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Might be a bit vague but here goes

I'm always seeing people on DSF and DOA say that they put a notch filter on their bass, usually when talking about automation so I assume they're automating the cutoff on it

I don't get it though... I've experimented with notch filters on basses in stuff that I do and it dosen't sound good at all, certainly not like any effect i've ever heard in tunes

What is the purpose of this notch filter, why is it on there? Any rough settings you can give me so I can stick it on and go "ohh, THAT sound!"

cheers

I don't have a whole lotta experience here but I'd say don't make the notch to wide or you will lose a lot of the tone, maybe aim for the 200-500 ish mark?

It's supposed to give movement to the bass. There are many ways of doing it, an automated notch filter is one of them.

I don't know if it fits all kind of bass sounds but it's good for reeses for instance. So perhaps you're not using it with proper sounds.
Or you're not doing it properly. The way to go is sweep the cutoff until it hits a frequency that sounds good to you, then add a slow and gentle LFO automation, not so that the cutoff reaches goes from 0 to 100%.

If it still doesn't sound good to you, maybe you're just not into notch on the bass...
Post samples so we can help some more.

that sub focus tutorial on youtube (w/ massive) is a good place to start.

exactly-- puts motion into an agressive sound.

Well well well...
I use the notch filter quite a bit on my bass.
There is a sweet spot on the filter when you set it between 60-90 hz.. you have to tweek in between those ranges to really get the bass to pop out and once you find the sweet spot you will know.. I usually put a notch filter then experiment by putting a low pass or high pass on top of the notch filter then sweep the freqs to find the perfect sound... Hope this helps

This is generally something you might do with rich bass sounds with lots of harmonics like a reese rather than a sub or clean bass sound. It's also more to do with working on the mid/hi frequences imho, either using a tight notch. The effect of automating the cut off it a bit like a phaser but more suble (a phaser is a collection of notch filters) it give some nice movement to the bass without destroying the meat of it. Like I said this is more something you're more likely to find on reese and similar rather than cleaner basses.

Here's an example of successfull notch filtering

sounds awesome over distortion

if something is too square and harsh sounding, it can round it off

I only ever thought of using a notch to make room for the kick. Putting it on an LFO has me all excited to get home and fire up Massive now. Great thread!

its more for mid/low mid imo. if you notch you're sub you generally will loose a lot of weight. but in the mids it will give you a phasery kind of effect, depending on how you use it.

Notch filters work really well on Reece basses, it's one of the ways you get a distorted grimey sound to move around without changing pitch or drastically changing the sound. It works well on bass (not sub). So when I use it, usually the sub and the bass (distorted mids) are to two different fx busses, and notch is on the mids bus...

Don't limit yourself to notching midrange and don't plug it to LFO. Use automatics and shape the sound by yourself!

Yep, it definitely sounds good in reeses.