Excellent information. Just what i needed. I have to ask though, I picked up MaxxBass from Waves Audio when I bought one of their bundles but I just assumed it was snake oil. I think the claims are that the plugin does what was talked about in the paper that you mentioned in this video. Do you know of anyone who actually uses MaxxBass in a real world scenario? Either way, it's not like you can slap a plugin on something and expect it to be all good. I haven't really done any bass heavy production but I'm inspired to give it a go after watching this. I'm not a mastering engineer by any stretch of the imagination.
I have to say this video and the follow up have been one of the more informative ones I've watched in some time. I have been experimenting with the Operator's harmonic overtone draw area odd/even with some good results. Hard to believe I slept on that for this long. I'm interested if you know of any device that allows you to do a similar thing with any instrument. I'm on Live 10 Suite, so 11/12 stuff is out for me. I've been stretching my brain, trying to recall if I saw anything of this type, along the way. I'm interested in your thoughts.
Hey Terence. Great question. I've used Waves Maxxbass and R Bass in the past. What I found was that they were substantially increasing overall level with their processing, so it sounded "good" by being louder. As soon as I gain staged down the output so the "enhanced" signal was the same as the dry signal, I did NOT like what either of those plugins were doing and I never used them on a project. Some people may disagree and like them, but I ditched those plugins and I do think they're snake oil. Just use parallel saturation with linear phase EQ and try that. Much more flexible. Cheers!
@irishmossdubwise great question. Serum and Vital allow you to do this. Any additive synth should allow this as well. Operator is probably the easiest way to achieve this effect in Live though. Keep using it! All the best and thanks for the kind words.
Drum and Bass producer here, and the only gripe I have about this video is that I wish it was made 10 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of terrible projects 😂 Super well done. Learned a lot and confirmed what my ears have been telling me. Thank you!! 🙏🏾🙏🏾
Back in the days people like Dillinja would pump their samples through tube amps and speakers, then record them. That means that they were automatically amble to eliminate frequencies that would be beyond the capabilities of sound systems, and also add harmonics to enhance the perceived bass. There are in the box and out of the box solutions to this. I really like those older tracks done like this.
@@ES-qm5hr Yeah Ed Rush and Opticle used to run their bass lines through a mackie desk a bunch of times and over drive it so it saturated each pass to build up layers of soft clipped saturation. This wavtable synthasis method is really cool though as it takes away alot of work, and you can get close to than organic sound faster, leaving much less post processing needed to get your pure sine wave to have a bunch of plesent higher harminics. ✌️🤙
Thanks for the share. I love hearing about the creative ways people used to do things. And yeah this additive method is fast and easy to do :). That’s why I like it. Cheers!
I make primarily dubstep so sub has always been a focal-point in production. My experimentation eventually lead me to saturated sine-waves. Cool to see that validated here.
If I may chime in on the psychoacoustic part: You need at least 3 harmonics (counting the fundamental as nr 1) to create the psychoacoustic bass. Since a harmonic is f*n (f being the fundamental and n is any whole number) the distance between each harmonic is always the fundamental (meaning f_3= f_2+ f, or f_4 = f_3+ f, or f_5 = f_4 + f and so on). And this harmonic "chain" exists only for the fundamental at f. Therefor our brain is immediately guided towards this fundamental, even if itself is not there/audible. Additionally the neighbouring harmonics create a beat frequency, (a beat frequency is a perceived frequency with f_x-f_y = f_beat), which is, given that f_x=f_3 and f_y=f_2 are the harmonics, again the fundamental frequency. And something about this interplay of effects gives the possibility to make (most) people hear frequencies that are not there.
Ninja-level add on there mate. Thanks for chiming in! Love that. To clarify, are you saying you need the fundamental + 2 harmonics? Or are you saying the fundamental + 3 harmonics? I wasn't sure if you're calling the fundamental a "harmonic". I don't personally, only frequencies that are multiples of it. Semantics, but I want to make sure I understand you. Also, did you see this somewhere in the literature? I would assume there is a study to reference where this was discovered. If so, please link it. Thanks again for the input! Always welcome. And nice work on your channel and videos. Cheers!
@@warpacademyThank you very much! To answer your comment:. You technically don't need the fundamental (or at least can make it very quiet), but the next two harmonics (at least) are needed. The "annoying" thing about the naming convention is, that the fundamental is named f_1 (since f*1 = f_1) and the first overtone f*2 = f_2, would be called second harmonic. In numbers: 50Hz is your fundamental f_1, 100Hz = f_2, 150Hz = f_3. If you play just f_2, you brain perceives it as only that. But if you play f_2 and f_3 your brain realises on one hand the beat frequency (being f_3-f_2 = 50Hz) and on the other hand, that f_3 is not the second harmonic of f_2 (that would be 200Hz), therefor your brain concludes that there is a frequency below them, that has to have created those harmonics. A little caveat is tho, that psychoacoustics are weird. And you will always find people that don't hear the effect you hear, or hear it different.
Brilliant. Very clear. And also did you have a study where you saw this? Curious to look at the research. I haven’t seen this yet in the AES Journal but I may have missed it or there are other journals. Cheers!
@@warpacademy One of the OG papers: James C. Smith et al. ,Human Auditory Frequency-Following Responses to a Missing Fundamental.Science201,639-641(1978) also good: Bendor, D., Wang, X. The neuronal representation of pitch in primate auditory cortex. Nature 436, 1161-1165 (2005) Finding the Pitch of the Missing Fundamental in Infants Chao He and Laurel J. Trainor Journal of Neuroscience 17 June 2009 (how babies percieve it) Perception of the missing fundamental in nonhuman primates R. W. Ward Tomlinson; Dietrich W. F. Schwarz, AUGUST 01 1988 (how apes hear it, i just think its funny)
Thank you for updated acoustical lecture,since even guitars and vocals are all autotuned,easily noticed since not properly oriented,lots of masking sound quality,then compensated by increasing volume,then gets distorted.
Well covered man. I'm excited to play around and find some fun ways to use this theory before watching your video on how you apply them. Great coverage of the topic!!
My pleasure! Yeah it is interesting from a processing standpoint. I’m sure you could put together a useful plugin from the various types of effects chains used here. All the best!
Very informative and great to see someone doing good research and backing things up with good sources. It all happened to track with a lot of what I learned after I had my room done up proper, so that's encouraging :D
This is incredible content!!!!! I’m going to need to watch this again and take a lot of notes! You have such a great way of teaching. Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge.
Go for it! Yeah, the AES Journal is great. Lots of excellent stuff there. You just have to sift to find what's relevant. Science doesn't always translate to real life in the studio perfectly. There are also other great journals out there for audio, such as IOA Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics. Cheers!
For the 3rd question, my answer has become using a low pass filter on a sine wave with frequency follow/keyfollow. It's doable on any crap synth and to get a *little* more bassey feel out of it, adjusting the resonance does the trick well.
I'm confused. With a pure sine wave there is nothing to filter out. It's a single tone. If you filter it, you will simply remove it entirely or attenuate it as there are no harmonics for the filter to work with. Did you mean that you run the sine wave through saturation first and then filter it? Cheers!
I have “sub-ed” to your channel. 😊 I have no clue why the algo hasn’t shown me your channel before. You. Are. A. Greeeeaaaaaat presenter dude. So clear, so easy to follow. I think viewers here will enjoy the recent Veritasium video. He covers how church organs have a very similar process of generating deeper tones using higher tones. It’s how some churches apparently produce the rumbling fullness of a church organ without every church needing HUGE organ pipes.
Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad you’re connected with the channel now and thanks for subscribing! I always love seeing other videos about this. I’ll check that out. If you have a direct link to it please add it. Cheers!
This was great thank you! I think that was really valuable to learn about the concern of just utilizing a saturator on a sub and the unintentional side effects like muddy intermodulation. The explanation around usage of harmonics and virtual/residual(?) pitch to increase perceived low end was awesome - I didn’t realize that some speakers high pass per se, so it’ll be interesting to see how I can implement some of the suggestions from this video Thanks again!
Wow - I have always used the rounded sine sub but using the custom sounds so much better with added clarity and loudness without to the peak. Thanks!!! Your videos are the best out there!!!
Right on. Thanks for the comment. Yeah I used to use straight up sine waves for sub, then in the original version of NI Massive there was a nice rounded rectangle that sounded better. But now with Serum you have total control and can make a perfect waveform custom just to your liking. Subscribe to the channel and stay in touch! All the best.
Triangle waves can be really nice for subs. Square waves have a ton of mid and high end so you get a super buzzy sounding bright synth sound and not a sub sound if you use it. Not the sound I would call “sub”. But if you filter out the HF if can work.
@@warpacademy ofc u use the lp filter lol. the sound is huge and full of 20-50hz, all thats needed to drive subs in a club. pro one fed to a decent analog mic pre with some compression from an ssl or api unit u can make a professional and huge soudning sub in minutes.
Yeah I never ever just did a pure sine wave doubled under my synths like other producers told me to, I always saturated it and glued/rendered it into my basses
On the subject of noise in cars, Some luxury car makers like Cadillac have the ANC system (Automatic Noise Cancellation) by using microphones listen to that noise and inject an inverted phase version of the noise into the speakers making the base more distinguished.
Absolutely. My vehicle has this. It’s a Bose system that has Audio Pilot I think it’s called. Questionable results. Not that effective. Have you heard a good one?
