LowEnd Factory

[Rucklo]

I am attempting to learn how to make Drum n´Bass.
The reason for that is because I kind of figure that if I learn how to do really technically good dnb, I will have learned many good techniques that are helpful in many other genres as well, since a big part of dnb is about the lower levels of the frequencie range, wich many times is the cause of "trouble" in countless genres.

- A technique I belive many people use when making a new song, is to start out with the drums and then the bass. The reason for this is because both drums and bass are in many songs (especially dance style/dnb etc.) the very foundation of wich the rest of the song actually rests on. If you get a muddy bass, then the final result no doubt will suffer from this mistake. In the world of sounds, everything affects everything, remember that!!!

But what is it that makes a "good bass" and how can you create one yourself?
Well, to really find out, one should have to learn about what sound really is, that is, you´ll have to go back to the very foundation of learning why your eardrum send signals through your ear and into your brain.
This isn´t about the scientific parts of acoustics, but it´s nearly impossible to not touch the subject...

Anyway, this thread is about discussing, giving tips and asking about different techniques in different styles of music, general techniques, all to get that phat bassound we all are looking for!

I´ll go first by mentioning a few techniques;

- the very low end of a bass is often a cause of muddying up the sound. It´s often a good idea to higpass filter (the high ends stay) the very lowest, perhaps make a cut around 30-40 Hz.

- Just because it´s called "bass" doesn´t nessecarily mean you can cut out all the highest frequencies just like that! All frequencies above the low end are residents of overtones and such, that actually gives the bass it´s character! In many cases, boosting the bass at around 1kHz (just an example, of course this various depending of your actually bass-sound!) actually makes it heavier and to stand out more in the mix! Find the goodie parts of the frequencie range, boost them slightly.

- As we´re talking alot about frequencies, boosting and cutting here and there are often what clear a mix up. When somone says "you should EQ your song a little better" that mean you should check each sound/instrument against all other sounds, like bass and bassdrum only, bass and strings only, bass and strings and bassdrums only and so on. This way you can find out what muddies up your mix, and boost/cut frequencies in the sounds/instruments to make things better. Think of this as a giant puzzle and you have a knife that you can cut the parts so they fit, and a gluestick so you can glue on extra pieces (boost) where it´s not fitting very well.

What are your tips? What are your techniques to get the lower end of the mix sound good? Do you have any questions?
Discuss!

[SpamWarrior]

Something i learnt recently, morphing is not all about eq'ing, its about composition more than anything. Theres no magic "morph" button that'll make a simple reese line sound good. Not in reason anyway.

[Rucklo]

At 10/14/06 11:51 AM, SpamWarrior wrote: Something i learnt recently, morphing is not all about eq'ing, its about composition more than anything. Theres no magic "morph" button that'll make a simple reese line sound good. Not in reason anyway.

Definitley true, but it might be difficut to know where to start.
Right now I´ve decided to start out by making a "floating" (if that´s what its called in english, two osc makes waveforms out of phase and the result due to compressions and rarefactions in the soundwave ends up with a pumping in volume up n down).´
I´m making a subbass to begin with here, nad I´ve distorted it some with a simple compressor, to bring out some tones (the two osc´s are at 43 Hz). I will create the actual reese later on (and by reese I mean the synth itself that will act as a bass-line for this experiment-song of mine). I will definitley layer and make a big badass bassdrum before I even think of the reese.
But you´re definitley right about the composition, however you can assume composition to be moderate, what I want to focus on here are the technical details to get it as fat as possible.

Alot of things I can´t do right now, because I need to have a decent subwoofer to feel the real low end, but im starting out like this anyway...

I didn´t get the "floating" 100% tight, so I had to edit the sample slightly to make it fit better.
I used a simple Malström, 2 osc both on sine and did nothing else than cut at 30Hz and set the cent opposite amount to get the "float".
Since it wasn´t 100% tight, I edited it, like mentioned, and then I had to get rid of small klicks that came up between the event section. I am rewiring Reason to Cubase.

