Those clubby subs

[XAXAU]

How do you make those subs that make your guts tingle?

Waveforms? Sine? Square? Both?

Processing? Subharmonic enhancers? EQ? Compression?

This is one area where I don´t have a clue how it´s done.

I´d love some help here guys

[Simonator]

I think the main things are the synth's filter, followed up with a great EQ.

Good monitoring is pretty important... If your speakers are not able to accurately reproduce the frequencies, it's difficult for you be able to make it.

I like Rob Papen's Albino for my subs... but you can use whatever you have available.

I don't think there is necessarily any right or wrong waveform to create subs, but I quite like square waves.

Make sure you are playing in the correct octave... EQ is no good if there is nothing there for it to pull out.

Have your lowest oscillator at full volume, any others quite quiet as they are just adding a little colour.

Drop down your synth's Low Pass Filter pretty darn low... so all but your deepest frequencies are cut.

You can then either EQ directly on the track, or, as I tend to prefer, EQ on the master buss.

The best EQ I've come across for adding that serious weight is the IK multimedia T-Racks vintage EQ... It models some classic gear, and freakily lets you cut & boost the SAME frequency simultaneously... but because they have different Q slopes it doesn't simply cancel out.
Somehow this puppy works magic and makes your low end huge.


Obviously it depends on your genre of choice, but my preference is to take some mad-huge kick samples too (the best I've heard are the Wave Alchemy.), and fit your bassline around those kicks... ie so the bass & kicks don't occur simultaneously.

Once you've ran that lot through the IK Multimedia EQ, then apply some multiband compression to increase the density and solidify everything.

Voila.

Good post though.... looking forward to hearing tips from others.

[PeteJames]

Sine waves are more suited to sub bass as you don't get harmonics - although you can just filter these out of other waveforms. Experiment with EQ around 30 - 60 hz & Sidechain compression gives you a nice pump

[Simonator]

Agreed.... If you ONLY want as clean a sub as possible (ie if it's being layered under something else to add weight.) then sine's are the way to go.

Personally I like to keep my deep house productions pretty sparse, so I will generally ONLY have a sub (with no other bass-line layered above), so I don't mind additional harmonics that lend a little character to my sub bass.

[Barfunkel]

At least until very recently, club tracks didn't even have subs that go very low. They cut everything below 50hz in vinyl mastering, so there's no point in putting a really low sub in there since it'll disappear in the final product anyway.

Even today, it's not a bad standard to go by, since most clubs still have sound systems calibrated for vinyl, if your tracks have huge sub basses who knows how the PA can handle them. They could eat all the headroom and actually make your tracks less impressive or they could make the walls or ceilings resonate and thus ruin the experience.

[david1103]

key of your song is the main thing. if you want great low bass you just need to make the bassline play the right notes

a low E is 41hz. that is about as low as a good hi-fi will reproduce. it will sound very deep in a club.

don't get fooled into thinking lower is better. just listen to hit tracks you like and think what the bassline is playing in term of notes = freq.

here is all the info you need:

Note names, MIDI numbers and frequencies

playing a sine for the root note is all you need to feel it. to add definition add a copy of the note an octave up. adjust the sound of this octave up version for how you want the bass to sound. you feel the lows, not really hear

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by Barfunkel

At least until very recently, club tracks didn't even have subs that go very low. They cut everything below 50hz in vinyl mastering, so there's no point in putting a really low sub in there since it'll disappear in the final product anyway.

Are you sure about this?

I was under the impression that vinyl playback naturally hypes low frequencies, so the reason why vinyl is mastered with reduced lows is just so that when played back you get the correct response.

Originally Posted by Barfunkel

Even today, it's not a bad standard to go by, since most clubs still have sound systems calibrated for vinyl, if your tracks have huge sub basses who knows how the PA can handle them. They could eat all the headroom and actually make your tracks less impressive or they could make the walls or ceilings resonate and thus ruin the experience.

There are definitely tracks out there with significant weight below 50 Hz that sound AMAZING on a good system. Even with this with this crappy youtube encoding you can still feel the weight here:

Originally Posted by david1103

key of your song is the main thing. if you want great low bass you just need to make the bassline play the right notes

a low E is 41hz. that is about as low as a good hi-fi will reproduce. it will sound very deep in a club.

don't get fooled into thinking lower is better. just listen to hit tracks you like and think what the bassline is playing in term of notes = freq.

here is all the info you need:

Note names, MIDI numbers and frequencies

playing a sine for the root note is all you need to feel it. to add definition add a copy of the note an octave up. adjust the sound of this octave up version for how you want the bass to sound. you feel the lows, not really hear

Good advice... at the really low frequencies the key of the track definitely makes a massive difference.

