KVR :: Effects » This just in! "When it comes to sub-bass, I hate all limiters." [View Original Topic]
There are 24 posts in this topic.

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@midnight - Mon Jan 21, 2013 9:36 pm

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That's right, I hate every limiter when it comes to sub bass. You must either remove the sub bass, do not apply any gain reduction to the sub bass, or the sub bass will cause distortionz!

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VibraSound - Mon Jan 21, 2013 10:20 pm

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With any Limiter I keep the gain reduction meter at 3 dB Max.

If you have distortion, it probably means that you have too much bass in your mix. Mix your Kick and Bassline at lower volume.

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rifftrax - Mon Jan 21, 2013 10:25 pm

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Try loudmax

Really excellent for zero-distortion limiting on even the most formidable material. You'll lose a tiny bit of punch but it works where most limiters fail if you can accept that trade-off.

Awesome signature by the way ... lol

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Jafo - Mon Jan 21, 2013 11:34 pm

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Try a multiband compressor set to limiting; it's not a panacea, but it seems to work for a lot of people.

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Burillo - Mon Jan 21, 2013 11:55 pm

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i usually don't have sub-bass at all. HP everything below 55-60Hz.

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Mushy Mushy - Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:04 am

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This.

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brandondrury - Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:40 am

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There's a handful of ways to get around this. I'd say it's trickiest when doing bass drops in metal as the sub bass element is supposed to be anecdotal yet the center of attention...sorta.

With electronic music it's much easier to keep the limiter happy and the sub bass happy because low mid element can be tamed/notched by design and this alone is a huge way to increase the apparent level of the sub bass. (Similar to making a track sound brighter but cutting 1k-2k on the 2bus by 1.5dB.)

I generally compress (and/or distort) the hell out of my sub bass stuff to keep it in line as transients can be really tricky.

I've had my best results with Voxengo Elephant and I've tired, many many many brickwall limiters.

Brandon

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bmanic - Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:52 am

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It's all about compromises. You can NOT have both massive loudness and tons of subs. It is just not possible. The wave length of subs is so long that any limiter which isn't set to slow attack and release times simply can not cope with the massive bass.

Intelligent algorithms like in Elephant, Ozone, Pro-L, Sonnox and a few others will kind of automatically set longer release times depending on the incoming material but even these have to be nurtured if you want to keep the limiting artifact free on loud sub bass.

Using AD converter clipping or a hard clipping plugin is the worst offender when it comes to subs.. they will always create a lot of additional harmonics thus distorting the subs..

It's also worth noting that the amount of noticeable artifacts is very much depending on what shape the sub bass has. The closer it approaches a pure sine wave the harder it is to limit/compress it successfully without artifacts.

So, your solution? Don't go for loudness and you can have all the sub bass in the world!

Cheers!
bManic

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samsam - Tue Jan 22, 2013 1:18 am

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eeek, horrible suggestion, give it more sub is my motto

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@midnight - Tue Jan 22, 2013 5:55 pm

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even for film work?

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metamorphosis - Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:26 pm

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Yuck.

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JoeCat - Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:36 pm

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There's sub, and there's sub-sub.

I'm no expert, but I've been spending some time looking the output of some bass music "pros". 50 may be way too high to cut for a lot of music, but there's still work to be done below 40 or so.

Here's the kick on a track by "Bop" (awesome minimal D&B)



Here's a raw kick (from an EKS Pro):




(a little bit of apples and oranges - hard to capture the images and different kicks).

Point is a lot of raw kick/bass sounds still have some unused energy down at 20-30, and my guess is it affects the limiter by introducing distortion - you may not hear something at -36 - -48 db, but it's there.

Here's the same kick with just a bit of low cut:



I don't have subs here and so can't hear the difference, but most of the tracks of looked at have a similar spectral signature.

I suggest trying something similar - I never use EQ like that without an analyzer to see if I'm touching any of the energy of the sub sounds (and there are times a very sub-by bass note will need a little more room), but betting it helps.

I'm also using Ozone - you really need a quality limiter to get good results across the full spectrum without distortio.