To "morph" it, resample and pitch shift, I will have to be very careful, as I am setting up a pretty strict sound here, and will "puzzle" each part in as I see fit. If I decide to do any radical changes (or any changes at all) I will have to make sure all frequencies are fit in all instruments of the song...

[Glib]

For my bass. Using the Subtractor module. I usually start off with a sine wave and play around with the noise, decay and knobs. All my bass patches are accidental.

[Kirizzle]

Hmm... try layering, detuning and/or chorus?

[Grumbleduke]

Despite all this, I find a highpass filter (as Rucklo mentioned) seems to do the job admirably. Then again I'm easily pleased. On that matter, what is the lowpass for? Seriously.

[Rucklo]

At 10/14/06 04:14 PM, Grumbleduke wrote: Despite all this, I find a highpass filter (as Rucklo mentioned) seems to do the job admirably. Then again I'm easily pleased. On that matter, what is the lowpass for? Seriously.

A lowpassfilter passes the lower frequencies, meaning it starts to cut from the high end and down. If you need to cut frequencies from above, this is what you use. Even on basslines you have use for this, since you probably won´t want the absolute highest frequencies around. Very high-end freq. would be around 12kHz-20kHz, or so... not really sure, many people says different things. It depends on what you´re doing i guess...

Well, anyway here´s a question;

- My subbass is set to 43Hz according to the spectrum analyzer, and when I dist the sample (i´ve sampled it out to a wav and now play alog with it in cubase) with a compressor, i get that fat pumping sound that only distort the very tops of the sound, ie the loudest parts. The distortion also brings up some frequencies (dont know if this would count as "overtones" since it´s actually distortion...) at 143Hz, 230Hz, 328Hz, 417Hz and some more less higher peaks. This allmost follows the mathematical rules for overtones (or whatever its called in eng.), 230Hz - 143Hz= 87 and 87/2 = 43.5 meaning the analyzer is quite trustworthy (since were dealing with a sine to begin with). Anyway, there should be a peak at 87 HZ too, and there is not... But i dont know the rules for distortion really... And my maths isn´t the best (fuck i havent studied maths since 6 years back :).

Anyway, those are the info you might need to be able to answer my following question;

- When I have chose to use a sine with only one frequencie present as base, I would only get one soundwave (theoretically speaking) at 43Hz. Now I have disted that sound some, but still the frequencies that are represented seem to follow the "oertone rules one way or another. Isn´t there a potential risc of there being interfering paths if played on two speakers, nodes and such, that would actually more or less remove the bass sound in many parts of a lets say nightclub?
Like I´ve mentioned, I´m not very well taught in the lower frequencies, and I would really like to know more of how to deal with things like this. Or perhaps it´s for the best to separate and choose one single frequencie to boost at the very low end, and kindof isolating thisone so I can keep it loud without close-range frequencies bothering the one at 43Hz? Hmmm I need a subwooffer to try shit out :/

[SpamWarrior]

Maybe i'm entirely wrong and daft, but to me all notes regardless of what instruments they're played on have low tow tone aspects, mid, and highs. I'm not much up on the tones either.

I believe the true humming sound you get from good standard dnb is caused by the tension of your ears trying to resolve a sub bass, a reese or two and the high end textures, whilst separately, some funny noises and drums are going on around it.

I think that causes it cos i feel my ears change shape compared to how they feel when listening to metal or 80's pop music, (YES OMG NO WAY, RADIO 2 FTW)

i recall you mentioning nodes before and i wish i knew what you meant by them. The only nodes i know off grow on plants.

[Rucklo]

At 10/16/06 07:29 AM, SpamWarrior wrote: Maybe i'm entirely wrong and daft, but to me all notes regardless of what instruments they're played on have low tow tone aspects, mid, and highs. I'm not much up on the tones either.