Yeah the concept is the same as noise cancelling headphones, but in the car the concept doesn't work. In order for the inverted phase signal to cancel properly, it must be as exact as possible, including every minute timing detail. Due to the fact that passengers are bobbing around inside a vehicle, and they are different distances away from each speaker (IE different cabin listening positions) this technology can never work. It's for the same reason that you can never use room EQ to "correct" the frequency response in a music studio for more than one single listening position. You create an improvement at one position at the expense of deterioration of all other positions.
You can also band-pass to isolate the low-end of your master and process these frequencies in parallel (if you really can’t go back to the stems). Some EQs like ProQ3 limit the interpolation distortion and open up worlds of creativity for mastering aficionados 🙂👍
There's a reason why old-school producers used a weak sine and then topped it with "main" bassline. You still had fundamental but also harmonics, even to a degree where the main bassline was playing its own thing harmonically. On the big systems the infra sounds are already filtered out or at least should be filtered out. To maximize the dynamic range, I'd still cut them.
Good points! And yeah, large PAs will often have a cut at 25 hz or somewhere around there to remove infrasonics that could actually be harmful to people at those SPL levels. The key is not to cut the audible range, even 30 hz. Leave that alone with the cut and just right size it as shown in the video.
It sounds mental but it works: I through a bad pass filter (high pass at 200 low pass at around 2-4khz) and just dial in enough saturation/upper harmonics on the sub so I can JUST start to hear the sub enough with the entire mix high passed, I adjust my levels this way too, and it turns out nearly perfect. Try it! The soul of your song is in the midrange, although the pillars exist in the low end and low mids.
F&M curves might be outdated but they're really important to understand the importance of controlling harshness before anything. That little "smile-dip" from 2k to 6k, is still present in the final spectrum of many songs. Anyway, I've got a suggestion for car listening. I drive a 2012 Toyota Yaris. It has a really good sound system to be a "basic" sound system because It sounds like there's a subwoofer without a subwoofer. One day I've noticed that if I keep my window close (driver side), I can avoid the subs masking while driving (unless i'm driving really fast on a speedway obviously) by adjusting the other window at various heights. 100% open increase the lowest sub freq while 100% closed basically masks the sub freq, boosting around 200 hz. From 5% open to 100% open you can basically boost from around 100hz to around 30hz. I don't know if this happens for every car tho...I've never tried with other cars... To conclude, I've got a question: isn't basically mandatory to put at least a LP filter after every non-linear processing to avoid intermodulation (and also preferable to activate oversampling where possible, for the same reason)?
For sure. They're a subset of data in an evolving understanding of human perception of sound. They were an early attempt with pioneering information, crucial for others to stand on and get more accurate data.
The window open or closed is probably modulating the reflected energy of the sub. The consequence is that the peaks and nulls become stronger or weaker. If the sub disappears with your window up then it’s not due to masking but due to destructive interference, basically a cancellation where the reflection causes a resonance. Based on the frequency, the wavelength changes and so do the pattern of peaks and dips in the sound in the space inside the car. Actually, I think destructive interference and modal peaks and dips are separate but related issues.
You make a good point at 17:55 about the approach based on where you are in the production chain. The best way is during arrangement to just use multiple sine oscillators for the fundamental and next two harmonics and level match, but if you're in a mixing capacity where you don't have access to the source, the bandpass method works in a pinch. Very cool
@@kallaprime799 Quite familiar, not nearly as effective. You can make waves at whatever frequency you want, not sure what you mean by “can go lower”. Sine is perfect sub.
Man I'm from IRCAM research institute in Paris You are very well documented, bravo. You should write a medium article about it I think. Just a suggestion.
Wow, thank you. Great suggestion. I’m not sure how these ideas would translate to a purely written format without the audio examples but I’ll give it some thought. What do you do at IRCAM? Cheers!
@jeremyuzan1169 thanks for letting me know! I'd love to connect and chat about your work sometime if you're up for it. You can reach out to us at Warp Academy via our contact form if you like: warpacademy.com/contact/
i learned quite some stuff from this. i just wanna add one thing, the reason why highpass filters can be so destructive on masters is the phase shift of the low frequencies that goes along with it. the carefully tuned waveshape you created will be completely turned on its head if you add a high pass in close proximity to the lowest frequency, the higher the order the more aggressive the phase shifts are. sadly, linear phase filters arent really an option here because of the increasingly audible preringing the lower you go in frequency, which can totally kill the transient impact of your kicks. if you only affect the bass-synth though, linear phase can be an option.
Hey hey. Glad you learned something from this. Linear phase filters can be easily designed where there is not audible pre ringing. Dont let contrived and alarmist examples of “pre ringing” fool you when done by people on the internet. It’s entirely possible to use linear phase filters without destroying your song. In fact many of the worlds best plugins use linear phase crossovers or have that option. DMG Limitless, FabFilter Saturn and ProMB. All iZotope plugins from Neutron to Ozone. They all use linear phase filters and everyone uses them. I would encourage you to test this for yourself and you’ll see. I use mastering plugins with linear phase filters all the time in my work and no one has ever heard any pre-ringing because it’s not audible the way it’s implemented in these plugins. In the videos on RUclips where people bash linear phase filters and cause pre ringing they are abusing the plugin and setting up a totally unrealistic example to demonstrate a point. Also event the tiny mostly inaudible pre ringing is only really noticeable on drum transients in some cases and other jump discontinuities. I’m using it on the bass synth like you noticed. There is zero downside.
I just tried this. Added the harmonic to the sine in Operator to more of a squared rectangle then band pass to Sat to band pass and added to dry to taste. Wonderful. Going to play with this until I get the hang of it. Thanks.
Nice work! It’s always good to put the theory into practice as soon as you can. There’s a lot of finesse with this technique and practice creates progress. Experiment and have fun. Cheers!
Box four: We have to learn entirely different paradigms for Immersive Audio, and rendering sources as objects end users can readjust, while at the same time staying compatible with stereo, 5.1, mobile, auto, and good or bad home and PA reproduction systems. There are serious reasons this piece evades for bi-tri-amping, and control of limiters for bands rather than overall pumping, plus intermod reduction, and effective efficiency gains. That's now common in lower tier home theater and PC systems, and not just commercial PA's. As to deeper bass, we might question if bone conduction frequencies are psychoacoustic in terms of audible reproduction? Perceptions of time differentials is a bigger deal for spatialization and perceived loudness than this piece covers, while it's been like 45 years since Aphex or Eventide started offering boxes to manipulate harmonics or time in new ways.
Great insights and thoughts. There is much territory to explore here for sure. I kept things within the realm of stereo audio here as it’s a deep enough topic already within that limitation. Immersive audio is fascinating and extremely complex. Just the acoustics of an Atmos mixing room are super intense. You’re making me curious with the comment on bone conduction frequencies. Do you have access to any research on that? Cheers!
@@warpacademy I'm an older engineer who's been an industrial pro audio manager and designer, and contributed to regulatory law for broadcasting, and to some standards we've all used. A lot of both audio and video are hard to discuss, as few people have high literacy levels, and so much involves perceptual experiences that are hard to convert to words. I've likely seen studies on bone conduction, over hearing protection, in ear attenuators or monitors vs earplugs or muffs, acoustic cancellation systems, and sound design, as well as hearing physiology or aging biomedical info. Nothing stands out as simple or a good stand alone treatise. I remember when Aurotones weren't yet an expected element of major studios, or when Crown demo'd power amps where one channel still worked into a speaker while the other was fed to railroad ties users could short with metal bars. Or discussing speaker design with guys like Irving Fried, and the evolution to use of uPC thermal and motion controllers rather than Eq or limiters to optimize output and response, but that required cheap in box amp modules, where pro audio borrowed back from cars for size and thermal traits (just rectify needed rails power; switching amps or MOSFETs for capacity or thermal reduction, etc), and direct rectification and high speed DC-DC converters to reduce iron size and weight compared to 60 Hz transformers for safety and voltage conversions). What I'm suspecting we may need over the next decade are an audio equivalent of video LUT's, to simplify 11.1 Immersive audio to options simple enough for end users, or backwards compatibility. How do we tell people, we have this great new option to help elderly, difficult listening environments, etc, but all you have to do is throw out all your familiar expectations and learn a new tech cosmology? And, do that in some form that integrates engineering, production, and end user aspects?
Thanks for letting me know a bit about your background. Sounds like you've had a ton of interesting experience in the industry. It's amazing to see (and hear) technology change so much over time and to learn about how things were done in the past. I appreciate you contributing to the conversation and sharing your thoughts. Hope to see you 'round the channel! All the best.
@@lokiva8540 I’m too illiterate to understand 90% of your comment :D But for you last question I guess everything will be decided by market rules; if there are incentives (e.g. mere marketing, competition, demand, profitability) then people will learn how to mix for the new standard, no matter what. Otherwise it will remain used by a niche of users, or productions that have enough money to invest (dunno, like movies?). Makes me think of XML standards. Or, as you said, some innovation that facilitates and increases accessibility for average producers. Or…. a new generation of producers that won’t have to throw away knowledge but directly learning the “new way”. (hoping it will add up to the old way rather than leading to a partial loss of that pregress wisdom [again, makes me think about the software development generational change 😄]).
Dear instructor, I’m from the 70 disco era, wow on the small speaker bass solution, you are describing a DBX Sub Harmonic. Now, at that time a stand alone equipment; and used on clubs to developed massive amounts of bass , but from massive JBL15 and 16 inch subs.
