Techniques to make low synth bass audible on small speakers

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Apologies if this has been covered a million times.

Often the bassline really carries the track. You even hear commercial songs with sub/808 bass that you can hear clearly on any sound system.

You can EQ to your hearts content but obviously science says you can't make certain frequencies suddenly appear out of speakers that can't reproduce them. How is everyone achieving intelligible low end bass through small (ie: laptop) speakers? In my experience there is no easy answer to this, so I'm exploring ideas.

I have found things like harmonic exciters (Renaissance Bass, SK_Bass) to be very hit and miss, sometimes smearing the bass and adding weird harmonics that don't fit.

Something I did recently was clone the bass synth and its bassline to a separate channel, then send it through an extreme high-pass before adding saturation only to the mids and top end, so it sits on top of the low end version and is clearly heard through any speaker - I think this method just makes more sense... am I on the right track?

Masters... Teach me some tricks, please :D

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Use any waveform other than sine. When applying a LowPassFilter, go easy on the cutoff frequency: leave some of them harmonics there! The brain will as by magic reconstruct the root note from the harmonics.
Add a bit of distortion might do the trick as well.
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Thank you!

Very good advice: steer away from pure sine waves.

Maybe I could even double up my bassline with a sawtooth version of it on top...

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MogwaiBoy wrote:Thank you!

Very good advice: steer away from pure sine waves.

Maybe I could even double up my bassline with a sawtooth version of it on top...
Another version an octave higher could help draw attention to the bass--as long as it's not so loud that it covers it. Even a moderately bright attack on the bass notes will subconsciously cue the listener to the bass part, and help her focus on it. Your saturation trick is good too, and along the same lines.

Another tip: watch your compression, and use a multi-band compressor, if you can. You don't want the bass too loud in a single-band compressor so that it keeps ducking the rest of the material when it plays.

Finally, if you're sure this material will only (or mostly) be played on laptop speakers, that's one thing. But if there's a chance it'll be played on a full-range playback system, you may have to compromise between a mix made for "laptops" (which aren't all the same, anyway), and a more "traditional" playback system.

Steve
Here's some of my stuff: https://soundcloud.com/shadowsoflife. If you hear something you like, I'm looking for collaborators.

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Go up an octave as well - that's a very good idea.

Thank you Steve. You helped me in my faux-mastering thread too. You're one of my favourite people 'round here :)

This is for a track we've made that's going on a compilation with some pretty big-names...

On the multi-band front... I hear really good things about Waves Linear Phase Multiband. Any experience with that?

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+1 for saturation, maybe even a bass amp sim - I use MarkBass.
Don't solo the bass when doing this - it may sound horrible!
For subs, use a triangle or square wave.

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Distortion within synth itself (automated for clean attack transient). My "subbass" goes all the way up to 6 kHz and that's when it sounds fat in the mix.
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Hah, cool! Strange coincidence. That's exactly what I'm already doing too. Computer Music you read my mind!

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MogwaiBoy wrote:Go up an octave as well - that's a very good idea.

Thank you Steve. You helped me in my faux-mastering thread too. You're one of my favourite people 'round here :)

This is for a track we've made that's going on a compilation with some pretty big-names...

On the multi-band front... I hear really good things about Waves Linear Phase Multiband. Any experience with that?
Thanks, MogwaiBoy! I do enjoy helping people. :wink:

I haven't used the Waves Linear Phase Multiband, but if you have it, that's what you'd want to use. Even though "Linear Phase" effects tend to add more latency to the signal path (and are usually used during mixdown or mastering), you might be able to get away with it in a mix to see if it does what you want. And if it's Waves, I'm sure it's good enough for what you need to do. :wink:

Good luck with your mix!

Steve
Here's some of my stuff: https://soundcloud.com/shadowsoflife. If you hear something you like, I'm looking for collaborators.

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A pitch envelope, it sounds similar to synth kick drums but more tonal.

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Just to also chime in, distortion is your friend here! I'd happily keep with a sine wave for the sub bass though, just be sure to load another sound on top that has greater harmonic information...Watch for any phase issues though.

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Fantastic advice, thanks all!

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I usually throw on a bit crusher, then a bass enhancer like maxx bass. If you need more, then parallel compression works wonders. If you really cant get it to come out then you can throw a limiter on it with 100ms release like the L1.

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I think you want to hit the sweet spot for the low end of those speakers, at around 700-900 hz - any lower and it's just mud (so you're going to want to go a few octaves up from your sub-bass; A4 / 440 is not your friend here). A lot of the methods discussed will get you that, or you can always layer.

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