sub bass problems

[swoggles]

using fruity loops and i made a simple sub bass,put a low pass filter on but the first note seems louder than the rest, i have all the velocity's the same and everything the same but i cant figure this out,anyone else had this issue?

cheers

[oWLinDaylight]

Is the sustain all the way up?

[swoggles]

it isnt,its all the way down,should i put it up?i tried it in sytrus and 3xosc and the same thing happens

[oWLinDaylight]

Ya for sub bass you want sustain all the way up. Im guessing that you have it set to glide between notes also. So when it reaches a new midi note its not re-triggering the synth but bending the first note to the pitch of the new midi note. This is the right way to do sub bass but with out the sustain all the way up the original note will lose volume over time.

[Jas0n]

Depending on where the notes fall... could it be that the first note is the only one in an audible range? If it is higher than the rest and you aren't listening through a sub...

[swoggles]

oh i dont think i have got that glide thing on,is that easy to put on? the first note is the highest and all the others are pretty close,i am listening through a sub,thought i sorted the problem but an error just hapened and thus i lost all the last hours work :@

[blinx]

i like to run a limiter on my subbass, not too much gain boost, just enough to help all the sub's notes hit more evenly.

[Genevieve]

That simple sub bass of yours doesn't happen to be just a sine wave, right? 'Cause a filter is pointless on a sine. A filter is essentially a single-band EQ and EQ is essentially just frequency/band specific volume slider. So if you put a lowpass filter on a sine, you would only be lowering the volume of anything above the cutoff.

The most powerfull sub is just a sine on the second octave, without anything else added to the channel (no compressor, no EQ, no effect, no nothing) with the rest of the song being mad clean and not hitting anythign/much below the 100 hz.

[press]

my suggestion is look at the sub in an analyzer, my guess is that your first note is most likely higher in pitch than the rest? or at least different than the rest of the melody. now make an eq cut on the frequencies that hit louder than the rest. higher notes often sound louder than lower ones, so you can even out this difference by bringing down the frequencies that that louder note are hitting at.

[Jas0n]

my suggestion is look at the sub in an analyzer, my guess is that your first note is most likely higher in pitch than the rest? or at least different than the rest of the melody. now make an eq cut on the frequencies that hit louder than the rest. higher notes often sound louder than lower ones, so you can even out this difference by bringing down the frequencies that that louder note are hitting at.

This is what I'm thinking too.

Well, put your sub line in a mixer track and see what frequencies you're in by putting a Parametric EQ 2 on it. Maybe your notes are just too low to be heard.

Another possibility - do you have EQ rolloffs going on your master channel?

[bassinine]

if you have your midi notes so there is NO GAP, it will continue to play on the original envelope, and will not restart the envelope when a new note starts.

try having your midi notes so that there is a SLIGHT gap between them, so your envelope starts over as a new note is played.

[subfect]

oh i dont think i have got that glide thing on,is that easy to put on? the first note is the highest and all the others are pretty close,i am listening through a sub,thought i sorted the problem but an error just hapened and thus i lost all the last hours work :@

Hope you learnt your lesson. I save after every. single. change - unless I'm specifically experimenting - in which case I save as a new project

The point mentioned earlier about the note selection could be it. Speakers respond to different frequencies differently and especially with subs - E, F, G - you can hear it feel louder or softer

[bassinine]

yeah, like they said, that first note is probably up around 80-90hz, where the bass is very prominent on most speakers. try high-passing 12db/oct around 75hz, this should just lower the volume a bit on those higher-frequency bass notes.

[swoggles]

wow a lot of feedback,yea i hav learnt my lesson,saving as much as possible now!! i wil try no gap and im using a square wave for my sub bass in this case,low pass at 100hz,gonna hav a play soon gonna try all ur ideas and hopefully sort it out,

cheers for all ya help

[blinx]

i wouldnt use a square wave man, SINE WAVE = SUB BASS. You are creating overtones/undertones/muddiness if you are using a square wave and at those frequencies. Plus you play that square wave on a real system and you will be very dissapointed at how your track doesnt hit hard enough and sounds like garbage....

[swoggles]

really?fair enough,my mate told me to hav a go with it,seems to produce a more aggressive low end apparently but perhaps i shod shy away from it, realistically my songs will never see a real system haha

[subfect]

square waves are fine for subs - just lowpass it really lowly, and compress it. It doesn't pack quite the punch of a sine wave, but depending on your choon maybe that's preferred

[JFK]

Ive got to say that the idea of using square waves for subs just leaves me a bit cold...... you will never get the same impact as a sine wave.

[blinx]

Yeah Sine wave creates the most efficient (read: powerful) sub bass. It boils down to how a sub bass driver and linear motion but essentially subs move the best when pushed by a sine wave because its very smooth and "clean" where a square wave will sound aggressive but is harder for a subwoofer to reproduce so you lose impact due to the physics of the subwoofer/system. I love sine wave bass, its boderline spiritual when it hits low freqs.

[eldoogle]

For myself I put a low pass filter on my sub bass. I do use a clean sine in Operator, but the low pass gets ride of a click.

I also know that click comes from ending the wave at the wrong time. Low passing gets rid of the clicks for me. Anyone else have clicks that they get rid of using low pass?