Many use this approach in sound design and mixing for film. In addition to this subtle adding of harmonics, one can also use a separate Low Frequency Effects or LFE channel to suddenly add large amounts of very low frequency sound pressure to the theater. This is often percussive filtered noise or rumble. Very effective if used at certain key moments. My point is this; lots of bass all the time can become tiresome. A dynamic mix with sub bass effects used sparingly to highlight parts of your track might have the greater impact on your audience.
Hey hey. For sure. Great addition to the conversation. We also use the LFE channel for immersive music. I agree that sub, like anything else, can suffer from the "too much of a good thing". It's about adding it in for those high energy parts of the song, like the drops. That said, I can make a case for having less dynamics when it comes to sub content. It's again due to the equal loudness contours and psycho-acoustics. The contours compress a lot when you get lower. Which means you need less dynamic range. If you have lots of dynamic range in the very low end then slightly louder notes will sound way on top, and possibly painful, and notes that are a little too much under the average level will sound very weak. Not what you want in electronic music and hip hop. But having sub all through a song, relentlessly, would take away the special impact it can add, which is what I think you're getting at. You want to use it strategically. Cheers!
Would love to know how to create those sounds, particularily that effect which feels like high pressure. I've come across tracks where the subs feel like they are generating pressure on your skull when listening on headphones, but judging by their other tracks, i don't think it was intentional ! Yours is a good tip because it can be a cool effect, and i believe the Drum & Bass producers Noisia used it a few times to layer under drum breaks or basses during a short section of their song, because having it on constantly would be too much to listen to
One of the mixes I have heard with just awesome bass is MO - Blur It is absolutely perfection when that chorus drops. Punch, sub, edge, vocal deluxe. ❤
A lot of people naming some of the best subs in their favorite songs. Mine has been Mr Carmack - Gimme Dat. No matter what speakers or headphones I use to play that song, the bass is always the loudest, punchiest bass I’ve ever heard.
Thanks. Yeah I stopped doing intro bumpers and instead just got right into the meat of it. I know everyone is busy and I try to explain as much as possible without any fluff.
Great rundown on this topic! For people who don't get it, I find it very valuable to know how to go over the limits. Since I learned how to make louder music than I actually need without losing my kick and snare to the limiter all of the sudden I could pay attention to punch, tightness etc. because I was no longer fighting with it.
Thanks! And yeah that a great realization. A lot of people struggle with getting clean loudness and then find that all consuming. It can be a distraction from focusing on just getting a good mix. Thankfully when you know the basics of clean loudness you can direct your attention to the other details, just like you said. All the best!
great stuff to mention 😄 i always advise to others changing listening levels every now and then to prevent ear fatigue u couldve mentioned about phase shift imo and what's it's effect in creating headroom (or maintaining it) filters causing phase shift and having static frequency cutoffs with changing notes can cause some inconsistencies which then limit how much u can dial in distortion😄
Thanks Robbie. Yeah changing listening SPL is something a lot of mixers do so they can hear in various ranges of the equal loudness contours. I think that’s a great idea. Another common thing to prevent ear fatigue is to follow the Bob Katz house curve where the HF is rolled off with a tilt starting from 1 kHz and terminating 7 dB down at 20 kHz. That can allow you to dramatically reduce ear fatigue and mix longer hours. Regarding phase shift, yeah it’s totally relevant. I did touch on it when I talked about running the parallel processing saturation chain and I said to use linear phase filters for that to maintain phase integrity. There’s lots more to say about that topic but this is already a 25 minute deep dive video so I’ll leave that for another day. In general, I’m running my bass into a limiter as a bass Submix before it even hits my 2 bus so if there is a little bit of extra level due to phase shift I’m not worried about it. Unless it causes an audible problem. Usually I can easily absorb that with a bass specific limiter / soft clipper setup without creating undesirable distortion. Thanks for watching and commenting. See ya round the channel!
Wow, came across this video totally randomly. Some top shelf quality content here. I didn't know the Fletcher Munson curve was replaced.. not that I really used it, but that's really interesting that it's been updated. Producer and Mastering Engineer for 20+ years. I feel like I should have known this! Long term producers realise at some point that harmonics and layers that give the bass more low-mid information is important so it can be heard on smaller systems. I always thought that Sine waves are inaudible even on huge systems because they're too pure.. Saturation, distortion and overtones are the key to hearing bass. Blending in a sine is just gravy for people with subwoofers ;) I think for bass-heavy styles of music, multiband compression and limiting are something you need to understand so the bass energy doesn't eat all your headroom. Energy and frequencies are logarithmic in scale - if you want a bass heavy track, you gotta control it more than any other music style. s you mentioned at the end - every octaves contains 2x the amount of frequencies. There is 2x the amount of information that can be perceived per octave. Drum n Bass as a genre (well, a lot of different EDM styles) really forced people to rethink mixing and mastering completely. Production is such a rabbit hole!
Glad you found this video. Thanks for the comments and background from your experience. I agree that band specific compression is essential in bass heavy music. It’s easy to see that the Equal Loudness Contours compress in the low end, meaning that the lower you get in frequency the less dynamic range you should have in your bass. Otherwise louder notes will sound super loud and potentially painful and quieter notes will sound far too low and the performance will lose a tight and consistent feel. Nice to see another ME around here. Stay in touch!
Very good video and well explained subject. One thing that bother me in this approch is that we change the sonical content of the music to match the material of some listeners. And yes I would prefer to have a speeker that highpass the signal to meet the spec of the driver, then the artiste to change the way he wants his music to hear on a descent/good system. I build speekers, and produce music, and yes you can trick the mind with the harmonics so the brain virtualy reproduce the missing frequency but you miss on a lot of other elements that are percieved when you actualy have speakers that can reproduce that lvl of frequencies. Avoiding to build tracks with this type of listening also intented make's me sad but maybe that the hard truth about our time. That said I think it is very important to understand how sound is percieved by our senses and how to manipulate the way we build music to get to the feeling we want.
Smart comments here. You clearly understand the issues at play. I resonate with what you’ve said. Adding harmonics can change the music and ultimately you don’t want to get so heavy handed with this approach that it takes away from the sound you want. That said, in the genres I’m talking about, a saturated sound is not only common, it’s quite desirable and serves the music well. It’s aggressive music, mixed to be really energetic and up front. Dance and club music. So I find that this type of sub sound design actually sounds better. Of course you can overcook it and then it sounds bad. So it’s all about finesse and skill. Thanks for the comment and insights. Do you build speakers just for yourself or commercially?
Yeah I love using wavetable synthasis where you can pick and change the fundamental and it's harmonics (exactly like you did in this vid), and at which level each harmonic is, and use this to create "square" waves with really rounded corners so there's only a little bit of flat at the top for my subs. It absolutely slams and plays really nice with limiters as long as you set the gain right, and it sits right below where the limiter is hitting.
Excellent. Fully agree. The more square and less rounded the wavetable the more buzzy and bright it will be so it’s a matter of taste how much of that fits your vibe. Luckily these types of synths make it so easy to customize to your liking. Cheers!
@@warpacademy Yeah the flatter the top the more harmonics it has (trailing off into infinity for a perfect square wave, or more realistically the noise floor or nyquist and reflecting back etc.) however using this technique you can gain a wide variety of phat sounding square, or fuzzy sounding sine waves and all kinds of things inbetween for you subs. 👍🤙
No need to bash the Fletcher-Munson research so much. It provides the same conclusion you came to with the more modern research. Respect the past. It’s how we got to where we are today. They worked with the tech/knowledge available at that time and the research served well for many decades.
Oh I’m not bashing it. I do respect what they did. However studies are replaced by newer and better data. In the words of Floyd Toole, “While we respect the pioneering efforts of the early researchers, their data are no longer trusted.” It’s not the same conclusions. There are substantial differences in the curves. Especially in the amount of LF needed to sound balanced and how they compress.
Hard to be more scientific than presenting and discussing the relevant research directly from the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society as well as the acoustical physics directly from the textbooks that are used in training acousticians.
@sysxtem looking over your comments, I wanted to convey something to you. I welcome spirited debate here. I love discussing audio, entertaining different opinions, even when they differ from my own, and I'm willing to be proven wrong. That's all part of being a learner and a teacher. I've presented thorough and current data, I've backed up my assertions with the research. That's why I called this video the Science of Modern Sub Bass. We can all disagree with each other, but keep it respectful. If you think I've gotten something wrong, or you have a different perspective, then back up your assertions and present better data. That's how science works.
@sysxtem the science is there to be discussed and cited. Just because I'm discussing it rather than doing first hand research doesn't make the information any less valid. I collect information and package it up for people on the channel. I'm not interested in becoming a research scientist. Research scientists have no idea how to mix records. That's my focus. And all the useful scientific information associated with how to get better at that.
In your example at 14:04 you're essentially just compressing a narrow band around 100Hz. This is going to severely mess with phase unless you use linear phase but then you have pre-ringing sub which just makes your whole low end muddy. A better method would be to use a dynamic EQ that compresses around the frequency because it'll have less effect on phase.