Yeah, well a simple sinewave only have one specific freq, meaning when i disted my subbass(that was on 43 Hz) i practically cut the upper part or the sinewave, making it "look more like a squarewave". When that was dine, i got overtones that was for every other double of the foundational 43 Hz (43, 43+87, 43+87+87 and so on... The analyzer didnt show things correctly, or i mis-read it but its basicly the same).
)

I believe the true humming sound you get from good standard dnb is caused by the tension of your ears trying to resolve a sub bass, a reese or two and the high end textures, whilst separately, some funny noises and drums are going on around it.

Yea layering is definitley a good way... If i make four layers, one low, midlow, midhigh and high, then i might want to cut low and high (and maybe even mid high) from the mid LOW layer, to make it not interfere with the other layers. Now im talking about a sum that is one sound only.

I think that causes it cos i feel my ears change shape compared to how they feel when listening to metal or 80's pop music, (YES OMG NO WAY, RADIO 2 FTW)

i recall you mentioning nodes before and i wish i knew what you meant by them. The only nodes i know off grow on plants.

i think the "nodes" are actaully called "modes" in english, and is a acoustic phenomena when two soundwaves of the same frequency "interfere" with eachother (soundwaves hav "positivie or negative energy", just draw a line in the middle of the sinewave and youll ee... make the amplitude 1 on this, and you will have a scale from -1 to +1. 0=nosound. If two waves travel together at the same direction, and one is +1 at the same point as the otherone is -1, then we get 1+-1=0= a mode=no sound... ill explain this better some other day, i might make a thread out of it with pics n stuff instead :)

[PERVOK]

I'll give my small amount of shit input :D

The way I EQ my DnB songs (when I do actually decide to make some...) is that the kick must stand out. So: I make the kick slightly midranged, with slight modifications to the 1500-2000Hz. For the bass in the kick, I have 3 knobs to control that. The low one is a deep 20-40Hz, the second is a 80-100Hz, and then I have another one to make it cover the 200Hz, for that 'thud' sound.

As for the snare, to make it stand out on subs (so you aren't just hearing a bass drum...) I EQ is so its mid ranged, with a good amount of feed into the 8K to the 10K Hz, and then EQ it into the 500 and 250 Hz, so the resonance of the snare stands out. Sure does make it so you can hear the tune of the snare on subs.

The bass is a sine wave to me. I make it, play it at notes so it won't conflict with the kick/snare, then I make sure that I keep it within that range.

[Rucklo]

At 10/17/06 09:31 AM, BlackNoise wrote: I'll give my small amount of shit input :D

The way I EQ my DnB songs (when I do actually decide to make some...) is that the kick must stand out. So: I make the kick slightly midranged, with slight modifications to the 1500-2000Hz. For the bass in the kick, I have 3 knobs to control that. The low one is a deep 20-40Hz, the second is a 80-100Hz, and then I have another one to make it cover the 200Hz, for that 'thud' sound.

As for the snare, to make it stand out on subs (so you aren't just hearing a bass drum...) I EQ is so its mid ranged, with a good amount of feed into the 8K to the 10K Hz, and then EQ it into the 500 and 250 Hz, so the resonance of the snare stands out. Sure does make it so you can hear the tune of the snare on subs.

The bass is a sine wave to me. I make it, play it at notes so it won't conflict with the kick/snare, then I make sure that I keep it within that range.

Basic and smooth indeed. I´m experimienting with alot of things, I´ll have to get back to here when i have the time to do so :-O
Thing with bass is that its not always just to get the frequencies right, and make them puzzle with other sounds... i wish it was, oh how i wish...

LOL COMPRESS STUFF!!!!!11 >:(

[LJCoffee]

At 10/18/06 03:03 PM, SadSpoon wrote: Sidechaining?

Here here - always a nice way to make the percussion pop a little bit more - by slightly ducking the volume on the bassline - or any other line for that matter, the overall percieved loudness of the track is increased without actually adding any volume or muddying up the mix.

You Reason users have just got to love the MClass Compressor.

