Here is a link to some of my WIP. I am trying to give the bass a bit more strength but I don't know how to. I have tried compressing and adding a low sine wave to make it a bit more bassier and to stand out more but it's still sounding weak.
Does anyone have any idea on what I can do?
https://soundcloud.com/cass-uk/weak-bas ... le/s-AnwrX
Cheers
Strengthen Up Weak Bass
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- KVRAF
- 1595 posts since 17 Nov, 2007 from Seattle, WA
IMO, tear out the compressor during the sound design phase, whenever possible. Unless you're super confident with your compressor use.
Make sure you have the room available for bass loudness. Since there's a finite amount of room, then it probably means turning other elements down.
Then there's attention/distraction. Your saw has a lot of higher frequencies that are pretty loud, relative to the low and mid-low end, so this can trick you into un-intentionally paying more attention to that part of it. Or mixing to cater to that.
One thing you could try is shift your attention away from the sub-bass, up toward higher frequencies, where there's more presence, and a better capacity to be perceived by the human ear. We're not good at hearing bass, but when you get above, ~160hz we have a progressively much easier time hearing that.
As an experiment, you could try two oscillators with separate filter settings. One goes through a frequency cutoff that's dialed down somewhat low, around 200hz give or take, with a little bit of resonance to peak that area. Don't try to emphasize the sub frequencies yet, focus on getting it's presence somehow in the mid-lows. On the second oscillator, run it through a filter that doesn't cutoff so low, so that you have a(somewhat quiet) high-end to give it some edge. It make's the overall part easier to hear, to find it's silhouette.
At that point, when you've clearly indicated where it is, it's attack, etc with the quiet highs, and given us something to grab onto in the mid-lows, then you might add in a sub-bass sine oscillator. You don't actually need much, because within our hearing ability, they don't actually accomplish much. If the waveform looks like it's playing something loud, trust the waveform.
And if it's still not audible enough, try out offsetting an oscillator's relative phase to create some extra frequency content. Or layering an extra osc at +1 octave. Or doing a saw/square combo. Disrupting the purity of a sine or even a saw can help bring out more to work with.
Another option is to focus on bringing out it's attack, and make it's presence known primarily that way, rather than persistent presence. It's a good option. There's another thread I replied to before this one, where that's precisely the case, and I mention a few ways to soup up the attack.
Finally, bare in mind the context. Some bass synth patches are destined to get overpowered by the instruments beside them, and there's no way to avoid that. Particularly with held notes and parts that don't play quickly, non-staccato stuff. Bass is easier to hear when the rest of the song has a lot of open space. You either alter the other parts, or mix them down real quiet, or sidechain compress them(worst option).
Make sure you have the room available for bass loudness. Since there's a finite amount of room, then it probably means turning other elements down.
Then there's attention/distraction. Your saw has a lot of higher frequencies that are pretty loud, relative to the low and mid-low end, so this can trick you into un-intentionally paying more attention to that part of it. Or mixing to cater to that.
One thing you could try is shift your attention away from the sub-bass, up toward higher frequencies, where there's more presence, and a better capacity to be perceived by the human ear. We're not good at hearing bass, but when you get above, ~160hz we have a progressively much easier time hearing that.
As an experiment, you could try two oscillators with separate filter settings. One goes through a frequency cutoff that's dialed down somewhat low, around 200hz give or take, with a little bit of resonance to peak that area. Don't try to emphasize the sub frequencies yet, focus on getting it's presence somehow in the mid-lows. On the second oscillator, run it through a filter that doesn't cutoff so low, so that you have a(somewhat quiet) high-end to give it some edge. It make's the overall part easier to hear, to find it's silhouette.
At that point, when you've clearly indicated where it is, it's attack, etc with the quiet highs, and given us something to grab onto in the mid-lows, then you might add in a sub-bass sine oscillator. You don't actually need much, because within our hearing ability, they don't actually accomplish much. If the waveform looks like it's playing something loud, trust the waveform.
And if it's still not audible enough, try out offsetting an oscillator's relative phase to create some extra frequency content. Or layering an extra osc at +1 octave. Or doing a saw/square combo. Disrupting the purity of a sine or even a saw can help bring out more to work with.
Another option is to focus on bringing out it's attack, and make it's presence known primarily that way, rather than persistent presence. It's a good option. There's another thread I replied to before this one, where that's precisely the case, and I mention a few ways to soup up the attack.
Finally, bare in mind the context. Some bass synth patches are destined to get overpowered by the instruments beside them, and there's no way to avoid that. Particularly with held notes and parts that don't play quickly, non-staccato stuff. Bass is easier to hear when the rest of the song has a lot of open space. You either alter the other parts, or mix them down real quiet, or sidechain compress them(worst option).
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- KVRist
- 304 posts since 12 Jun, 2011
Your link does not seem to work?
But here are a few things I like to do to get a nice phat bass.
Use harmonic boosters. Any plug in that can give your synth a extra bit of edge.
Group your bass elements together so that you can process them together helping them gel.
Look at tracks you really like and see where the bass frequencies sit in relation to the other elements, this will be a good rough guide.
Make sure you create the right sound to start of with. I find using dedicated bass synths like the minitaur help in the sound design stage.
But here are a few things I like to do to get a nice phat bass.
Use harmonic boosters. Any plug in that can give your synth a extra bit of edge.
Group your bass elements together so that you can process them together helping them gel.
Look at tracks you really like and see where the bass frequencies sit in relation to the other elements, this will be a good rough guide.
Make sure you create the right sound to start of with. I find using dedicated bass synths like the minitaur help in the sound design stage.