[abayer]

EXS24's default

[Dauphin]

The high pass filter is crucial as the really low frequencies saps energy from where the bass should sit for a nice sub tone (35-50Hz). If you find the right spot, you can bring out the key of the track with some filter resonance. Then i'd cut below 30Hz...

[Delta Heavy]

Originally Posted by Barfunkel

. They cut everything below 50hz in vinyl mastering, so there's no point in putting a really low sub in there since it'll disappear in the final product anyway.

sorry, but that's total bullshit

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by C-UNiT

not alot going on in the bass there

??? Are you talking about the video I posted?

If so, I'm not sure if

a.) You are being sarcastic.

b.) You just mean that the bass part is too obvious musically for your tastes.

c.) You actually cannot hear that bass... possibly if your speakers don't go that low.

?

[evosilica]

Originally Posted by abayer

EXS24's default

EXS24's default = sine

[tribeofenki]

Simonator, you could even have a Funktion One PA attached to your PC, but listening to a youtube video just can't deliver anything related to this thread, due to the fact that the audio format on streaming videos has a very low definition/quality. It is a web format, so the discussion in here should point to some CD tracks.
Even mp3s cut out frequencies, hence have low quality.

Subharmonic enchanchers just put sine that match the note of the signal given.

david info here above is just good.

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by i604

Simonator, you could even have a Funktion One PA attached to your PC, but listening to a youtube video just can't deliver anything related to this thread, due to the fact that the audio format on streaming videos has a very low definition/quality. It is a web format, so the discussion in here should point to some CD tracks.
Even mp3s cut out frequencies, hence have low quality.

Subharmonic enchanchers just put sine that match the note of the signal given.

david info here above is just good.

Erm.

What is a subharmonic enchancher? I can't find any info on google.

I'm very aware much aware that youtube does not have audiophile standard, dogs b*****ks sound.... that's why when I originally posted the video I wrote:
'Even with this with this crappy youtube encoding you can still feel the weight '

But I'm sat in my studio, and when I demo that youtube video, next to the WAV of that same track, I'm thinking that the youtube video is doing a fricking surprisingly good job of reproducing that sub.

Did you actually have a listen to this video, or are you just working on the assumption that youtube shouldn't be able to reproduce low frequencies?
If you did watch it, what speakers are you monitoring from?.... There is definitely some serious bass on this video from where I'm sitting!

[Simonator]

For anyone out there who can't bare youtube and needs a wav version of the track, you can purchase it here
Dump Truck EP by COBBLESTONE JAZZ on MP3 and WAV at Juno Download

... although I thought that was quite a big ask of people who are just randomly reading a thread.

tbh, this SPECIFIC track is not so critical. It was just the first thing that popped into my head that has a very heavy, very low (peaking around the 40Hz mark, it's in Eb minor) bass-end on it... just as an example of a track that has significant frequencies below 50Hz.

[Beermaster]

Sub bass is more about the sound you use, the notes and riffs it plays and how it interacts with other lo frequency elements and the balance in the mix. EQ is pretty irrelevant at those frequencies ( unless your bass line sticks to just one note ! .... which would be pretty lame...but there again I guess this is dance music I guess ) and compression is not such an important thing either.

There isn't any great secret just simple sine or triangle waves placed at the right time in the syncopation of the track. You obviously need a big old pair of speakers to feel it and be far enough away from the speakers to get right on the resonant peak of the wave lengths

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by Beermaster

EQ is pretty irrelevant at those frequencies ( unless your bass line sticks to just one note ! .... which would be pretty lame...but there again I guess this is dance music I guess )

Would that not depend on the width of the bell curve in your EQ? Surely if you had quite a broad EQ it could affect a range of notes?

As it happens there are lots of deep house tracks that do just have one musical note for their entire bass line... commonly this would just be a simple 1 bar repetition that just works rhythmically with the kicks, often so deep that you can barely perceive a pitch.

[tribeofenki]

TYPO: I meant enhancer.

[Tarkovsky]

There's been a lot of crap posted on here about vinyl.

On Vinyl... bass is cut. But it's also re equalised in (RIAA curves) by the phono preamp.
This cut is because bass frequencies take up lots of space on the flatter and cause the needle to jump.

