Really deep bass but still loud track -> Waves LoAir?

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Guys, how do you manage to have a really good deep lowend while still having a loud track?

I learned: the deeper the bass, the more energy it costs i.e. the more headroom it occupies i.e. the lower will be the overall volume of your track. Thats why people suggest using a HPF, but I notice that a HPF even at 20Hz will still steal a noticeable amount of the perceived deep bass sound (at least when soloing the kick / bass synth).

So there is psychoacoustic bass trickery. RBass, MaxxBass, LoAir. Which one do you use to create a really deep bass but still keep the track real loud?

Or are there other mixing tricks to make the ear "think" that a bass is huge, while, from an analytical point of view, it really isn't.

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Amazon: why not use an alternative

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i will speak only for loair. it is a way of getting a solid/thick low end. but bear in mind it synthesizes it. so the processed track needs treatment.

the best use of it is when you have a nice sample but it does not have low end and you want to use it as a hit, drum or bass. than lo-air makes it possible. rather than eqing it generates the low end.

in the past projects i used it on thin vocals (extracted from the whole mix) to add the rest of the frequency range to the part. and in that particular case worked a treat.

but what lo-air does not do is fixing the mix/group to sound thick. of course you get the low frequencies but the whole thing becomes muddy and senseless. maxxbass and similar psychoacoustic processors are purposed for doing that job i believe.

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I've found it takes a lot of side chaining and limiting to keep the bass from overwhelming everything else. I tend to use melda ultra maximizer and it's saturation to keep the bass level in check while stating loud.

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NF Cosmos is brilliant at this. And you can choose the sub frequency.

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bronxsound wrote:i will speak only for loair. it is a way of getting a solid/thick low end. but bear in mind it synthesizes it. so the processed track needs treatment.

the best use of it is when you have a nice sample but it does not have low end and you want to use it as a hit, drum or bass. than lo-air makes it possible. rather than eqing it generates the low end.
Description sounds similar to Disperser, done with comb filtering maybe?
http://kilohearts.com/products/disperser
Amazon: why not use an alternative

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Thanks guys.

That was also my impression of LoAir, that if you throw it onto the whole mix, you gain low end but you also lose the in your face feeling.

I will try Cosmos.

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the bottom line is if you'd add subbass line to the original in your track, bus the tracks, compress/gate bus and finally treat it an eq you may in most situations get the same result as using a dedicated plug...

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CableChannel wrote:...I learned: the deeper the bass, the more energy it costs i.e. the more headroom it occupies i.e. the lower will be the overall volume of your track. Thats why people suggest using a HPF, [bb]ut I notice that a HPF even at 20Hz will still steal a noticeable amount of the perceived deep bass sound [/b](at least when soloing the kick / bass synth)...
That depends on the slope of the filter. For gentle LC/HP use a 6db or 12db one. Frequencies under 20Hz are not really necessary and do more harm than help. Because they have such an energy. So if you cut them a tad (let say with a 12db/oct) all the frequencies above them have "more space" or in other words: the low frequencies won´t mask the upper frequencies anymore and your whole sound should now sound "less boomy". But you also have to adjust your output gain a little bit upwards to compensate the loss in energy. That´s what most people forget and why I prefer eq´s with at least an output gain option: you have to zero them. And compressing lower freqs is a must for me (sometimes even a gentle 2:1 ratio helps a lot).

Today I needed some more low end on my Kickdrum and I decided to try out the resonant HP trick. I used Signaldusts Sweep for that and tbh: I was and still am pretty excited how nice this one sounds.

I am not quite sure if this one will work on a summed signal like the Master Bus too but on single Kickdrums this one easily replaces RBass for me because I have far more control over the final "sub enhancement". Maybe they are not the same and use a different technology but that does not matter on a kickdrum for me and that`s where I used RBass mostly. Bark Of The Dog uses the same approach as I have used with sweep. Maybew that´s more comfortable for some other useres "if you are looking for some serious OOOOMPH!!!".

Regards
Sebastian
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul

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I even tried a 48db HPF on my kick but even at 30Hz it weakens the kick. If I remember right, it didn't have an audible effect at 20Hz but then I assume it also does not buy me any headroom.

Bass boosting itself is not the problem, hundreds of plugs and tricks out there, but then my limiter distorts, thats the problem.

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CableChannel wrote:I even tried a 48db HPF on my kick but even at 30Hz it weakens the kick. If I remember right, it didn't have an audible effect at 20Hz but then I assume it also does not buy me any headroom.

Bass boosting itself is not the problem, hundreds of plugs and tricks out there, but then my limiter distorts, thats the problem.
And that`s why I suggested to use a 6db or 12db for that. For me those slopes work well and cut enough low freq content but preserve enough upper frequencies so my Kickdrum just gained a little bit of space. It´s not a lot but everything helps. It is more balancing than cutting.

But I think cutting is not key here. Try compression. Your lower frequencies maybe have way too much dynamic range. I would try to tame them with a compressor with nearly limiter settings (fastest attack and auto release) and maybe a softknee. Or even a limiter. Try it. If you don´t like what you hear you can always revert. It just to even the lower frequencies a little bit out. Or use a clipper. So many options. :)

Regards
Sebastian
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul

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Halma wrote: And that`s why I suggested to use a 6db or 12db for that. For me those slopes work well and cut enough low freq content but preserve enough upper frequencies so my Kickdrum just gained a little bit of space. It´s not a lot but everything helps. It is more balancing than cutting.
Ah now I get you. I will try that!

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This works quite well! Thanks for loosening that knot in my brain. I thought, the higher the order of the HPF the better. But to the contrary!

It's all about balancing :-)

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What I find most people perceive as the lots of low bass has the low fundamental <100 HZ, but often in a limited dose, with harmonics above that actually being more prominent. So filters EQs should get you there, but it is quite content specific. You often need to do the math in your head.

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CableChannel wrote:This works quite well! Thanks for loosening that knot in my brain. I thought, the higher the order of the HPF the better. But to the contrary!

It's all about balancing :-)
Not necessarily. The higher the order the steeper the "curve" or cutoff. But that has nothing to do with the quality. Perhaps you should check out which kind of filters your plug in is using. For such a task I prefer mostly smooth Butterworth filters. Nothing special but I found them most natural sounding. But there are other types as well like the Chebychev filter or even an Elliptic filter. All of them look (when you plot them) and sound different.

Regards
Sebastian
Underground Music Production: Sound Design, Machine Funk, High Tech Soul

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