Why is it that my sine sounds so weak?

[ts engage]

I have looked through the production bible n all that. I usually open massive, use one oscillator with a sine square wave, put the first knob 1/4 of the way up, the 2nd one all the way down and obviously the *amp* one all the way up, i have 8 unison selected on the *voice* tab as well hoping it would give more power but it doesnt do MUCH...first i though, yeah just turn it up...but i was also trying to follow the bible on the *mixing* section so im trying to keep everything at the right amount of db...? When i listen to certain producers i can hear the bass soooo strongly and im not even using monitors im just using sennheiser headphones at the moment...but when i try it, no matter how high i turn it it still doesnt seem that powerfull... Thanks guys any help would be appreciated

[legend4ry]

What notes are playing? The first knob on the oscilator SHOULD be all the way left on massive.

I made a subbass tutorial what covers massive, here..


http://www.dubstepforum.com/legend4ry-s ... 43648.html

[tripaddict]

use 2 or 4 waves layered up

put and play with the octaves on each sine

u cant really hear sines but you can def feel them on a good sub

[Sharmaji]

layering via unison and/or detuning sine waves WILL make your subs weaker-- it'll introduce some phasing to the sounds, and you'll wind up with some nodes where there's little, if any, sound going on.

keep it plain and simple, play w/ compression as well.

or use a square wave, or create something from a sine via distortion, and then lo pass.

[ts engage]

Ok, Legend4ry im reading your post now, thanks.
and, tripaddict, your saying, ive gotta layer more than 1 sine but on separate tracks without any unison right? How many? 2 layered? or 3?

[Wrigzilla]

layering via unison and/or detuning sine waves WILL make your subs weaker-- it'll introduce some phasing to the sounds, and you'll wind up with some nodes where there's little, if any, sound going on.

keep it plain and simple, play w/ compression as well.

or use a square wave, or create something from a sine via distortion, and then lo pass.

This pretty much.

[kaiori breathe]

I tend to have a square wave one octave up from the sine wave at half the volume. Seems to do the trick nicely with a bit of eqing to help bring out the most important notes.

There's some good advice in this thread so far that should help you

[ts engage]

yeah yeah it IS sounding strongly at the moment thanks people im gonna carry on working on it obviously but yeah. I'll post something up on soundcloud and link it on the DF soon ...

one more quick question- Below the unison select in the *voice* of massive, it has "Poly"-something, Mono- something and then one more....whats the difference between them? would they affect the sine?

[Mad_EP]

layering via unison and/or detuning sine waves WILL make your subs weaker-- it'll introduce some phasing to the sounds, and you'll wind up with some nodes where there's little, if any, sound going on.

keep it plain and simple, play w/ compression as well.

or use a square wave, or create something from a sine via distortion, and then lo pass.

^^^this, all day every day.

[Danger Co]

layering via unison and/or detuning sine waves WILL make your subs weaker-- it'll introduce some phasing to the sounds, and you'll wind up with some nodes where there's little, if any, sound going on.

keep it plain and simple, play w/ compression as well.

or use a square wave, or create something from a sine via distortion, and then lo pass.

Have to concur. I believe that for a sub bass you'd want to just use 1 osc in mono with lp filter etc. I have been using the waves maxxbass plugin which works a treat. Otherwise you could send the original signal into another channel with a tight bass eq. This will bolster the original version, and help it poke thru. But I'd just mix it to support the original, not to over do it.

[stappard]

yeah yeah it IS sounding strongly at the moment thanks people im gonna carry on working on it obviously but yeah. I'll post something up on soundcloud and link it on the DF soon ...

one more quick question- Below the unison select in the *voice* of massive, it has "Poly"-something, Mono- something and then one more....whats the difference between them? would they affect the sine?

in 'mono', when you play a new note whilst holding the old one, only the new note will sound. in 'poly', both will sound. for a sub id stick to mono.

[komanderkin]

use tal elek7ro.

[1981fiesta]

Would thinking about it as a separate sound that plays the same notes be a better way of looking at sines and sub-bass? That's what i would do, split my overall bass sound into 2 or even 3 sections consisting of the different frequencies of your bass and just have them playing the same sequence

[tripaddict]

... dont detune them just try them on different octaves you'll easily be able to tell what sounds good

i try to avoid compression (but you could compress a little) ... you'll start eating away @ your kick and beats if your not careful

make sure u have the attack set low and decay set correctly ... done right you'll get a nice warm punchy sine (which u can use layered up with different wave types)

[JBE]

Reading some of the posts here make me think I'm doing my subs wrong. I just use 3xOSC. It's plain and it's simple. 1 OSC set to the sine wave. I keep my subbass within the E1 and A2 range. Somewhere around there anyway. I usually don't do anything else aside from sidechaining and ADSR changes to my liking. This seems to be working pretty well for me.

[Recessive Trait]

ignore everything trip addict said in this thread.

all i use for a sub is one sine wav (using z3ta but whatever) lowpassed. it kicks. it thunders on big systems. takes me about 4 seconds to set it up and i use it for every song (every song i use a sub for anyway). it's the easiest part of production. and don't make it too low. if you can't hear it, it's too low. you are supposed to be able to hear the sub bass, people.

[Dubbel Shot]

Reading some of the posts here make me think I'm doing my subs wrong. I just use 3xOSC. It's plain and it's simple. 1 OSC set to the sine wave.

Yeah this is all I do aswell. Then if i think it needs it i'll play with vol envelopes and maybe some glide. Sub doesn't have to be complicated mate!

What notes are playing? The first knob on the oscilator SHOULD be all the way left on massive.

I made a subbass tutorial what covers massive, here..


http://www.dubstepforum.com/legend4ry-s ... 43648.html

And definitely get on this if you're having trouble. Man knows what he's talking about.

[glottis5]

Why would you even use massive for a sub anyway? Just use Audacity to make a sine wave, that way you don't have to have a giant VST open for one extremely simple sound.

[ROYALEFATALE]

x2 on waves maxxbass plugin, also the fact that you're using headphones probably isn't helping, they're not the greatest at reproducing accurate sub bass

[abZ]

Why would you even use massive for a sub anyway? Just use Audacity to make a sine wave, that way you don't have to have a giant VST open for one extremely simple sound.

I wouldn't either. I have a couple samples I like and I will load them into Live's sampler. I like using pitch envelopes, sometimes lfo on the volume, sometimes as Sharm suggested distort and lp and usually sidechain to a kick. Nothing fancy.