Setting up a quick and dirty sidechain in Reason:

Set up an instance of ReDrum, a Subtractor and an MClass Compressor.
Get a good thump thump thump going on the ReDrum
Get a sustained note or two going on your Subtractor

Run the output from the Subtractor into the input of the Compressor
Run the output from the Compressor into a channel on the mixer
Connect the outputs from ReDrum into the mixer

PATCH the Send Out 1 from ReDrum to the SideChain IN on the Compressor

Turn the S1 all the way on the kick drum channel

On your compressor:
turn the Threshold all the way DOWN
the the Ratio all the way UP
Turn your Attack and Release all the way DOWN

Press play and if you did it right, you should get this nice pumping sound from the subtractor. Toggle the Compressor (on/bypass) to hear the difference - it's quite dramatic

There ya go - a basic sidechaining setup - now you can tweak your Compressor settings to get the sound you're looking for. And once you're comfortable with it you can find new and exciting ways to apply a sidechain to any number of devices.

I hope that helps!

[Khuskan]

At 10/14/06 11:38 AM, SadSpoon wrote: I can rarely get my basses to sound the way I want them to. I basically do all kinds of random mastering tricks and hope it sounds right :D

Truth. Try as I might, I've never been able to come up with a drum and bass song with a plan of how it would sound in the end. Midnight only came about because I worked out the drumline...

[Rucklo]

Sidechaining is awsome, but if you want to make the subbass "duck" for the basedrum, and make the bd "bigger" that way, you must notice that you are not keeping the bd in an eventual "drum group", unless you include the subbass in that group. This mean, that if you want to handle the drums separatley, you will not have the bd following this. For example, if you want to filter the drum with a sweeping highpass filter, then the basedrum will NOT follow the filter sweep, since it is connected to a sidechain in a compressor, with the bass... I havent found a decent way to get around t his, unless you want to make a completley separate bassdrum for the sidechaining, and keep the original one in the drum group (of course you can use the same one as you have "outside" the group). When you want to filter sweep, simply must the "outside" bassdrum and turn on the one that is in the group. This however mean that on the filter-sweeped section, we will NOT have any swidechaining activated at all, meaning the bassdrum in this section wont make the bass duck... Quack quack >:(

[LJCoffee]

duck...duck...duck...duck...duck...GOOSE ! !

thinking about the eq sweep scenario -

Yes, I suppose you could set up a second bass drum that would duck the bassline.
Set up the drums as you want them, make a copy, apply any filters or effects on the original and use the copy to duck the bassline without plugging the copy into the mixer. You'll get the sidechain benefits without any actual audio from the copy device... That seems to be a pain though - and not very edit friendly either...

I imagine that our spider friends could help find a way around this - split the signals here, re-combine them there... Honestly I don't know - but I plan on playing with it a little later to find out.

If you want to make truly awesome DnB then you may also want to consider abducting someone (a good place to look would be DogsOnAcid).
You could keep them chained up in the closet and force them to do the work for you in exchange for not being beaten with a rubber hose.

[Sandwhich-lord]

surely with drum and bass your not limited to just a drum and bass you could have short gaps of other instruments to carry the song ?

[DrumNBass]

Originally DnB was really only drums and bass, but eventually people started getting more creative than that :D
The AP is a really good collection of that new kind of DnB, with lots more layered tracks with actual instruments.

If they're made really well, just drum and bass tracks can be some of the best I've heard, but sometimes DnB can lack diversity.

I would recommend starting out by making some more layered DnB tracks and then attempting to master just those two instruments. Karbon is a a good example of someone who does that really well. API also has some pretty good exclusively drum and bass tracks, too, I believe.

Well, that's my DnB lesson for the day...

[Rucklo]

I originally posted this in the DnB club, but since that´s in the club&crew section, I´ll post this little subbass tip (for reason users) here as well (and ive added a few words:);

- Set up a new 14:2 mixer inside a combinator.

- Set up a Malström. Use two oscillators set to basic sine´s. Play the sines at somewhere between C0 and C2 to get it as low as you wish. (Try to get your subbass lowest frequencies around 25-50Hz or so). You won´t hear much at this moment, so turn on the shaper and add some boost for the sine-shape (or saturate or whatever you think sounds coolest).