Hey hey. You’re partially correct here. In the study they used non-linear phase filters which would create phase shift. I specifically said in the video that whenever I process bass in parallel I use FIR linear phase filters only to prevent phase shift. I think perhaps you didn’t see that part of the video. Also the idea that one “shouldn’t use linear phase filters” due to “pre-ringing” is completely misguided. It’s possible to design a linear phase filter where there’s no audible pre-ringing. Just look at the flagship limiter from DMG, Limitless, which uses all linear phase filters in its crossovers. Pre-ringing is typically only noticeable at jump discontinuities (drum transients, square wave synth waveforms), and would not be noticeable on typical bass waveforms, especially considering bass is ducked to the kick drum. Unfortunately some alarmist people on the internet have contrived totally unrealistic examples to demonstrate how pre-ringing can cause a mix to sound muddy, but they are just that - contrived. Use your ears. If you hear pre-ringing then do something about it. For me, I never find it’s an issue the way I process bass.
Just found this channel, and I'm amazed how fully and clearly the topic was addressed. when i heard about pop, i thought i"ll switch soon, then i heard the preview files. Oh damn sir, Id like to get those tracks somehow :D Just subbed. What is your alias to release music?
Equal loudness curves are not about balance, certainly not about musical balance. Rather they're an averaged subjective measure of how loud individuals with good hearing determined a tone of a given frequency needed to be in order to match a given level of a 1kHz tone. Among other things, the resulting curves display how human hearing compresses sound differently at different frequencies. A major limitation of equal loudness curves is that they're based on steady state comparisons of two frequencies in isolation. None of that takes into account the complexity either of music or of human hearing physiology beyond that simplistic, two tone comparison.
Correct and I’m in full agreement. They’re an attempt to approximate how the non-linearity of the human auditory system presents itself. With anything in acoustics, simple tones, complex material, transients / clicks, classical music, speech, EDM music etc will all be perceived differently. And this topic leaves much room for further exploration and research. Similar to LUFS. It’s far from a perfect system and it is only an approximation of how we experience loudness. Thanks for the comment!
In the end everything's competing for the mids. Adding harmonics to the sub means less space in the lows and mids in exchange for being audible on phone speakers.
Good ears and fair comment. There is a trade off for sure. I pushed the saturation on this too hard in retrospect. And I did add a note in the video to that effect saying that you can simply add less saturation. It sounds better more subtle than my example and you don’t have the same issue with crowding the low mids.
Yeah I hear you. I mean, think of how much it costs to build and maintain RUclips though. Ads are how they make the money to continue to offer the platform for free. The ads are the tradeoff. Also the ads do help creators like me make a bit of revenue from the views I generate, and that helps me continue making videos. Cheers!
I agree that some are good. But some aren’t. Depends which model and year you have. And really what I mean is earbuds. There are thousands of models. Apple is not the only company who makes earbuds.
It’s not about being nostalgic about the past. Think of it like a recording of a recording of a recording. The bigger the distance from actually playing an instrument you get the bigger the intricacies get muddled and the more the culture gets away from that, the more dumbed down the music gets. It’s frogs boiling in a pot. The vast majority of people have no idea that there are way better artworks that could paint an audible picture in the minds of people, leading to more inspired lives. Albert Einstein listened to music and so did everyone else. Art exists to inspire everyday people to try new things or to keep perusing their dreams. The more bland it gets, the more society gets bland.
I haven't looked at Phaseplant in a while. I own it, but honestly Serum is my go to. Phaseplant is a super capable and advanced synth, I'm sure you could easily do this in it.
Easy fix...pure sine wave bass note...about 3/4 of ur headroom..then layer with another bass sound with grit like saw wave with hp filter to cut out sub sine wave..make this 1/4 headroom...KEEP ON KEY WITH PURE SINE WAVE!
Layering sounds can certainly work great, for some genres and workflows. And, it's more complicated to achieve the same (or worse) result than you can by starting with a better waveform. The pure sine wave can never go as loud as a rounded rectangle, and it will always take up more headroom than needed...because - physics. Also, when you consider things from a Fourier synthesis perspective, the rounded rectangle actually IS still comprised of a sine wave as the lowest partial - it's just also summed with several other sine wave partials to reduce it's peak and add low order harmonics.
Oh yeah. A very similar approach. You're band-limiting a parallel signal with saturation added. It works well! Just make sure you're using a linear phase filter for the parallel chain :)
Good point. I think maybe people misunderstand me thinking that I’m taking out a lot of actual sub and completely replacing it with harmonics. I’m not. As I said in the video, I “carefully attenuate the sub (just a little) and shift that energy upwards”. You don’t want to be heavy handed with it. Just a nudge. Depending on the song. You will still feel it in your body on a PA. They can easily produce huge SPL in the LF without needing a huge spike in the sub region in the source audio. You can control it. Watch the MixbusTV video I linked in the description. David explains this.
I still want to know how old school Bass music like techmaster PEB bass mechanic bass Cube the bass that ate Miami all that kind of stuff how did they make that super low end sub base ?
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Thanks for watching! Make sure you watch this next: Part 2 - The Art of MODERN Sub Bass here: ruclips.net/video/o8LEdOKuaGQ/видео.html
Excellent information. Just what i needed. I have to ask though, I picked up MaxxBass from Waves Audio when I bought one of their bundles but I just assumed it was snake oil. I think the claims are that the plugin does what was talked about in the paper that you mentioned in this video. Do you know of anyone who actually uses MaxxBass in a real world scenario? Either way, it's not like you can slap a plugin on something and expect it to be all good. I haven't really done any bass heavy production but I'm inspired to give it a go after watching this. I'm not a mastering engineer by any stretch of the imagination.
I have to say this video and the follow up have been one of the more informative ones I've watched in some time. I have been experimenting with the Operator's harmonic overtone draw area odd/even with some good results. Hard to believe I slept on that for this long. I'm interested if you know of any device that allows you to do a similar thing with any instrument. I'm on Live 10 Suite, so 11/12 stuff is out for me. I've been stretching my brain, trying to recall if I saw anything of this type, along the way. I'm interested in your thoughts.
Hey Terence. Great question. I've used Waves Maxxbass and R Bass in the past. What I found was that they were substantially increasing overall level with their processing, so it sounded "good" by being louder. As soon as I gain staged down the output so the "enhanced" signal was the same as the dry signal, I did NOT like what either of those plugins were doing and I never used them on a project. Some people may disagree and like them, but I ditched those plugins and I do think they're snake oil. Just use parallel saturation with linear phase EQ and try that. Much more flexible. Cheers!
1:43 is that Fractal Fest?
@irishmossdubwise great question. Serum and Vital allow you to do this. Any additive synth should allow this as well. Operator is probably the easiest way to achieve this effect in Live though. Keep using it! All the best and thanks for the kind words.
Drum and Bass producer here, and the only gripe I have about this video is that I wish it was made 10 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of terrible projects 😂
Super well done. Learned a lot and confirmed what my ears have been telling me. Thank you!! 🙏🏾🙏🏾
Thanks mate! Glad it was helpful. I love d n b as a genre so it was fun making this. Stay in touch and see ya round the channel.
Back in the days people like Dillinja would pump their samples through tube amps and speakers, then record them. That means that they were automatically amble to eliminate frequencies that would be beyond the capabilities of sound systems, and also add harmonics to enhance the perceived bass. There are in the box and out of the box solutions to this. I really like those older tracks done like this.
Right on. Fully support that technique. It’s not unlike micing a bass guitar amp. Good stuff!
@@ES-qm5hr Yeah Ed Rush and Opticle used to run their bass lines through a mackie desk a bunch of times and over drive it so it saturated each pass to build up layers of soft clipped saturation.
This wavtable synthasis method is really cool though as it takes away alot of work, and you can get close to than organic sound faster, leaving much less post processing needed to get your pure sine wave to have a bunch of plesent higher harminics. ✌️🤙
Thanks for the share. I love hearing about the creative ways people used to do things. And yeah this additive method is fast and easy to do :). That’s why I like it. Cheers!
I make primarily dubstep so sub has always been a focal-point in production. My experimentation eventually lead me to saturated sine-waves. Cool to see that validated here.
Right on! That’s what it’s about.
If I may chime in on the psychoacoustic part: You need at least 3 harmonics (counting the fundamental as nr 1) to create the psychoacoustic bass. Since a harmonic is f*n (f being the fundamental and n is any whole number) the distance between each harmonic is always the fundamental (meaning f_3= f_2+ f, or f_4 = f_3+ f, or f_5 = f_4 + f and so on). And this harmonic "chain" exists only for the fundamental at f. Therefor our brain is immediately guided towards this fundamental, even if itself is not there/audible. Additionally the neighbouring harmonics create a beat frequency, (a beat frequency is a perceived frequency with f_x-f_y = f_beat), which is, given that f_x=f_3 and f_y=f_2 are the harmonics, again the fundamental frequency.
And something about this interplay of effects gives the possibility to make (most) people hear frequencies that are not there.
Ninja-level add on there mate. Thanks for chiming in! Love that.
To clarify, are you saying you need the fundamental + 2 harmonics? Or are you saying the fundamental + 3 harmonics? I wasn't sure if you're calling the fundamental a "harmonic". I don't personally, only frequencies that are multiples of it. Semantics, but I want to make sure I understand you.
Also, did you see this somewhere in the literature? I would assume there is a study to reference where this was discovered. If so, please link it.
Thanks again for the input! Always welcome. And nice work on your channel and videos. Cheers!
@@warpacademyThank you very much!
