you end up thinking 'this is banging... but it would be better if I layered it with a sub', then you've sort of missed the point of a sub bass.

Fix your clicks! Having a very short attack or decay often leads to clicks, because the envelope cuts off the sine wave unnaturally. It's tempting to think of this clicking as an unexpected rhythmic bonus, because it happens in time with your track, but don't, you'll eat up headroom, you'll have nowhere to turn when you decide your breakdown needs the clicks but not the sub bass, and because the clicks vary depending on where in the cycle your sine wave is, you'll get unpredictable results.

A very short portamento works wonders. Those irritating clicks when you stop one note and start another often can be solved by simply not stopping one note and starting another! If you turn portamento on, so the sub glides from one note to the next, the clicks should practically vanish, even if you make the glide so fast it's unnoticeable.

[SunkLo]

Haha, this is such an utterly pedantic argument, but I'm going to jump in anyway:

- A harmonic is any integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, so the 1st harmonic is the fundamental.
- A partial is a component of a complex waveform. In many (most?) cases the partials are the harmonics. However, if the complex waveform (say a guitar string) isn't exactly periodic, you can have inharmonic partials which aren't integer multiples of the fundamental, which create dissonance. So it's probably best to steer clear of this term in this context.
- Overtones and harmonics are the same, but overtones don't include the fundamental. So the first overtone is the second harmonic and so on, and therefore even overtones are odd harmonics.

A square wave contains 1/3/5/7/9/11/....etc with decaying amplitude
A sawtooth wave contains 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/.....etc with decaying amplitude

/thread

Overtones aren't necessarily the same as harmonics, being that they can be inharmonic whereas harmonics must be even multiples.
Like I said you'll get differing definitions in different contexts. By the multiplication process, f x 1 would result in the fundamental thus classifying it as a harmonic, but harmonics are defined in relation to the fundamental. If you only have a fundamental it doesn't really serve the purpose to be relating it to itself at a 1:1 ratio. The purpose of the harmonic is to add to the timbre in harmonic multiples. Most would classify a sine wave as a pure tone with no harmonics, yet they don't mean it's pure silence, just that it's only a fundamental. They should have locked down a better definition I guess, or use the term 'harmonic overtones' in place of harmonics in certain situations such as the sine wave, but still this would result in confusion. People use the terms loosely which provokes retards on forums into debates such as this

If only I had said harmonic overtone instead we would have saved some space
/thread for good this time

cheachea!


Oh yeah um sub bass...

Leave space in the mix for the woofers to chill out and center themselves. Subs are more effective when there's silence between. Use amp envelopes to give em some pop.
Back on topic

[legend4ry]

Some more tips...

Sub bass should be monophonic. If you play 2 sub notes at once, things will get very messy, and you'll have to turn the volume down to stop distortion. Don't forget that decaying notes count too, if (like Reason's Thor) the synth you are using has the ability to add polophony for release tails, turn this off as well as the normal poly.

Sub Bass will be louder if it's in mono. Simple maths really: 2 speakers cranking out your mono sub is louder than 1 pumping out a sub panned hard left or right.

Sticking effects on a sub very rarely leaves you with a usable sub. Reverb and delay are especially unlikely to give good results, because they introduce polophony. Vibrato, portamento, pitc-bend and tremelo work fine, while shapers, octave shifters and so on can give useful results, but they tend to turn sub bass into plain old bass - not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you end up thinking 'this is banging... but it would be better if I layered it with a sub', then you've sort of missed the point of a sub bass.

Fix your clicks! Having a very short attack or decay often leads to clicks, because the envelope cuts off the sine wave unnaturally. It's tempting to think of this clicking as an unexpected rhythmic bonus, because it happens in time with your track, but don't, you'll eat up headroom, you'll have nowhere to turn when you decide your breakdown needs the clicks but not the sub bass, and because the clicks vary depending on where in the cycle your sine wave is, you'll get unpredictable results.

