Where do you guys cut your sub bass?
How low do you let your sub bass go? I’ve been working on a few tracks where some of the notes my bassline hit are as low as 41Hz or so.
Now, I understand a lot of subwoofers don’t go that low. I guess maybe a better question would be, for the most part, how low of frequencies can most subwoofers produce?
How low do you guys let your frequencies go?
I cut out anything below 35hz myself, and I’ve noticed there is a difference between 35hz and 40hz. But I would let the mastering engineer worry about that as he’ll most likely put a filter at the start of his chain the cut out anything below a certain amount.
I’d also like to add that I do have a sub for my monitoring setting up so maybe that’s why I can tell the difference.
30Hz
My Sennheisers can hit pretty low notes (up to and including around 35Hz), I just wasn’t sure how low you should go, considering most people don’t have expensive studio woofers/headphones/etc
Well, are you making your stuff for people to listen to at home/on their ear buds, or are you making it to be played in a club?
And while your headphones may be able to go that low, you really can’t feel it I’d say. But that’s just me.
Well that’s what I mean. If I’m working on the assumption that people could potentially be listening to my tracks on a variety of different equipment. Where, ideally, should the bass lie (in terms of frequency) in order to be the best for the most amount of people and situations?
I think it depends on who your audience is. I make my stuff to be played out by DJs on big systems, so I engineer them that way.
If you expecting a lot of people to be listening to it on their laptop or iPod, then you would more than likely add a bit of distortion to the bass so they can actually hear it and would more than likely add more compression on the master channel than you normally would.
You could actually make two different mix downs if you really wanted to, the actual club track and then a radio mix as well so you’re hitting all points
Remember, by trying to please everyone you’ll end up with no one happy then.
I don’t know man, making club and radio versions of tracks I release probably isn’t real practical.
I’m not trying to please everyone, I’m trying to please the most amount of people. I can’t imagine much of my music gets played out in club settings, but I’m not about to distort my basslines…
Thanks for the advice though.
Why wouldn’t you add some distortion? It’s a real common producer trick so you can hear the bassline if you can’t reproduce it properly on listening set ups, i.e. ear buds/laptop speakers where there’s no sub available.
And I’m not talking about doing whole different arrangements for your ‘club’ and ‘radio’ versions, just to approach the mixdown and mastering a bit differently and to make it so people can ‘hear’ the sub bass if they don’t have a sub on the radio version. That’s all.
From 80-50Hz. It’s a pretty narrow range.
Nononono. You’re supposed to cut the midrange, then drop the bass.
P.S. 35 Hz is a good place, although the 808 bassdrum is all around 80Hz.
i cut it where the kick is 
30Hz - the sub sounds you feel the most exists between 35-47hz - this is that really low presence that shakes allot of dancefloors. Producers like downlink, Excision, Propa Tingz etc… all cut 30hz and below.
Only because everything I’ve ever read about creating sub basslines has emphasized the importance of keeping the sound as clean as possible. But hey, maybe you’re right. I’ll do some searches later on today when I don’t have class.
Thanks for the tip though.
When making it for radio/ipods the challenge lies in making a bassline people can actually hear. This could be done by simply layering an organ one octave above the bassline, by adding a little distortion to and so on.
But when making it for el club-o’s, by all means, keep it low and subby.
i found it really hard to get that nice clean shaking effect w/ subbass.
just to clarify nephew are you saying distortion on a sub bassline is ok?.
I’m not talking about making it super distorted, just a little bit so you can actually hear it. Not something I practice often, but it has it’s time and place. The idea is to make it so you can hear the bassline if you’re in a listening environment where you won’t be able to feel it.
If you use Ableton, just go to the audio effects>audio effect rack>Tone and Colour>Crunch-n-Munch (if your on 8 that is, one earlier version I think it’s in performance & DJ). Slap that on your bass line and you’ll hear what I mean. Just adds a little bit of distortion on top of it so you can hear the bassline if you can’t feel it.
Obviously you’ll have to adjust the settings to taste, but you’ll be able to hear the bassline none the less. Hell, try making a sub bassline and listening to it through your laptop speakers/earbuds and see how much of it you can pick out, then add the crunch and munch and you’ll be able to follow it with no issues.
BUT, I would only do this for a radio version if you will if you intended for it to be pure subby goodness, otherwise leave it off and rock it in the club and let the low end do it’s job