Sub bass

[Lavender_Harmony]

I'm currently mixing a tune, and I've come across a problem that on anything beyond my monitors, the sub in my track disappears. It sounds huge on my Rokit's as it is, but once I move to, say, a Hi Fi to test the mix there, half the notes sound like theres no bass at all, and the low end is dominated by the kick, which is cut to 100Hz, and the balancing becomes offset.

I've tried using a triangle wave, instead of a sine, I've layered another filtered bass sound above, I've tried saturating. I know a lot of it is to do with what key your song is in, certain notes that low resonate louder than others. I've put it up an octave also, but then the sub is far too noticeable.

Any suggestions as to things I could try?

Many thanks. ^_^

[Icky]

It's best to have your sub sit between 40 and 60 hz in my experience, leaves plenty of room for a reese bass and a kickdrum. I always use a simple sin wave that's cutoff above 120'ish, but I boost it around 45hz. Seems to work most of the time.
If the sub sits too low or high in the song I layer it, or add a second osc that's 1 octave above or below the first sine.

[Sugarholik]

sin wave that's cutoff above 120'ish, but I boost it around 45hz.

I'd just like to point out that sine wave has no overtones. Filtering only changes it's amplitude (volume) on different frequencies.

[the4thImpulse]

Any suggestions as to things I could try?

I am just thinking but maybe the kick is too powerfull and its drowning out the hifi speakers bass, try listening to other music with heavy sub bass and compare it to your song. I personaly test sub response with the song "Rusko - Everyday (Netsky Remix)". It could be the spe3akers themselves, I have used rokits before and know they exagerate the bass to some extent and the hifi speakers may not properly recreate sound below 60Hz.

The above advice is good and I would second it.

I'd just like to point out that sine wave has no overtones. Filtering only changes it's amplitude (volume) on different frequencies.

While true you can change the sine wave through effect use (like distortion) and then you may want to cut it off to be safe.

[Spirit]

You could try adding some distortion then low passing it and boosting around 50Hz, to give it a few more overtones and making it more prominent on different systems. or it might just be past that speakers range completely

I personaly test sub response with the song "Rusko - Everyday (Netsky Remix)".

That is an absolute TUNE, Have you heard the VIP remix as well?

[Lavender_Harmony]

I've tried everything suggested here, to no avail. It just disappears in the lower notes.

[Sugarholik]

I've tried everything suggested here, to no avail. It just disappears in the lower notes.

Yo! Upload it somewhere and let us hear!

[Whitetail]

Hmmmmm well honestly it sounds like your sub bass is out of the range of most speakers, you're stuck a bit in between a rock and a hard place if that's the case - maybe just jump up an octave on the lowest notes that tend to dissapear? Due to the nature of sub bass in general I doubt it'd be very noticeable if it doesn't follow the upper bass perfectly. I've noticed this seems to occur even in professionally mixed projects too so it seems like a common problem - the bass in this tends to dissapear on the lower tones even in my car speakers even if they play fine in my headset

[Lavender_Harmony]

Huh, listening to that, and my CD version, it's doing the same thing. If you wanna hear it, it's my balloon party teaser here.

http://youtu.be/LDE4FicE5zA

But listening to Watercolour, which was actually a big inspiration for this piece, arrangement wise, I'm not doing anything wrong. I've noticed a lot of sub-heavy songs are in, or close to G, as that note in the low register resonates really heavily.

I'll try an octave above, but if it becomes too noticeable, I'll just leave it. My mix has a long way to go..

[Sugarholik]

Yup. The sub escapes the range of speakers and human ears.
The best you can do is attempting to make the sub even louder by sidechaining or something. Or jump an octave higher or use a saw osc and lowpass it roughly so you get just the first 3 or 4 harmonics (use key tracking filter!).

[Whitetail]

human ears

Honestly at that point you might as well just jump it up an octave haha
Unless you're mixing for ponies or something (honestly that might be a neat experiment, find out the range of hearing horses normally have and try to mix a piece accordingly)

[Lavender_Harmony]

Horses can hear way past 30kHz. I think their reaction to electronic music would be ARGH MY EARS OW OW TURN IT OFF ITS LIKE FORKS ON TINFOIL HELP CALL THE POLICE AUGH JHAGDJKFADKJA

[bartekko]

Horses can hear way past 30kHz. I think their reaction to electronic music would be ARGH MY EARS OW OW TURN IT OFF ITS LIKE FORKS ON TINFOIL HELP CALL THE POLICE AUGH JHAGDJKFADKJA

More like

The lack of treble in this piece is very treblesome

badpunsftw

[Versilaryan]

I'm too lazy to calculate numbers for the frequencies, but if your sub dips too low for human hearing, then making it louder isn't going to do anything except mess up your gain structure and introduce some mild DC offset. Do what Whitetail said and jump up an octave when you need to. You could try experimenting with lowpassed sawtooths or triangles, too.

[Sugarholik]

human ears

It's not out of the range like totally but coming close. I have a headset which easily plays even 20 Hz but still the bass sounded very quiet.

You could try experimenting with lowpassed sawtooths or triangles, too.

I'd use saw, because it has even and odd harmonics. Triangle has only odds. This means that the second harmonic of saw is one octave above, while the second harmonic of triangle is an octave and about fifth. Octaves sort of blend in better IMO.

Horses can hear way past 30kHz.

If they can hear past the nyquist frequency then they would hear most of our music in nintendo style Ponies are audiophiles!