A very short portamento works wonders. Those irritating clicks when you stop one note and start another often can be solved by simply not stopping one note and starting another! If you turn portamento on, so the sub glides from one note to the next, the clicks should practically vanish, even if you make the glide so fast it's unnoticeable.

Great tips actually, I should of said about portamento my subs always have some 'mento on them. (AKA as Glide, if anyone is unsure what we're talking about) but I wrote the first post when I was up for a day and a half (hence bare typos haha)

I did try and leave room for people to experiment though and work things out themselfs like I had to and i'm sure many other people have had to, to!


By the way, impressed by this thread some of you should of made the thread instead by far superior knowledge than me!

[mrdii]

Hi Legendary, I've been pointed to this thread by a querry I have about sub-bass.
I'm currently using 3XOSC for my sub-bass in FL8, and for the life of me can't work it out. Basically, whenever I add any sub-bass to a track it always drowns out the rest as it's so deep!
Help please.

[legend4ry]

Well, the main thing is, is that its probably to loud, please consolt this thread.

http://www.dubstepforum.com/this-thread ... 74832.html

It will give you the much needed knowledge to grasp gain structuring and in turn things will "sit" better.


Other suggestions are that you're using more than one oscilator (more than one sine wave oscilator will make it drown out everything else.

Where is your sub peaking in relation to everything else within the track?

[rawali]

A thought...

if you have your sub bass playing notes in the 50 to 80hz range, and you want a very simple bass line that follows the sub... it could be an idea to use a square since you are skipping the octave (which would be 100 to 160 hz) and going straight to the next harmonic (errr... the fifth? I think?) @ 150 to 240hz leaving a good amount of space (80 to 150hz) for the bassy part of your kick to sit...

if necessary, you could just have a sort of cross-over module if you want to apply effects such as distortion, saturation or automated filters on the bass part (150 hz and over)

[krispy]

Say your sub is lowpass at 80hz but your KD is highpass at 80hz

Since these are occupying different frequency ranges then you shouldn't have to sidechain... Correct or no?

[deadly_habit]

Say your sub is lowpass at 80hz but your KD is highpass at 80hz

Since these are occupying different frequency ranges then you shouldn't have to sidechain... Correct or no?

depends on your gain structuring, and without extreme settings that more than likely will cause phase, you still will have some of each's freq range

[krispy]

I suppose there is that gradual slope on each at 80hz which would slightly lead each into eachothers freq range

[deadly_habit]

yes which is why filters have ratings in db levels

[SunkLo]

Also just because they're not in exactly the same frequency range doesn't mean they're both not still competing for mix space. Sidechaining will save you a bit of headroom and give you some pop, regardless of overlapping frequencies.

[In The Shadows]

Also just because they're not in exactly the same frequency range doesn't mean they're both not still competing for mix space. Sidechaining will save you a bit of headroom and give you some pop, regardless of overlapping frequencies.

ya I was going to say, if youre only sidehcaining to avoid a clash of frequency then youll probably be able to leave the sidehcian out, but itll keep your peeks down and give you a few more db to play with so you might want to keep it if thats part of reason youre sidehcaining in the first place. Also, Id check what frequencies your sub notes are on a table like this...

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

if youve got a sine sub then chances are nothing meaningfull is creeping up at high at 80hz anyway, theyre probably somewhere between 35 and 60ish, so even though youve low passed it at 80hz doesnt mean it actually reaching up that far. My subs are sines, and I try and keep the bulk of them between E1 (41.20hz) and G1(49hz). The set of kicks Im using atm Ive messed with quite a lot, and they all peek roughly around E2 at 82/83hz, with a steep drop off after that. So theres almost an octave (give or take) there between the main sub area and the punch of the kick, but I still sometimes sidechain a little just for the headroom. I might take the kicks up a semi tone or two if my subs are climbing towards 80hz at points, though Id never quite get there, as Id move the sub note down an octave to the low E, D#, D etc rather than go up that high, even if the midrange is still moving up.