To answer your comment:. You technically don't need the fundamental (or at least can make it very quiet), but the next two harmonics (at least) are needed. The "annoying" thing about the naming convention is, that the fundamental is named f_1 (since f*1 = f_1) and the first overtone f*2 = f_2, would be called second harmonic.
In numbers: 50Hz is your fundamental f_1, 100Hz = f_2, 150Hz = f_3. If you play just f_2, you brain perceives it as only that. But if you play f_2 and f_3 your brain realises on one hand the beat frequency (being f_3-f_2 = 50Hz) and on the other hand, that f_3 is not the second harmonic of f_2 (that would be 200Hz), therefor your brain concludes that there is a frequency below them, that has to have created those harmonics.
A little caveat is tho, that psychoacoustics are weird. And you will always find people that don't hear the effect you hear, or hear it different.
Brilliant. Very clear. And also did you have a study where you saw this? Curious to look at the research. I haven’t seen this yet in the AES Journal but I may have missed it or there are other journals. Cheers!
The best of explanation of this for me is Dan worrells philosophy of bass video
@@warpacademy One of the OG papers:
James C. Smith et al. ,Human Auditory Frequency-Following Responses to a Missing Fundamental.Science201,639-641(1978)
also good: Bendor, D., Wang, X. The neuronal representation of pitch in primate auditory cortex. Nature 436, 1161-1165 (2005)
Finding the Pitch of the Missing Fundamental in Infants
Chao He and Laurel J. Trainor
Journal of Neuroscience 17 June 2009 (how babies percieve it)
Perception of the missing fundamental in nonhuman primates
R. W. Ward Tomlinson; Dietrich W. F. Schwarz, AUGUST 01 1988 (how apes hear it, i just think its funny)
Thank you for updated acoustical lecture,since even guitars and vocals are all autotuned,easily noticed since not properly oriented,lots of masking sound quality,then compensated by increasing volume,then gets distorted.
Cheers!
Well covered man. I'm excited to play around and find some fun ways to use this theory before watching your video on how you apply them. Great coverage of the topic!!
Thanks!
Dieses Video kommt für mich genau richtig! Das Schreinerdreieck hat mir auch noch nie jemand so gut erklärt. Wie immer - vielen Dank!
one of the easiest to understand and full of material vids addressing this topic, thank you
Glad it was helpful! You’re very welcome. Happy music making.
Well, as an electronical engineer, who love sound processing and dsp, those are cool algorithms to put on a dsp, thank you for this video!
My pleasure! Yeah it is interesting from a processing standpoint. I’m sure you could put together a useful plugin from the various types of effects chains used here. All the best!
Very informative and great to see someone doing good research and backing things up with good sources. It all happened to track with a lot of what I learned after I had my room done up proper, so that's encouraging :D
Glad you enjoyed it!
This is incredible content!!!!! I’m going to need to watch this again and take a lot of notes! You have such a great way of teaching. Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge.
Thanks very much for the kind words. Subscribe and stay in touch!
I was taught this in vocational college in the late 90's. Still it was a nice reminder.
That's great they covered this that far back. Must've been a good college. Cheers!
Love these highly detailed and scientific videos! So glad i found you!
Glad you like them. Subscribe and stay in touch!
This is one of the best videos I've seen all year. Well made, well argued and useful. Great pacing and very logical. Nice job!
Thanks very much! I appreciate the support.
This video made me feel smart again. The best video covering this topic. Dropping a like and sub
Glad to hear that. Welcome to the channel!
Excellent video!
Really cements a few things I’ve found or heard and dispels a few outdated ideas I had
Your tracks sound sick too!
Awesome, thank you!
I'm so glad l came across this channel. Great content!
Thanks! Great username!
Thanks! can't wait to give this a go!
Have fun! Thanks for the comment.
Bro im so glad a person like you appreciates sub bass!!
Always!
Excellent. I struggle with incorporating research into my videos, but this is perfect. Maybe it’s time to get an AES membership 😂
Go for it! Yeah, the AES Journal is great. Lots of excellent stuff there. You just have to sift to find what's relevant. Science doesn't always translate to real life in the studio perfectly. There are also other great journals out there for audio, such as IOA Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics. Cheers!
For the 3rd question, my answer has become using a low pass filter on a sine wave with frequency follow/keyfollow. It's doable on any crap synth and to get a *little* more bassey feel out of it, adjusting the resonance does the trick well.
I'm confused. With a pure sine wave there is nothing to filter out. It's a single tone. If you filter it, you will simply remove it entirely or attenuate it as there are no harmonics for the filter to work with. Did you mean that you run the sine wave through saturation first and then filter it? Cheers!
Great video. Thanks for putting in the hard work for us. I’ve learned something from this.
Glad to hear it! You’re very welcome. Subscribe to the channel and stay in touch!
I have “sub-ed” to your channel. 😊 I have no clue why the algo hasn’t shown me your channel before. You. Are. A. Greeeeaaaaaat presenter dude. So clear, so easy to follow. I think viewers here will enjoy the recent Veritasium video. He covers how church organs have a very similar process of generating deeper tones using higher tones. It’s how some churches apparently produce the rumbling fullness of a church organ without every church needing HUGE organ pipes.
Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad you’re connected with the channel now and thanks for subscribing! I always love seeing other videos about this. I’ll check that out. If you have a direct link to it please add it. Cheers!
@@warpacademy ruclips.net/video/Sn07AMCfaAI/видео.html
Thanks for the link!
This was great thank you! I think that was really valuable to learn about the concern of just utilizing a saturator on a sub and the unintentional side effects like muddy intermodulation. The explanation around usage of harmonics and virtual/residual(?) pitch to increase perceived low end was awesome - I didn’t realize that some speakers high pass per se, so it’ll be interesting to see how I can implement some of the suggestions from this video
Thanks again!
Right on. Glad you got a lot out of this video. Happy music making :)
As a techno producer, man this was the tutorial I needed the most. Very well explained! :)
Glad it helped!
Wow - I have always used the rounded sine sub but using the custom sounds so much better with added clarity and loudness without to the peak. Thanks!!! Your videos are the best out there!!!
Right on. Thanks for the comment. Yeah I used to use straight up sine waves for sub, then in the original version of NI Massive there was a nice rounded rectangle that sounded better. But now with Serum you have total control and can make a perfect waveform custom just to your liking. Subscribe to the channel and stay in touch! All the best.
@@warpacademy Square + Triangle in sync on my Pro One sounds bigger than serum or any other plugin I've tried.
Triangle waves can be really nice for subs. Square waves have a ton of mid and high end so you get a super buzzy sounding bright synth sound and not a sub sound if you use it. Not the sound I would call “sub”. But if you filter out the HF if can work.
@@warpacademy ofc u use the lp filter lol. the sound is huge and full of 20-50hz, all thats needed to drive subs in a club. pro one fed to a decent analog mic pre with some compression from an ssl or api unit u can make a professional and huge soudning sub in minutes.
Nice.
For a long while we couldn't really grasp the logistics of delivering sub reagion into the physical realm let alone a digital ome. Great stuff
Thanks very much! Stoked you got a lot out of this one.
Nerdy stuff, just as we like :) thanks man !
More to come!
Finally, a solid video I could send to anyone who insists sub bass has to be sparkling clean harmonics free
Sure thing. Any help spreading the word is greatly appreciated.
good golly those people sound boring af
Yeah I never ever just did a pure sine wave doubled under my synths like other producers told me to, I always saturated it and glued/rendered it into my basses
Nice one!
On the subject of noise in cars, Some luxury car makers like Cadillac have the ANC system (Automatic Noise Cancellation) by using microphones listen to that noise and inject an inverted phase version of the noise into the speakers making the base more distinguished.
Absolutely. My vehicle has this. It’s a Bose system that has Audio Pilot I think it’s called. Questionable results. Not that effective. Have you heard a good one?
@@warpacademyIt’s said to alter the true sound curve with less bass, but less noise in the cab I guess worth some audio performance compromise.
Yeah the concept is the same as noise cancelling headphones, but in the car the concept doesn't work. In order for the inverted phase signal to cancel properly, it must be as exact as possible, including every minute timing detail. Due to the fact that passengers are bobbing around inside a vehicle, and they are different distances away from each speaker (IE different cabin listening positions) this technology can never work. It's for the same reason that you can never use room EQ to "correct" the frequency response in a music studio for more than one single listening position. You create an improvement at one position at the expense of deterioration of all other positions.
You can also band-pass to isolate the low-end of your master and process these frequencies in parallel (if you really can’t go back to the stems). Some EQs like ProQ3 limit the interpolation distortion and open up worlds of creativity for mastering aficionados 🙂👍
Good tip! Thanks.
There's a reason why old-school producers used a weak sine and then topped it with "main" bassline. You still had fundamental but also harmonics, even to a degree where the main bassline was playing its own thing harmonically. On the big systems the infra sounds are already filtered out or at least should be filtered out. To maximize the dynamic range, I'd still cut them.
Good points! And yeah, large PAs will often have a cut at 25 hz or somewhere around there to remove infrasonics that could actually be harmful to people at those SPL levels. The key is not to cut the audible range, even 30 hz. Leave that alone with the cut and just right size it as shown in the video.
this is all so relevant and needed. i feel as if it needs to be somehow baked into the new plugins coming out
Thanks! And some of this stuff is. Look at SubLab XL.
