In need of some help with learning to make dubby saturated sub bass

Yeah I’ve tried to learn other software but I’m enjoying fl studios atm, ill have a go and wheb I finish the tune up ill post it to show you what I got

is that you, cessman?

It’s £10 bag iirc

THIS SO MUCH

What did you think his name was referring to other than cess?

ive finally got something going i can work from, if anyone has any other dubstep related tips id love to hear them

Wait, they’re the same person?!

lol no we are different people. you can verify this with photographs by comparing how white/black and skinny/nourished the two of us look. the names were just a happy coincidence.

OP, next up you could fuck with FX chains and see how the sound differs when you put the same FX in different orders like:

  1. compression
  2. distortion
  3. low pass filter @ 250hz with high resonance

and

  1. low pass filter @ 250hz with high resonance
  2. distortion
  3. compression

neither of these is the “correct” way to do it but they will produce different sounds. it’s not so important for sub (you can easily rock a sub with 0 fx) but FX chains are important in general and once you’ve got a good sub down you’re gonna need some good sample and FX use to complete the tune.

thanks for compression tip in this thread, i get that a lot with basses where most of the notes are normal then one note is like HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

seems to hit some key frequency or some shit and kinda overbalances the mix (though i do kinda like that effect)

wait actually, i’m sure you’ve all noticed this, QUESTION

that note where it’s really loud, is that like the ‘weighty frequency’ or does it just have more like mid frequencies - like is that note the one that knocks people on their arse on a system or is it louder and less subby than the quieter ones???

DUDE! you’re somewhere in the mountains enjoying fresh air and snow - get out of here now!

lol

A sine wave has no harmonics so apart from pitch, every note has the same content (one wave, no overtones), so to speak. Higher sine wave notes sound louder, and are less subby because of the fact that they are higher, nothing more nothing less. Turning down the volume of higher sub notes, or compressing the whole sub evens out the sound. Higher notes that sound much louder often sound terrible on a club system because it’ll sound like you’re going from a sub that you feel (you feel it because of its frequency + its amplitude/volume) to a low-mid note that destroys your ears (it sounds unpleasant because of its frequency and amplitude/volume).

Hope that makes sense.

EDIT/TL;DR/PHRASING: lower frequencies have to be turned up more than higher ones in order to properly hear/feel them. Higher notes with the same amplitude as the lower notes in the same bassline therefore sound far too loud in comparison.

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Higher notes that sound much louder often sound terrible on a club system

This so much. It’s really easily noticeable with 808s. Those warm, higher pitched, saturated trappy 808
kicks that sound “big” on shitty Logitech-50-buck-speaker-systems, sound absolutely crap on a proper club system when compared to clean lower pitched 808s. same for sub basses

EDIT: Actually, they don’t sound crap, they feel crap.

1 BigUp

I usually lowpass my subs to avoid this, starting to roll off around 70-90 i think…

Start with a fundamental sine wave at ~50Hz.

Add harmonics in one or some of these ways:

  • Additive synthesis
  • Additional oscillators
  • Lowpass another wave eg saw, square, triangle, etc
  • Saturate/waveshape
  • Overdrive a preamp
  • Overcompress

Add movement by automating modulation of:

  • Frequency
  • Amplitude
  • Filter (even on a pure sine wave for a different tremolo effect)
  • Saturation drive/wet
    Or by adding portamento

Get it to to agree with the kick using any of:

  • Highpassing the kick between 50-100Hz (eg 80Hz)
  • Using non-100Hz overtones eg 150Hz, 75Hz. Squares and Triangles have odd overtones.
  • Side chaining.
    Then your snare’s fundamental sits around 200Hz, so pay attention to that if necessary.

The reason higher sub notes sound louder is because of the equal-loudness curve which compressing will not solve. You will have to manually adjust the velocity.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Lindos4.svg

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thanks for all this advice, im trying to take all this in haha, i will post a clip soon and if any tips spring to mind its highly appreciated

Get some free guitar amp plugins, they are great for creating extra grit on your song.

depending on where you’re listening you’ll also get one note that resonates louder than other notes. If you’re listening in a room with speakers this will be the note where its waveform fits exactly into the space of the room (floor to ceiling for example), making it resonate and thus making it sound louder

1 BigUp

get a program that can tell you what note a sample is playing (melodyne etc)

then find some drum machine bass or hardware synth bass samples on the net

like 808, 909, older weird machines etc

then layer one of those sounds as the sub/ the lowest part of the bass

then you saturate that slightly

you will quickly see the reason as to why people talk about hardware all the time… because a soft synth sine wave will not handle saturation in a pleasant way… you will basicly only hear the other vsts effect on top because its so clean in nature

the saturation on top of hardware samples will seem like they bleed or liquify or something in comparison.

Maybe you could find somebody demoing an analogue synth.

this is what ive got so far, still loads to go on it, if anyone has any tips based on my clip please do let me know! https://soundcloud.com/bean-zo/clip-dubstep/s-jpH6B

1 BigUp