Beautiful subs

[marra]

How does one fill out the low end in ways to make the sub move based on the content of a track / mix, and not just some bassline?

Just finished listening to Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (2011) and I love the way the sub is making my desk vibrate.

How did they do it? I can only get pure sine waves to make stuff vibrate like that. Did they split their master in two, one dry and one heavily boosted? If so, boosted how? Or did they just add pure sine waves everywhere?

[Dreamr]

I make my kicks by using a sample for the mid/high end (usually a multi layered bass/snare/hat) and then find a nice, rumbling sine wave and mess with the phasing to get it just right.

This would like inside my drum rack and would look like this
c3 - Kick - Instrument Rack
Chain 1 -> Sampler
Chain 2 -> Operator (sine sub)

Then I will drop a multiband on it and an eq and fine tune the top half separate of the bottom half. Mixing and EQing helps a lot. if there is no headroom, there is no room to make your kick BOOM!

I use this on my kick for my Dataloss Remix. If you want it to rattle then you need long notes or turn up the release on your sine.

[marra]

I make my kicks by using a sample for the mid/high end (usually a multi layered bass/snare/hat) and then find a nice, rumbling sine wave and mess with the phasing to get it just right.

This would like inside my drum rack and would look like this
c3 - Kick - Instrument Rack
Chain 1 -> Sampler
Chain 2 -> Operator (sine sub)

Then I will drop a multiband on it and an eq and fine tune the top half separate of the bottom half. Mixing and EQing helps a lot. if there is no headroom, there is no room to make your kick BOOM!

I use this on my kick for my Dataloss Remix. If you want it to rattle then you need long notes or turn up the release on your sine.

Hey Dreamr thanks for getting back at me! Your advice is all good but this is more of a general mixing question rather than a how-to-make-my-kicks-fat kind of thing.

I also don't feel the same kind of vibrating, moving low end in your Dataloss Remix as I do in Shabazz Palaces - Black Up. Still cool music though. Oh and your girlfriend is MAD hot!!

[simmerdown]

put a legit link, no ones gonna dl just to hear what youre talking about...

[marra]

Sorry about that, try this:

YouTube: Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (FULL ALBUM STREAM)

[simmerdown]

that one was no good either

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67cx9M2c ... ure=relmfu

thats pretty different

through my setup up the hi end is dominating everything,that occasional sub buzz must have just hit the frequency of your desk, ha, but...its a bit of a wobbly sine/triangle to my ear...

[JimmySlizz]

i honestly dont have any knowledge about frequency modulation from any kind of training or school or whatever but from messing around making music im pretty sure that any shape of wave has the potential to make a sub rumble as long as the frequency is low enough. subs are just speakers that are made to handle frequencies on the bottom of the spectrum, not any one particular type of wave. if you listen to any song with the speakers turned off and only the sub playing you will hear the entire song, vocals and even cymbals included depending on the mix because all of these sounds will feature some small amount of low end frequencies, unless the producer scooped the lows on purpose. if you want the sub to rumble with a track, you'll need to tailor the track to feature low frequencies at the desired parts. obviously the bass line is the easiest way to do this because of the nature of the instrument and having a piano play a note in the C-0 octave will just sound like shit. sine waves provide the tightest low end because of the smooth nature of the wave but modulating a sine wave through a square, triangle or saw wave can give you a really nice crunchy sound, and if you play with the frequency of the secondary wave it can provide just enough distortion without being overbearing. don't underestimate effect automation either (volume swells, LFO's etc). sorry this post rambles so much but there are many ways to get the sub involved. the most important, in my opinion, is to not put effects on your main sub track, whether its bass or whatever, to avoid interfering with the frequencies before they get to the sub.

Oh - just listened to the beginning of that 38 minute youtube video and that is definitely a bass track reversed. sounds like it originally was played with a bit of a decay and not too much sustain on each note then reversed to give that swelling effect. you can get similar effects out of an LFO whether you modulate the frequencies or the volume. mess around and record some bass lines with and without LFO's then reverse all of them, you can get some pretty cool shit. I like to play the note foreward/backward then either bleed it back into itself or the next note in the opposite direction has a cool record going forward and backward effect to it.

anyone feel free to tell me how off base i am because i am just speaking from personal experience here but hopefully this helps.

[marra]

What up Jimmy glad you could chip in!!

Okay lemme break it down:

i honestly dont have any knowledge about frequency modulation from any kind of training or school or whatever but from messing around making music im pretty sure that any shape of wave has the potential to make a sub rumble as long as the frequency is low enough.

And humble too, damn..

if you want the sub to rumble with a track, you'll need to tailor the track to feature low frequencies at the desired parts. obviously the bass line is the easiest way to do this because of the nature of the instrument and having a piano play a note in the C-0 octave will just sound like shit. sine waves provide the tightest low end because of the smooth nature of the wave

Indeed. It's like you say running effects over a deep sine wave will kill its ability to vibrate in that smooth, orgasmic manner. I just don't know how to extract the same kind of low end vibration from tracks as a whole. Well, without adding sine waves. Or is that the only way?
I mean boosting the lows with an EQ or whatever will create a deep low end, but it won't vibrate in that seem sexy manner if you know what I mean..
Maybe there's a way to sineify ones entire low end?

but modulating a sine wave through a square, triangle or saw wave can give you a really nice crunchy sound, and if you play with the frequency of the secondary wave it can provide just enough distortion without being overbearing. don't underestimate effect automation either (volume swells, LFO's etc). sorry this post rambles so much but there are many ways to get the sub involved. the most important, in my opinion, is to not put effects on your main sub track, whether its bass or whatever, to avoid interfering with the frequencies before they get to the sub.

