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How do producers like pinch get their bass lines so damn clear!!!? my sines always come out to muddy even after ive eqed the fuck outa them

come out to muddy even after ive eqed the fuck outa them

What do you use to create your sine wave? Its possible you might be over eqing. Sub bass gets muddy when there are things clashing in the same frequency range. In this case about 100 up to 250hz. Usual culprits are the midrange bass not having enough low cut and kicks and snares. When eqing the sub i'd take the top frequencys off and cut out below 20 (or do this at mixdown) I find cutting the top end gets rid of that annoying click that subs can have aswell, i use exs24 in logic it's easy to use - it comes with a sine wave already loaded, you just need to transpose down 12 then your sorted, add a little glide for some punch

it's ALL about subtractive EQ

Have you ever seen a sine wave on a frequency analyzer? It should be a triangle like this photo I took. Eq'ing anything outside of the triangle will have no effect because the frequencies don't exist.

A good thing to do is to use tape saturation, this will add extra harmonics in the frequency range and give you a fatter sound, it will also let you bring out aspects of the sub that wouldn't have been there to begin with. Izotope Trash is the best overdrive and distortion VST I know of.

Hope this helps.

u gotta love ppl who think eq'in a sine wave makes any difference

group hug...

eq the kick
sidechaincompression works

but fuck you all... you know it all better. like i do

either that spectrum analyzer is fucked and does way too much interpolation of peaks,or it isn't a sine wave its analyzing...a sine wave has no harmonics, just the fundamental. EQing the fundamental will have no impact on the sound other than making it louder or softer. But you could send a sine through a saturator or distortion or any effect that will add harmonics to the sound and then eq after them. Also, for adding punch to the sub, you can use a short envelope on the pitch. Depending on how its set you can get anything from 808 style pitch drops to psytrance style impact. If this is layered under the other sounds you dont really hear it as a pitch sweep, just a hard transient at the start of the sound. Really helps subs punch though a mix. Just play with env decay and the depth that its affecting the pitch and you'll find the sweet spot.

KnobGoblin wrote:.a sine wave has no harmonics.

Isn't that what I just said?

No the analyzer isn't broken either, it's just amplitude over frequency. The point is just the highest peek in the volume, and in this case it was a fast attack.

Distortion won't add harmonics, it is a destructive effect. However, yes, saturation will... But that's just overdrive.

What frequency analyzer do you use by the way? Wouldn't mind seeing how others react.

Cheers

Im using the term Distortion as just a catch all term for any kind sonic destruction, but this whole family of effects add's harmonics by either internally overdriving the sound or using waveshapers to introduce non-linearity into the signal. That is why a simple sounds get brighter as you distort them.

Yeh point taken, but all I'm trying to say is, a harmonic is a multiple of the initial waveshape, it adds overtones. Distortion is very random and adds noise so you get the brightness, but on a sub, it will detract from the bass, where as overdrive will actually thicken the sound.

Sorry to sound like I'm arguing, I think my point was aimed more at the initial question

Its cool, I'm away from my main music making comp right now, but any spectrum analyzer that uses discreet bars for the frequency components instead of making a curve that represents it is better in my opinion. I have a VST one but cant remember its name right now, but since I switched to logic I've been using the built in one, which is way better than the free one I was using anyway.