Sub bass hits

Corey Y · Post by **Corey Y** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:07 pm

I'm going to see if I can hook up the sub woofer. It would definitely be a lot easier to sit there and slide the fader up and down rather than go back and forth trying to estimate it.

Thanks for the suggestions InvalidInk, I may try processing something to get my own sound. I don't have any plans for this weekend, so I may just mess around with it and see what I come up with. Right now I'm just viewing it as something I need to put some time in on for own enlightenment, not just for this particular project. Who knows when I'll ever use it again, but I enjoy tinkering like this anyway.

blackdiscoball · Post by **blackdiscoball** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:14 pm

If you still need, I can email you a 808 or "Bass Drop" as the kids in my studio call it. I work with metal everyday and hadn't heard of this till I started recording it but the studio has a couple good bass drops but one in particular that works really well most of the time. Just let me know. -Ryan

losthighway · Post by **losthighway** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:19 pm

An old local metal band used a 'bass drop' only once on their record right at the down beat of their most dramatic break down. I found that artistically, so much more reasonable and nuanced than so many metal tricks normally are. It was a way of saying "Right here is officially the HEAVIEST MOMENT on the record." So much metal production uses electronics to make everything the heaviest moment, thus proving the artistic rule of contrast. If every moment is the heaviest than none of them are.

Sorry, went off course. Bass drop, yeah. Sick. Check your mixes on a stereo with a prominent low end to avoid overkill.

Corey Y · Post by **Corey Y** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:36 pm

Thanks for the offer Ryan, I sent you a pm.

dsw · Post by **dsw** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:21 pm

People also come here to express their opinions and individual perspective.

And it's my opinion and perspective that Jeff was being really rude.

I'm sorry I called you an ass, Jeff.

Carry on.

kdarr · Post by **kdarr** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:18 pm

One thing you could try, if the "bass drops" aren't going off all over the place, is to sidechain the buss compression so that the whole mix sucks down a little when the drop "drops." You know, the old hip-hop/French house trick. Tread lightly, it's incredibly annoying (to me, at least) when a whole mix is fluttering away every time the kick drum hits on a busy pattern. Keeping the bass drops sparse and periodic is a good way too keep them from fucking up your whole mix.

The first cut off the Obsolete record by Fear Factory used this technique effectively, IMO.

[<|>]

@?,*???&? · Post by **@?,*???&?** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:45 pm

InvalidInk wrote:called a Moderator.

OMG, the new super hero in the house will called the Human Prophylactic!!!!

Corey Y · Post by **Corey Y** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 1:46 pm

I'm only going to be doing it maybe 2 or 3 key spots on the whole project, not lined up with all the kick hits, but I'll keep that suggestion in mind.

Mark Alan Miller · Post by **Mark Alan Miller** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 5:09 am

Something I've heard done a lot is not a steady tone, but a falling tone.

When asked to do that, I've programmed a synth with a filter set to self-oscillate, modulated by an envelope to 'dive' and then tuning the cutoff nice and low. Sometimes a little bit of a pitch rise before the fall caused by the envelope can be quite cool, too.

OOOOooommmmmm it goes.

blackdiscoball · Post by **blackdiscoball** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 5:44 am

OOOOooommmmmm it goes.

That is the beast right there. Its funny because 5 or 6 months ago I would have had no clue what a bass drop was because I really didnt listen to metal even a little. But now that that is ALL i record, I can put in a bass drop before the band even asks. There really obnoxious, if bands had there way they would have them in the beginning and end of EVERY breakdown. I try to persuade them to be modest which normally works, but how do you persuade people that walk around Breing? (Breing, another goofy metal term, look it up)

Jay Reynolds · Post by **Jay Reynolds** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:12 am

blackdiscoball wrote:Its funny because 5 or 6 months ago I would have had no clue what a bass drop was because I really didnt listen to metal even a little.

Its pretty ridiculously prevalent in hip-hop, and has been for decades. I'd even venture that the metal guys picked it up from hip-hop.

b3groover · Post by **b3groover** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 12:48 am

rhythm ranch wrote:You can set up a low patch on a synth and trigger it from the kick or set it up as a drone and use a gate triggered by the kick (or anything else for that matter).

Just did this tonight to fix a mic'd kick that didn't have enough low end. Set up a tone generator in Cubase for about 55Hz and triggered a gate via side-chain from the kick track. Worked like a charm.

You can also do the same thing with white noise on a snare to get a more "snarey" sound.

leigh · Post by **leigh** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:03 am

Corey Y wrote:I'm only going to be doing it maybe 2 or 3 key spots on the whole project, not lined up with all the kick hits, but I'll keep that suggestion in mind.

Well, good thing that it's only in 2 or 3 spots! You initially said "I'm just about done with the mixing phase and they asked me to put in '808s'", and my first reaction to that was, well, tell them this will mean re-working all their mixes! Sub-bass eats up a ton of headroom, and it needs to be planned for and mixed around.

I would definitely take heed of the suggestions to tune the 808 to the root of the chord. I have had no luck getting sub-bass to work if it's not harmonically related to the rest of the low frequency energies.

Leigh

kdarr · Post by **kdarr** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:31 pm

blackdiscoball wrote:(Breing, another goofy metal term, look it up)

As a lifelong metal fan, I demand an explanation of this unfamiliar term. Google is no help.

Breing?

[<|>]

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:40 pm

yeah, i googled too and came up empty. 'splain.

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Sub bass hits

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