It sounds mental but it works: I through a bad pass filter (high pass at 200 low pass at around 2-4khz) and just dial in enough saturation/upper harmonics on the sub so I can JUST start to hear the sub enough with the entire mix high passed, I adjust my levels this way too, and it turns out nearly perfect. Try it! The soul of your song is in the midrange, although the pillars exist in the low end and low mids.
Thanks for sharing your process!
F&M curves might be outdated but they're really important to understand the importance of controlling harshness before anything. That little "smile-dip" from 2k to 6k, is still present in the final spectrum of many songs.
Anyway, I've got a suggestion for car listening. I drive a 2012 Toyota Yaris. It has a really good sound system to be a "basic" sound system because It sounds like there's a subwoofer without a subwoofer.
One day I've noticed that if I keep my window close (driver side), I can avoid the subs masking while driving (unless i'm driving really fast on a speedway obviously) by adjusting the other window at various heights. 100% open increase the lowest sub freq while 100% closed basically masks the sub freq, boosting around 200 hz. From 5% open to 100% open you can basically boost from around 100hz to around 30hz. I don't know if this happens for every car tho...I've never tried with other cars...
To conclude, I've got a question: isn't basically mandatory to put at least a LP filter after every non-linear processing to avoid intermodulation (and also preferable to activate oversampling where possible, for the same reason)?
For sure. They're a subset of data in an evolving understanding of human perception of sound. They were an early attempt with pioneering information, crucial for others to stand on and get more accurate data.
The window open or closed is probably modulating the reflected energy of the sub. The consequence is that the peaks and nulls become stronger or weaker. If the sub disappears with your window up then it’s not due to masking but due to destructive interference, basically a cancellation where the reflection causes a resonance. Based on the frequency, the wavelength changes and so do the pattern of peaks and dips in the sound in the space inside the car. Actually, I think destructive interference and modal peaks and dips are separate but related issues.
@@Hexspa right, this is the reason. I used the word "masks" in a non-technical meaning.
@@mttlsa686 Cheers
Great video man, Respect.
Appreciate it!
Thank you for this video. I thought I was fairly educated, I learned several items here. Subed!
Thanks for the sub!
You make a good point at 17:55 about the approach based on where you are in the production chain. The best way is during arrangement to just use multiple sine oscillators for the fundamental and next two harmonics and level match, but if you're in a mixing capacity where you don't have access to the source, the bandpass method works in a pinch. Very cool
Yep. Exactly. It all depends on which phase you’re involved in. Cheers!
Sine wave is not good for good subline . Eat headroom but hardly hearable.
@@kallaprime799 This is why you level match and add harmonics. A problem that has long since been solved.
@@PaulEubanks yeah I know but next time try with square wave. You can go lower then sine and it's faster to setup.
@@kallaprime799 Quite familiar, not nearly as effective. You can make waves at whatever frequency you want, not sure what you mean by “can go lower”. Sine is perfect sub.
This was educational. Thank you.
Thanks! And best of luck with your RUclips channel. Cheers.
Great video! I am trying to start making music and I've always wondered how you use frequencies that my AirPods simply can't produce. Cheers!
Happy to help!
Man I'm from IRCAM research institute in Paris
You are very well documented, bravo.
You should write a medium article about it I think. Just a suggestion.
Wow, thank you. Great suggestion. I’m not sure how these ideas would translate to a purely written format without the audio examples but I’ll give it some thought.
What do you do at IRCAM? Cheers!
@@warpacademy you can share the audio examples on the article on Medium. I was audio research engineer in machine learning for Music generation
@jeremyuzan1169 thanks for letting me know! I'd love to connect and chat about your work sometime if you're up for it. You can reach out to us at Warp Academy via our contact form if you like: warpacademy.com/contact/
i learned quite some stuff from this. i just wanna add one thing, the reason why highpass filters can be so destructive on masters is the phase shift of the low frequencies that goes along with it. the carefully tuned waveshape you created will be completely turned on its head if you add a high pass in close proximity to the lowest frequency, the higher the order the more aggressive the phase shifts are.
sadly, linear phase filters arent really an option here because of the increasingly audible preringing the lower you go in frequency, which can totally kill the transient impact of your kicks. if you only affect the bass-synth though, linear phase can be an option.
Hey hey. Glad you learned something from this. Linear phase filters can be easily designed where there is not audible pre ringing. Dont let contrived and alarmist examples of “pre ringing” fool you when done by people on the internet.
It’s entirely possible to use linear phase filters without destroying your song. In fact many of the worlds best plugins use linear phase crossovers or have that option. DMG Limitless, FabFilter Saturn and ProMB. All iZotope plugins from Neutron to Ozone. They all use linear phase filters and everyone uses them.
I would encourage you to test this for yourself and you’ll see. I use mastering plugins with linear phase filters all the time in my work and no one has ever heard any pre-ringing because it’s not audible the way it’s implemented in these plugins.
In the videos on RUclips where people bash linear phase filters and cause pre ringing they are abusing the plugin and setting up a totally unrealistic example to demonstrate a point.
Also event the tiny mostly inaudible pre ringing is only really noticeable on drum transients in some cases and other jump discontinuities. I’m using it on the bass synth like you noticed. There is zero downside.
I just tried this. Added the harmonic to the sine in Operator to more of a squared rectangle then band pass to Sat to band pass and added to dry to taste. Wonderful. Going to play with this until I get the hang of it. Thanks.
Nice work! It’s always good to put the theory into practice as soon as you can. There’s a lot of finesse with this technique and practice creates progress. Experiment and have fun. Cheers!
Great work and great video top to the bottom.
Wow!
Thank you very much for each detail of light, colors, angles, graphics, ...
Wow!
Thanks very much. I really enjoyed making this one. All the best!
Box four: We have to learn entirely different paradigms for Immersive Audio, and rendering sources as objects end users can readjust, while at the same time staying compatible with stereo, 5.1, mobile, auto, and good or bad home and PA reproduction systems.
There are serious reasons this piece evades for bi-tri-amping, and control of limiters for bands rather than overall pumping, plus intermod reduction, and effective efficiency gains. That's now common in lower tier home theater and PC systems, and not just commercial PA's.
As to deeper bass, we might question if bone conduction frequencies are psychoacoustic in terms of audible reproduction?
Perceptions of time differentials is a bigger deal for spatialization and perceived loudness than this piece covers, while it's been like 45 years since Aphex or Eventide started offering boxes to manipulate harmonics or time in new ways.
Great insights and thoughts. There is much territory to explore here for sure. I kept things within the realm of stereo audio here as it’s a deep enough topic already within that limitation.
Immersive audio is fascinating and extremely complex. Just the acoustics of an Atmos mixing room are super intense.
You’re making me curious with the comment on bone conduction frequencies. Do you have access to any research on that? Cheers!
@@warpacademy I'm an older engineer who's been an industrial pro audio manager and designer, and contributed to regulatory law for broadcasting, and to some standards we've all used. A lot of both audio and video are hard to discuss, as few people have high literacy levels, and so much involves perceptual experiences that are hard to convert to words.
I've likely seen studies on bone conduction, over hearing protection, in ear attenuators or monitors vs earplugs or muffs, acoustic cancellation systems, and sound design, as well as hearing physiology or aging biomedical info. Nothing stands out as simple or a good stand alone treatise.
I remember when Aurotones weren't yet an expected element of major studios, or when Crown demo'd power amps where one channel still worked into a speaker while the other was fed to railroad ties users could short with metal bars. Or discussing speaker design with guys like Irving Fried, and the evolution to use of uPC thermal and motion controllers rather than Eq or limiters to optimize output and response, but that required cheap in box amp modules, where pro audio borrowed back from cars for size and thermal traits (just rectify needed rails power; switching amps or MOSFETs for capacity or thermal reduction, etc), and direct rectification and high speed DC-DC converters to reduce iron size and weight compared to 60 Hz transformers for safety and voltage conversions).
What I'm suspecting we may need over the next decade are an audio equivalent of video LUT's, to simplify 11.1 Immersive audio to options simple enough for end users, or backwards compatibility. How do we tell people, we have this great new option to help elderly, difficult listening environments, etc, but all you have to do is throw out all your familiar expectations and learn a new tech cosmology? And, do that in some form that integrates engineering, production, and end user aspects?
Thanks for letting me know a bit about your background. Sounds like you've had a ton of interesting experience in the industry. It's amazing to see (and hear) technology change so much over time and to learn about how things were done in the past.
I appreciate you contributing to the conversation and sharing your thoughts. Hope to see you 'round the channel! All the best.
@@lokiva8540 I’m too illiterate to understand 90% of your comment :D
But for you last question I guess everything will be decided by market rules; if there are incentives (e.g. mere marketing, competition, demand, profitability) then people will learn how to mix for the new standard, no matter what.
Otherwise it will remain used by a niche of users, or productions that have enough money to invest (dunno, like movies?). Makes me think of XML standards.
Or, as you said, some innovation that facilitates and increases accessibility for average producers.
Or…. a new generation of producers that won’t have to throw away knowledge but directly learning the “new way”. (hoping it will add up to the old way rather than leading to a partial loss of that pregress wisdom [again, makes me think about the software development generational change 😄]).
another great share! Thank you!
Thanks for the visit
From theory to practice. Good stuff, my friend!
Thank you! Cheers!
wow this video is really a gem. very well explained, quality education
thank you !
You're very welcome!