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Burillo - Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:01 am

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no, i was talking specifically about music. i'm not fond of having sub bass in music at all. film work is a different matter, and i agree that e.g. explosions would probably need some sub bass.

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lfm - Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:15 am

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Maybe trying to do too much on master with a limiter.

Look at working on individual tracks - and maybe Waves MaxxBass or something that has some clever algorithms to get a firm low end.

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padillac - Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:36 am

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Would you say this applies mostly to mixing? As in, get the mix right without aiming for loudness, and then let a mastering engineer deal with the problem of making a sub-bassy tune loud? I know that's the general advice anyway but I'm asking specifically about the problem of getting sub-bass loud.

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mandolarian - Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:51 am

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Possibly a stupid question, but what are you monitoring the sub-bass with? If you don't have a wide-range, high power monitor system and a big room to allow those 35+ foot wavelengths some breathing space, hard to tell when you have enough sub-bass. Although, your next door neighbours might be able to tell you.

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padillac - Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:15 am

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well.....I have mackie hr824s which according to their specs go down to 39hz. The lowest note I ever put in my songs is an E which is at 41hz. That's the low E on an 88-key piano, as well as the low note on a bass.

My room isn't treated so honestly I couldn't tell you wtf I'm hearing w/ the sub half the time. Mostly I'm just feeling it, making sure it has weight to it, and hope for the best. I've been told by two mastering engineers that it's easier for them to turn the sub up than turn it down, so they've said if anything I should err on a quieter sub so they can work with it more easily.

For parties, we rent an 18" subwoofer, so we have plenty of sub

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mandolarian - Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:34 am

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Ah, ok. The 824s low bass doesn't loosen many teeth or smack with kidney-busting kick. They don't output a lot of energy in the lowest octave even with room gain. Maybe consider treating your room and adding a dedicated (non-party) sub.

Or as you say, just make it the mastering engineer's problem.

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Mariusz_ - Wed Jan 23, 2013 5:34 am

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thank you for this! now I can have something very similar to Renoise's Maximizer in Studio One

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bmanic - Sat Jan 26, 2013 2:01 pm

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You can't. Period.

The more and deeper bass you have the more a limiter will choke on it or make it distort. There is no way around this fact. It's written in the unfortunate digital laws of ours.

Like I said earlier, there is only a compromise to be made. How loud do you need it? Then decide how much you can add bass. Or vice versa. Add as much bass as you need, then see how loud it gets. You can not have both massive amounts of subs and incredibly loud record. They are mutually exclusive.. that is unless you like a completely distorted mess.

If you have no problems with distortion then go as "loud" as you want. Perhaps some day we'll all listen to white noise.

Seriously though, I hope that we in the future have "intelligent" playback mediums that can automatically adjust track volume depending on material, so that everything plays at equal loudness no matter what. This is the only way to get rid of the loudness war. It'd get rid of it real quick too as the tracks that are not squashed to death would sound way more punchy and have much louder bass. There are virtually no negatives to having a track with lots of dynamic impact whereas there are massive losses to be had with squashing everything to death.

Cheers!
bManic

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mandolarian - Sat Jan 26, 2013 2:13 pm

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That would be brilliant! It really would be 21st century technology. Can we lobby to get it in the mp37 spec, so our great, great grandchildren can get the benefit of something that should have been implemented 15 years ago?

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bill45 - Sun Jan 27, 2013 11:00 am

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Isn't prol known for not messing with the low end.
I would think, the waves L3 and L16 would be good at preserving subs.
I'd like to know how they're getting the bottom end on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcxp3hGVr-E

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Sendy - Mon Jan 28, 2013 6:41 am

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It's kinda sad to assume everyone'll be listening on earbuds and cheap PC speakers. 20-80Hz is the "power" range of frequencies. Even breakbeat/accoustic kicks can sound sterile to me when highpassed. It all depends whether you're going for bassy kick or bassy bassline obviously, but I'd leave at least *something* to fill out that region, because of it's psychological impact.

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vurt - Mon Jan 28, 2013 6:51 am

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and on that day i shall weep with joy

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There are 24 posts in this topic.