Vinyl can't handle stereo bass well. Other than that it's CDs that have a definite cut beneath 20 (it's not part of the red book format_. Which is fine because bass beneath 20 is very hard to produce, and you start getting into the resonant freqs of the human body.

All this was available online very easily.

Contradictory to what a lot of people will say i think the effect of sub bass is also very psycho acoustic. Most subs n clubs aren't very linear down there, so its really important you have higher harmonics.

[roginator]

try DBX 120 subharmonic synthesizer ..older revisions are even better
bargin on ebay

here is new!!!

Amazon.com: DBX 120A Subharmonic Synthesizer: Musical Instruments

D

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by C-UNiT

It was a shit example thumbsup

?

In response to the OP's request for info on how to achieve sub bass that shakes your viscera, someone responded that as 'a good standard' he should filter off all frequencies below 50 Hz.

I strongly disagree with this information, and to illustrate my point I've highlighted a track that has significant frequencies happening well below 50Hz.

How is it a s**t example?

To demonstrate that it is the case that this song has heavy sub below 50Hz, I've just done a screen grab of it running through a frequency analyser, and another of a regular commercial house track (Freemasons 'Love On My Mind'), then attached a photo to this reply of these analyses side by side so you can see the difference in the frequency spectrum between the heavy sub example I presented and a regular house track.

Even if you can't hear it on your speakers, you can now see the sub on the spectrum analyser.

How is it a s**t example?

[diogo_c]

^^^ agreed with simonator.

you should cut around 20-30Hz.

[Simonator]

I've just noticed that somehow in uploading the picture as an attachment to my gearslutz post it has automatically degraded the resolution, to the point where you can no longer read the figures of the axes on the graphs... so I've uploaded the original here incase anyone should care.

Download Picture 3.png from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

For anyone just having a brief scan of that original image, the figures of the horizontal axis from left to right are (in Hz) 10, 22, 47, 101, 217....

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by C-UNiT

you miss my point.

? All you said was:

'not alot going on in the bass there'

'It was a shit example'

Is there a cryptic point in there that I'm missing?

Originally Posted by C-UNiT

that track has plenty of lower sub but lacks harmonics and you haven't accounted for the loudness contours of the ears.

Eh?

I'm not sure what you mean, but the OP was asking about extremely deep bass on tracks over club systems. The first song that popped to my mind was the one in my example... because I was dancing to it a couple of weeks ago at East Village club in London and I remember thinking at the time what a ludicrously fat sub bass end it has... Simples.

[diogo_c]

A good start point is to create the sine according to the root note, perhaps even one octave above and finding a filter that suits your music. On my stuff (psy and electro) I've found that the HPF of the Flux Epure is very good. It really prevents ringing but it doesn't kill all the content because its 12db slope.

[Simonator]

Originally Posted by C-UNiT

what had you taken?

Your Mamma









...would be a rude thing to say here, so I will refrain from doing so.

[xmlguy]

Having sub bass is one thing, but exploiting it to maximum effect is a bit different. Bass can sound great with or without low sub bass, and sub bass can enhance or detract from the bass impact of the music, depending on how it works together or merely muddles it up.

For example, fasten your seatbelts might be a good example for comparison (starting at 1:00).


To me, Pendulum seems to do a decent job of pumping the subs, and they aren't only using sub bass but also use a rather wide frequency range that enhances the overall bass impact.

[crufty]

for me...most epic sub bass I have ever heard cost $0.25 and some practice, this doesn't even begin to do it justice. that flea sound is killer.
YouTube - 1980 Atari Centipede Arcade Game

[Tarkovsky]

Originally Posted by xmlguy

Having sub bass is one thing, but exploiting it to maximum effect is a bit different. Bass can sound great with or without low sub bass, and sub bass can enhance or detract from the bass impact of the music, depending on how it works together or merely muddles it up.

For example, fasten your seatbelts might be a good example for comparison (starting at 1:00).


To me, Pendulum seems to do a decent job of pumping the subs, and they aren't only using sub bass but also use a rather wide frequency range that enhances the overall bass impact.

PFFFFFFFF. You actually want to hear subs? That's all blooom bloom rubbish. Like you say that's not actually subs. And how much of it is them or their crazy good mastering?

Actual sub bass. Try this out for size, the sub doesn't come in for about 3 minutes. But if you can feel it on your system... oh gosh.

YouTube - Kiki - Good Voodoo (Visionquest Remix) (BPitch Berlin)

[ctrlshft]

let's use this example instead