Dear instructor, I’m from the 70 disco era, wow on the small speaker bass solution, you are describing a DBX Sub Harmonic. Now, at that time a stand alone equipment; and used on clubs to developed massive amounts of bass , but from massive JBL15 and 16 inch subs.
Neat info. Before my time for sure. Interesting to hear about how people played with these concepts in the past. Thanks for the share!
Many use this approach in sound design and mixing for film. In addition to this subtle adding of harmonics, one can also use a separate Low Frequency Effects or LFE channel to suddenly add large amounts of very low frequency sound pressure to the theater. This is often percussive filtered noise or rumble. Very effective if used at certain key moments. My point is this; lots of bass all the time can become tiresome. A dynamic mix with sub bass effects used sparingly to highlight parts of your track might have the greater impact on your audience.
Hey hey. For sure. Great addition to the conversation. We also use the LFE channel for immersive music.
I agree that sub, like anything else, can suffer from the "too much of a good thing". It's about adding it in for those high energy parts of the song, like the drops.
That said, I can make a case for having less dynamics when it comes to sub content. It's again due to the equal loudness contours and psycho-acoustics. The contours compress a lot when you get lower. Which means you need less dynamic range. If you have lots of dynamic range in the very low end then slightly louder notes will sound way on top, and possibly painful, and notes that are a little too much under the average level will sound very weak. Not what you want in electronic music and hip hop.
But having sub all through a song, relentlessly, would take away the special impact it can add, which is what I think you're getting at. You want to use it strategically. Cheers!
Would love to know how to create those sounds, particularily that effect which feels like high pressure.
I've come across tracks where the subs feel like they are generating pressure on your skull when listening on headphones, but judging by their other tracks, i don't think it was intentional !
Yours is a good tip because it can be a cool effect, and i believe the Drum & Bass producers Noisia used it a few times to layer under drum breaks or basses during a short section of their song, because having it on constantly would be too much to listen to
One of the mixes I have heard with just awesome bass is MO - Blur
It is absolutely perfection when that chorus drops. Punch, sub, edge, vocal deluxe. ❤
Nice. I always like examples of what people are digging. Drop a link to it?
Love you’re tutorials. One of the best out there.
I appreciate that! Thanks for watching. Please subscribe and stay in touch!
Great video! Subscribed
Thanks for the sub!
Yop this video hits hard if you really focus on the details, thanks for the video and ressources 🤘
Glad it was helpful!
Very thorough and insightful, thanks!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
A lot of people naming some of the best subs in their favorite songs. Mine has been Mr Carmack - Gimme Dat. No matter what speakers or headphones I use to play that song, the bass is always the loudest, punchiest bass I’ve ever heard.
Oh yeah thanks for the track recommendation. I love Mr Carmack. I’ll have to check out that song in my studio.
Very informative, helped a lot to understand more about subs!
Awesome, thank you!
really appreciate you starting right away
Thanks. Yeah I stopped doing intro bumpers and instead just got right into the meat of it. I know everyone is busy and I try to explain as much as possible without any fluff.
I just learned soooooooooooo much. Thanks Drew, top man.
My pleasure. Thanks for the visit!
Thanks a lot! Subscribed.
Thanks for the sub!
Thx for your Video!
No problem!
Great rundown on this topic! For people who don't get it, I find it very valuable to know how to go over the limits. Since I learned how to make louder music than I actually need without losing my kick and snare to the limiter all of the sudden I could pay attention to punch, tightness etc. because I was no longer fighting with it.
Thanks! And yeah that a great realization. A lot of people struggle with getting clean loudness and then find that all consuming. It can be a distraction from focusing on just getting a good mix. Thankfully when you know the basics of clean loudness you can direct your attention to the other details, just like you said. All the best!
Time to step up my game. Great information, thank you!
You bet! Thanks for the visit.
great stuff to mention 😄 i always advise to others changing listening levels every now and then to prevent ear fatigue
u couldve mentioned about phase shift imo and what's it's effect in creating headroom (or maintaining it)
filters causing phase shift and having static frequency cutoffs with changing notes can cause some inconsistencies which then limit how much u can dial in distortion😄
Thanks Robbie. Yeah changing listening SPL is something a lot of mixers do so they can hear in various ranges of the equal loudness contours. I think that’s a great idea. Another common thing to prevent ear fatigue is to follow the Bob Katz house curve where the HF is rolled off with a tilt starting from 1 kHz and terminating 7 dB down at 20 kHz. That can allow you to dramatically reduce ear fatigue and mix longer hours.
Regarding phase shift, yeah it’s totally relevant. I did touch on it when I talked about running the parallel processing saturation chain and I said to use linear phase filters for that to maintain phase integrity.
There’s lots more to say about that topic but this is already a 25 minute deep dive video so I’ll leave that for another day.
In general, I’m running my bass into a limiter as a bass Submix before it even hits my 2 bus so if there is a little bit of extra level due to phase shift I’m not worried about it. Unless it causes an audible problem. Usually I can easily absorb that with a bass specific limiter / soft clipper setup without creating undesirable distortion.
Thanks for watching and commenting. See ya round the channel!
Thank you for existing ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
Thank-you for having an entertaining username.
Wow, came across this video totally randomly. Some top shelf quality content here. I didn't know the Fletcher Munson curve was replaced.. not that I really used it, but that's really interesting that it's been updated.
Producer and Mastering Engineer for 20+ years. I feel like I should have known this!
Long term producers realise at some point that harmonics and layers that give the bass more low-mid information is important so it can be heard on smaller systems. I always thought that Sine waves are inaudible even on huge systems because they're too pure.. Saturation, distortion and overtones are the key to hearing bass. Blending in a sine is just gravy for people with subwoofers ;)
I think for bass-heavy styles of music, multiband compression and limiting are something you need to understand so the bass energy doesn't eat all your headroom. Energy and frequencies are logarithmic in scale - if you want a bass heavy track, you gotta control it more than any other music style. s you mentioned at the end - every octaves contains 2x the amount of frequencies. There is 2x the amount of information that can be perceived per octave.
Drum n Bass as a genre (well, a lot of different EDM styles) really forced people to rethink mixing and mastering completely. Production is such a rabbit hole!
Glad you found this video. Thanks for the comments and background from your experience.
I agree that band specific compression is essential in bass heavy music. It’s easy to see that the Equal Loudness Contours compress in the low end, meaning that the lower you get in frequency the less dynamic range you should have in your bass. Otherwise louder notes will sound super loud and potentially painful and quieter notes will sound far too low and the performance will lose a tight and consistent feel.
Nice to see another ME around here. Stay in touch!
@@warpacademy Awesome! Subscribed!
Thanks for subbing to the channel! Welcome aboard.
Very good video and well explained subject.
One thing that bother me in this approch is that we change the sonical content of the music to match the material of some listeners. And yes I would prefer to have a speeker that highpass the signal to meet the spec of the driver, then the artiste to change the way he wants his music to hear on a descent/good system. I build speekers, and produce music, and yes you can trick the mind with the harmonics so the brain virtualy reproduce the missing frequency but you miss on a lot of other elements that are percieved when you actualy have speakers that can reproduce that lvl of frequencies. Avoiding to build tracks with this type of listening also intented make's me sad but maybe that the hard truth about our time. That said I think it is very important to understand how sound is percieved by our senses and how to manipulate the way we build music to get to the feeling we want.
Smart comments here. You clearly understand the issues at play. I resonate with what you’ve said. Adding harmonics can change the music and ultimately you don’t want to get so heavy handed with this approach that it takes away from the sound you want.
That said, in the genres I’m talking about, a saturated sound is not only common, it’s quite desirable and serves the music well. It’s aggressive music, mixed to be really energetic and up front. Dance and club music. So I find that this type of sub sound design actually sounds better.
Of course you can overcook it and then it sounds bad. So it’s all about finesse and skill.
Thanks for the comment and insights. Do you build speakers just for yourself or commercially?
Solid information, thanks!
I'm wondering ... What headset are you wearing?
Audeze LCD-5 planar mag reference headphones. Cheers!
Good work. It's hard to find good videos on bass.
I appreciate that!
tnhx 4 share man. Incredible.
My pleasure. Thanks for the visit.
Yeah I love using wavetable synthasis where you can pick and change the fundamental and it's harmonics (exactly like you did in this vid), and at which level each harmonic is, and use this to create "square" waves with really rounded corners so there's only a little bit of flat at the top for my subs. It absolutely slams and plays really nice with limiters as long as you set the gain right, and it sits right below where the limiter is hitting.
Excellent. Fully agree. The more square and less rounded the wavetable the more buzzy and bright it will be so it’s a matter of taste how much of that fits your vibe. Luckily these types of synths make it so easy to customize to your liking. Cheers!
@@warpacademy Yeah the flatter the top the more harmonics it has (trailing off into infinity for a perfect square wave, or more realistically the noise floor or nyquist and reflecting back etc.) however using this technique you can gain a wide variety of phat sounding square, or fuzzy sounding sine waves and all kinds of things inbetween for you subs. 👍🤙
Well said. Have fun with the fuzzy subs.
some people really oughtta consider not commenting. this was a solid video, much obliged 🎉
Thanks for watching and for the comment. Hope to see you round the channel. Cheers!
No need to bash the Fletcher-Munson research so much. It provides the same conclusion you came to with the more modern research. Respect the past. It’s how we got to where we are today. They worked with the tech/knowledge available at that time and the research served well for many decades.
