Subbass pissin' me off.

[Icetickle]

I'm working on a track in Ableton Live 9 and it's almost finished.
The thing is, every time I load my project my sub is different volume.
Like literally different volume, sometimes it's -20dB sometimes -14dB and shit like that...

Happened to anyone before?

[benjam]

Automation?

[Icetickle]

Automation?

You don't get it. The subbass volume is different, but not through time.
It changes almost every time i load the project.

[Brothulhu]

Are there any plugins on the channel? I had a free compressor that would stop working sometimes. Are you playing different notes? If it's a pure sine Higher notes seem to be louder from my experience

[Icetickle]

Are there any plugins on the channel? I had a free compressor that would stop working sometimes. Are you playing different notes? If it's a pure sine Higher notes seem to be louder from my experience

I just realized it's not only when I reload the project, It happens randomly.
And yeah I have a sidechain compressor and an EQ plugin on the subbass.
Playing different notes? switching from C to C#.. but the volume doesn't change in that case.

[Icetickle]

Now it changed from -15dB to -18dB.. FML

[Add9]

The only thing I could think of is if you accidentally left the unison amount at above 1, then that would cause varying volumes because of phase cancellation issues.

[Crimsonghost]

Its a sub, just delete the track and make a new one.

[titchbit]

is this the input volume or the output volume that is changing? ie is it the number you type or is it the level of the green?

[claudedefaren]

I'm gonna guess there's phasing occurring from multiple voices with free phase (as opposed to being restarted every note)

[Icetickle]

Yeah my sub has like 4 voices. Never thought that would be a problem.
I'll try switching it to 1 when I get home, thanks anyways.. lol

[antman]

Yeah my sub has like 4 voices. Never thought that would be a problem.
I'll try switching it to 1 when I get home, thanks anyways.. lol

Sub should be a mono sine wave. Nothing else.

[YourDad]

Perhaps you have a MIDI controller that has a parameter set to the volume and you are accidentally knocking a slider or knob without realising what you are doing

[GangstaFish]

Sub should be a mono sine wave. Nothing else.

Not even a little distortion or anything?

[Triphosphate]

Sub should be a mono sine wave. Nothing else.

Not even a little distortion or anything?

A lot of people might disagree, but sometimes I saturate my sub a little in parallel so it can be heard on smaller systems. I love your name by the way.

[AxeD]

What? You can do whatever you like to create sub bass.
Keeping it mono and starting with a simple sine are both good ideas though.

[usa]

Sounds like you might need to go through everything in your project file incase a plugin or synth is causing other plugins and synths to act weird or crash.

[titchbit]

Sounds like you might need to go through everything in your project file incase a plugin or synth is causing other plugins and synths to act weird or crash.

pretty sure he figured it out m9.

[wolf89]

Yeah my sub has like 4 voices. Never thought that would be a problem.
I'll try switching it to 1 when I get home, thanks anyways.. lol

Sub should be a mono sine wave. Nothing else.

Mono yes. Just a plain sine. Not necessarily.

[SunkLo]

Its a sub, just delete the track and make a new one.

pragmatism at its finest.

But it's definitely the dynamic unison. Just mono that shit. Not mono as in stereo field, but monophonic as in one oscillator voice. If you're using FM8, just turn off the Dynamic switch in the unison section. Some unison can be nice if you're making more chilled out Burial style bass which sits a bit higher than the typical sub range. But if you're looking for a sub to have real impact, go for a bare mono sine and save the unison for any ghost upper-harmonic low/mid bass.