Nah this ain't no ramble this is serious, million-dollar knowledge right here, any producer would be an idiot to let this go by.. thanks for the ideas man. I can honestly say you've opened up "the world of low end" to me and I owe you a lot for that..

Volume swells, LFOs now that answers something I've been thinking about too lately, like how to make these synthesized basslines sound like they were played by a real instrument.. damn, thank you man!!

Oh - just listened to the beginning of that 38 minute youtube video and that is definitely a bass track reversed. sounds like it originally was played with a bit of a decay and not too much sustain on each note then reversed to give that swelling effect. you can get similar effects out of an LFO whether you modulate the frequencies or the volume. mess around and record some bass lines with and without LFO's then reverse all of them, you can get some pretty cool shit. I like to play the note foreward/backward then either bleed it back into itself or the next note in the opposite direction has a cool record going forward and backward effect to it.

Not exactly sure what sound you're referring to here.. only reversing stuff I'm familiar with is for percussion so this is all new to me.. any chance you could elaborate?

anyone feel free to tell me how off base i am

Not gonna happen

[JimmySlizz]

any audio sample can be reversed in ableton, if you open the map of the clip there are three buttons by the volume - edit save and rev. rev. = reverse. try messing around with some bass notes - long decay, short decay, sustain, etc then reversing them. you might be pleasantly surprised. those give a nice "womp" sound - original dubstep tracks were made by DJ's winding bass tracks backwards and forwards on a turn table.

as far as "tracks as a whole" goes, if you're referring to the whole song you could have any number of problems if you're final product is thin sounding. if you are "mastering" your track by turning volumes down until it stops clipping thats probably part of it right there. just throw a limiter (audio effects folder) on the master track and you wont have to do that anymore. thats a bastard fix but I do it and it works well enough if you aren't trying to charge people for your music. boosting high end like crazy to get more drive on a sound will do it too.

also, the octave range you want to be in for nice sounding sub response is C-0 to C-1 for really deep bass, and below C-3 will give you some nice response. if you're using operator keep the coarse frequency at 1 or 0.5, 0.5 rumbles like hell though so be careful because it can get too low and sound like a piece of paper flapping in the wind in the C-0 octave range or lower. if you're using an algorithm and you have different coarse frequencies you can end up getting a thin sound if you don't have the output of the second frequency in the chain at a proper level. tweaking the output with a clip playing wont play you the true sound either you need to manually hit notes as you adjust to hear the real changes, no idea why but i've gotten bitten in the ass by that before so make sure you are tapping notes as you adjust.

finally - "paint the spectrum". meaning you want all the frequency ranges to be represented. there is a spectrum analyzer you can put on your master track as well. dont have a bass line thats in the C-0 to C-2 range then write all your synth parts above C-4. that leaves a gap in the spectrum and will give you a thin sound. dont be afraid to overlap octaves with bass and synths, they aren't going to be producing identical waves (hopefully) so the frequencies should blend nicely and round out the track.

this would be easier if knew what kind of music you were primarily interested in making. i focus on house/dubstep so im always talking about synths, but you get the idea hopefully. I got ableton like 4-5 months ago and didn't know any of this shit but i spend a solid 6 hours a day fucking around with different instruments, playing with settings and watching youtube videos. "how to ___ ableton" usually brings up a ton of results. there are some professional musicians offering free advice, so look around.

[JimmySlizz]

Indeed. It's like you say running effects over a deep sine wave will kill its ability to vibrate in that smooth, orgasmic manner. I just don't know how to extract the same kind of low end vibration from tracks as a whole. Well, without adding sine waves. Or is that the only way?
I mean boosting the lows with an EQ or whatever will create a deep low end, but it won't vibrate in that seem sexy manner if you know what I mean..
Maybe there's a way to sineify ones entire low end?

-boosting low end will only help if you already have the proper frequencies in play. subwoofers work by being made to handle very low frequencies at high volumes, unlike typical tweeters or mid speakers. in order to get the response these frequencies need to be present in the track.

The typical frequency range for a subwoofer is about 20–200 Hz for consumer products,[1] below 100 Hz for professional live sound,[2] and below 80 Hz in THX-approved systems. Subwoofers are intended to augment the low frequency range of loudspeakers covering higher frequency bands.

the spectrum analyzer shows frequency on the x-axis and volume on the y-axis, so put one on your master track and see what you're working with. put it after your limiter so you are getting the sound thats coming out of the speakers. remember, all audio effects work in a linear manner from left to right in ableton so if you have an EQ after a reverb your adjusting the frequencies of the sound after its put through the reverb (bad idea).

[marra]

Extraordinary insight - awesome tricks - and yeah I can definitely hear some of that in Black Up..

I guess the word for what I'm trying to make is Dilla music.. check this out..

6 hours a day?? Sounds like you're living a life most of us can only dream of