- Now, to get it pump, set the Modulator (B) rate to around 85-ish, depending on how fast you want the "beating effect" pump. Use a sine-shape here. If you want to, you can sync the shaping, but personally I prefer not to. Set the volume knob on the Mod B to around 40, or how much you want it to beat. Remember to route both oscillators to the filter, and if you want, route the osc. B to the shaper as well.

- This will probably sound fairly OK, if you try doing stuff with the shift knobs, it´s gonna start crying in a cool way. But to get this right, we must take control of the sound, since it´s all over the place now;

- Connect the Malström directly into a spider splitter. Now you´ll have four signals to play with. One of the four you connect into a lowpassfilter (remember that you can use the StereoImager as a filter as well, both low and highpass. I think it works as a 6dB filter). Cut it around 250Hz or so, it all depends on what notes you are playing. After the filter you can add some slight compression if you feel comfortable using a compressor. Then put it straight into the Mixer. Now you´ll have full controll of the actual sub-frequencies.

- A second signal from the splitter you can put into a Scream4 unit. I think it sounds really cool if you use the Tape compression, set knob P2 to a low value, 2:0 - 2:5 or so. Then after that comes a Highpass filter (use the StereoImager), removing all frequencies below around 250Hz (again, it depends on whatnotes you are playin and how you´ve set your Malström.... You might want to cut it alot higher). Also add a lowpass filter, to get rid of ev. unwanted high frequencies. Perhaps aroun 1kHz or higher (or lower :)
Slightly compress if you wish too. It´s important that you never over-process anything, it´s very easy to do so with compression in perticular... remember that you´re gonna use the synth in a SONG, with other instruments, meaning you will most likley have to go back and twak stuff later.
Anyway, when you like the sound, put it into the mixers second channel.

- A third spilt you can fool around a little more crazy with, add a phaser AND a flanger, do other weird stuff with it... Eventually it should end up in the mixer anyway.

The point of this is that now you will have the full oppurtunity mixing the subbass to get the sound you want from the 14:2 mixer within the combinator. You can of course automate stuff to make it weird and all that jazz.

Of course you probably won´t get a "razor sharp killer sound" by following these instructions to the fully, you MUST tweak to get it right. These are just guidlines.
What I do now is that I set up a subbass kindof like this. then i re-wire to cubase and export the different channels, so i can mix it all in cubase. It´s basicly the same thing, but i´ll have access to alot of good plugs and wil work with .wav files rather then re-wired channels. It gives me very different options. I may have to go back into reason and make changes and export again, but it´s worth it, the end result wil be alot better.

If you for example just can´t get one of these sounds loud enough, for example the second split, just split it out again just before the mixer, and you´ll have two identical signals to mix. Also, of course, you can use whatever inserts you want and think sounds cool. Perhaps it would be cool to merge one of the signals with a NN19 string? Go crazy :)

Also remember that subbass should at all time be kept mono. Don´t even think about using a stereoimager (unless its for filtering:) or panning the bass to one side.. it´s gonna sound KAKA.

Try to get hold of a spectrum analyzer, it´s very difficult to hear the very low end. If you have bad speakers, you won´t get the right feel of the low end anyway. And don´t even think about trying to mix subbass in headphones. You MUST feel the bass... You should mix the bass rather loud too, around 85-90 dB. This is because the human ear won´t hear the bass as good as other frequencies (it´s called "phon curve", google it:). But BE CAREFUL when mixing this loud, and don´t do it for long periods of time. Take frequent breaks, or you´ll end up with tinnitus or worse... :O

Of course, listen to your song when i´t about to get finnished, in different systems. This is the only way to get as close to the truth of how it "really" sounds...

A quick one for the constant battle of bassdrum and subbass;

- Decide where your bassdrum should hit. If you want it at 60Hz, make a cut in the subbass at 60Hz. To get the BD fatter, you can add a "sine trigger", meaning a synth that produce a short sine-beat at chosen frequencie. Mix it nice. Also, the original BD will sound louder if you boost it´s high frequencie, usually around 1kHz.

Hope this can give some insiration :)

GL HF lolk?