Oh I’m not bashing it. I do respect what they did. However studies are replaced by newer and better data. In the words of Floyd Toole, “While we respect the pioneering efforts of the early researchers, their data are no longer trusted.”
It’s not the same conclusions. There are substantial differences in the curves. Especially in the amount of LF needed to sound balanced and how they compress.
Absolutely love the scientific approach, great watch!
Thanks for watching!
Hard to be more scientific than presenting and discussing the relevant research directly from the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society as well as the acoustical physics directly from the textbooks that are used in training acousticians.
@sysxtem looking over your comments, I wanted to convey something to you. I welcome spirited debate here. I love discussing audio, entertaining different opinions, even when they differ from my own, and I'm willing to be proven wrong. That's all part of being a learner and a teacher.
I've presented thorough and current data, I've backed up my assertions with the research. That's why I called this video the Science of Modern Sub Bass.
We can all disagree with each other, but keep it respectful. If you think I've gotten something wrong, or you have a different perspective, then back up your assertions and present better data. That's how science works.
@sysxtem the science is there to be discussed and cited. Just because I'm discussing it rather than doing first hand research doesn't make the information any less valid. I collect information and package it up for people on the channel. I'm not interested in becoming a research scientist. Research scientists have no idea how to mix records. That's my focus. And all the useful scientific information associated with how to get better at that.
In your example at 14:04 you're essentially just compressing a narrow band around 100Hz. This is going to severely mess with phase unless you use linear phase but then you have pre-ringing sub which just makes your whole low end muddy. A better method would be to use a dynamic EQ that compresses around the frequency because it'll have less effect on phase.
Hey hey. You’re partially correct here. In the study they used non-linear phase filters which would create phase shift. I specifically said in the video that whenever I process bass in parallel I use FIR linear phase filters only to prevent phase shift. I think perhaps you didn’t see that part of the video.
Also the idea that one “shouldn’t use linear phase filters” due to “pre-ringing” is completely misguided. It’s possible to design a linear phase filter where there’s no audible pre-ringing. Just look at the flagship limiter from DMG, Limitless, which uses all linear phase filters in its crossovers. Pre-ringing is typically only noticeable at jump discontinuities (drum transients, square wave synth waveforms), and would not be noticeable on typical bass waveforms, especially considering bass is ducked to the kick drum.
Unfortunately some alarmist people on the internet have contrived totally unrealistic examples to demonstrate how pre-ringing can cause a mix to sound muddy, but they are just that - contrived. Use your ears. If you hear pre-ringing then do something about it. For me, I never find it’s an issue the way I process bass.
Good Stuff, Great Stuff..
Much appreciated
Just found this channel, and I'm amazed how fully and clearly the topic was addressed.
when i heard about pop, i thought i"ll switch soon, then i heard the preview files. Oh damn sir, Id like to get those tracks somehow :D
Just subbed. What is your alias to release music?
Thanks for watching and for the comment. I release under the name Vespers. You’ll see these songs come out in the next little bit.
Fantastic thanks subscribed
Thanks for the sub.
the stage @1:40 ... had the best nights there. BASSCOAST!
You got it! This year was epic.
Equal loudness curves are not about balance, certainly not about musical balance. Rather they're an averaged subjective measure of how loud individuals with good hearing determined a tone of a given frequency needed to be in order to match a given level of a 1kHz tone. Among other things, the resulting curves display how human hearing compresses sound differently at different frequencies.
A major limitation of equal loudness curves is that they're based on steady state comparisons of two frequencies in isolation. None of that takes into account the complexity either of music or of human hearing physiology beyond that simplistic, two tone comparison.
Correct and I’m in full agreement. They’re an attempt to approximate how the non-linearity of the human auditory system presents itself. With anything in acoustics, simple tones, complex material, transients / clicks, classical music, speech, EDM music etc will all be perceived differently. And this topic leaves much room for further exploration and research.
Similar to LUFS. It’s far from a perfect system and it is only an approximation of how we experience loudness.
Thanks for the comment!
Great video. I'll share with others.
Thanks mate! And any help spreading the word is greatly appreciated. All the best!
That was brilliant, thanks mate.
No problem 👍. Thanks watching and commenting Ryan!
@warpacademy no worries man. I just signed up to your 'Plus' membership. Very excited for all the content.
Thank-you so much for the support Ryan. I really appreciate you being part of the Warp Collective and help me make more videos. Big ups!
3:22 sure looks like "The Cabin" at Basscoast.... home sweet home
Indeed it is :) I was there this year. Epic stage.
@@warpacademy had to miss it this year but next year I'll be sorted
Right on. It's a great event. Maybe I'll see you there!
eerily similar to the dystopia stage at fractalfest
In the end everything's competing for the mids. Adding harmonics to the sub means less space in the lows and mids in exchange for being audible on phone speakers.
Good ears and fair comment. There is a trade off for sure. I pushed the saturation on this too hard in retrospect. And I did add a note in the video to that effect saying that you can simply add less saturation. It sounds better more subtle than my example and you don’t have the same issue with crowding the low mids.
I appreciate the content, but easy with the ads, killer.
Glad you enjoyed the video. RUclips places the ads, not me. If you don't like them, you can use RUclips Premium and they go away. Cheers!
@@warpacademy My bad... there were so many poorly placed ads that I had to turn it off. Shame on them! Farewell RUclips!
Yeah I hear you. I mean, think of how much it costs to build and maintain RUclips though. Ads are how they make the money to continue to offer the platform for free. The ads are the tradeoff. Also the ads do help creators like me make a bit of revenue from the views I generate, and that helps me continue making videos. Cheers!
Love it!
Thanks mate. Glad you enjoyed it. All the best with your sub!
Wow I was not expecting to see footage of Bass Coast in this, are you BC based?
Right on. Yeah I am. Vancouver Island.
Love the example music! Damn that flute/wind flutter sample I can't get it out of my mind! How do I get/find my own? (I can add my own reverb)
Thanks. You could probably find something similar on Splice. They have a huge library of sounds. All the best!
@@warpacademy in your production what is the instrument actually?
I didn’t record it. It’s a layer of things but I expect it is a flute in there as you mentioned :)
to be fair, literal airpod subbass is actually really good and you don't need distortion to make it psychoacoustically bassy with overtones.
I agree that some are good. But some aren’t. Depends which model and year you have. And really what I mean is earbuds. There are thousands of models. Apple is not the only company who makes earbuds.
It’s not about being nostalgic about the past. Think of it like a recording of a recording of a recording. The bigger the distance from actually playing an instrument you get the bigger the intricacies get muddled and the more the culture gets away from that, the more dumbed down the music gets. It’s frogs boiling in a pot. The vast majority of people have no idea that there are way better artworks that could paint an audible picture in the minds of people, leading to more inspired lives. Albert Einstein listened to music and so did everyone else. Art exists to inspire everyday people to try new things or to keep perusing their dreams. The more bland it gets, the more society gets bland.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. Cheers!
This is really invaluable info !
Thanks for watching and commenting.
@@warpacademyyeah of course.
@@warpacademyyou ever do the same waveform or similar custom one in Phase plant?
I haven't looked at Phaseplant in a while. I own it, but honestly Serum is my go to. Phaseplant is a super capable and advanced synth, I'm sure you could easily do this in it.
Great explanation.
Glad it was helpful!
Easy fix...pure sine wave bass note...about 3/4 of ur headroom..then layer with another bass sound with grit like saw wave with hp filter to cut out sub sine wave..make this 1/4 headroom...KEEP ON KEY WITH PURE SINE WAVE!
Layering sounds can certainly work great, for some genres and workflows. And, it's more complicated to achieve the same (or worse) result than you can by starting with a better waveform. The pure sine wave can never go as loud as a rounded rectangle, and it will always take up more headroom than needed...because - physics.
Also, when you consider things from a Fourier synthesis perspective, the rounded rectangle actually IS still comprised of a sine wave as the lowest partial - it's just also summed with several other sine wave partials to reduce it's peak and add low order harmonics.
i do something different, i duplicate my bass high pass quite a bit and saturate the high end then blend
Oh yeah. A very similar approach. You're band-limiting a parallel signal with saturation added. It works well! Just make sure you're using a linear phase filter for the parallel chain :)
Well that was quite a bit to digest. I was with you though. Very informative.
Cheers mate! Thanks for tuning in.
Me likey dat Boom Wub Wub 😍😍
Right on.
I wonder when it is said that "preceived" bass is the same, so can your body feel the sub bass like as if it is from unaltered signal?
Good point. I think maybe people misunderstand me thinking that I’m taking out a lot of actual sub and completely replacing it with harmonics. I’m not. As I said in the video, I “carefully attenuate the sub (just a little) and shift that energy upwards”. You don’t want to be heavy handed with it. Just a nudge. Depending on the song.
You will still feel it in your body on a PA. They can easily produce huge SPL in the LF without needing a huge spike in the sub region in the source audio. You can control it.
Watch the MixbusTV video I linked in the description. David explains this.
Quite useful as this goes a lot deeper than just cutting off the lowest signals and adding saturation to your bass.
Thanks for the comment, and I appreciate you subscribing to the channel!
Instant subscrizzy 🙏🔥
Thanks!
I still want to know how old school Bass music like techmaster PEB bass mechanic bass Cube the bass that ate Miami all that kind of stuff how did they make that super low end sub base ?
Curious. Could you provide links to those songs on RUclips, Soundcloud or Spotify? Cheers!