Building a "Waves MaxxBass" Clone with MXXX possible?

[Hexspa]

I'm only beginning my keyboard and synth journey but...

If you don't need to play E1 (~41.5Hz), you can always play E2 (~83Hz) and use a sub oscillator for the sub. That's what I try to do - especially because I only have 61-key controller. In this way, and depending on your instrument, you're more likely to get enough frequencies above 500Hz that'll cut through the smallest speakers. You can also blend in another oscillator an octave or even a fifth or a tenth up.

I consider anything below A0 (~27.5Hz) garbage and definitely not 'musical sub'. In fact, I feel like B0 (~30.875Hz) is the absolute bottom for anything powerful and musical. A0-A#0 to me are 'infrasonics' for LFE, etc.

Then again, I've yet to earn my first Engineering Grammy.

[] Peter:H []

Hi all,

sorry for my absence to the topic I have started (Actually the second reason why I have started it was, to distract attention away from the catalina thing. Still my primary reason is curiosity

Anyway: As some you you have mentioned the trick of "MaxxBass" is to use a psycho acoustic phenomen - if starting with a input fundamental frequency of F and you generate harmonics as if you have detected a Frequency f which is a octace below F then our brain still "hears" the sub frequency f even if it is not physicaly present. Only your brain does the trick and makes you believe f is present.

Why not simply generate f? Two reasons:
1.) If physicaly present f will actually clutter the spectrum and it feeds a lot of "energy" into for instance Compressores and that like. Speaking in terms of Compressors: 80hz has a cycle time of 12.5 ms, 40hz 25ms... if you have lower attack times in your compressor you will introduce new frequencies by distorting the signal of f if physicaly present.
2.) Many consumer speakers cannot produce the frequency of f - But if you could fool the listeners ears, that would help.
Therefore getting rid of the "physical" frequency of f is the idea, but nevertheless make your listeners ears/brain believe it is still present...

Now back to "How to construct with MXXX":
Even if MAmbassador can do something similar or it will be equipped with a MaxBass mode in a future release - would it be possible to build it with MXXX? Are all the building blocks present?
Just for the sake of the experiment. How would you build it?
If we figure out that modules are missing - then this might be a way to identify new feature requests for MXXX and MSF
Is there for instance a "PitchDetector" in MXXX?

• Because I would start with a pitch detector to get the fundamental of the signal S.
• Let's say the PD(S) --> FD; FD is Frequency Detected
• Then I would use FD, divide it by 2 resulting in a frequency FS; FS is Frequency Sub
• Then I would control a additive module by FS, BUT remove the fundamental of the additive completely.
• From the additive module go into a Saturator.
• Then add this saturated signal to the original

But I haven't found a pitch detector? There's MAutoPitch - But I don't know how to grab the detected pitch from it.

] Peter:H [

[jmg8]

I'm not sure this is the way to go. Firstly there is a pitch detector yes, it is in the main modulators. But it comes with problems, like incorrect pitch detection, due to speed of pitch changes, two or more pitches at once, etc.
I believe in MBassador it is resynthesized in the spectral domain.

It would be more beneficial (in my opinion) to test if MBassador is capable of creating the psychoacoustic trick.
Test a sine to see which harmonics are generated by MaxxBass and compare that with MBassador.

Then, hopefully, one of two things would be added to MBassador:
1. A switch to remove the dry sub or bass for each panel. This would make only the generated harmonics audible. Or even better, a level to blend the amount of dry with the harmonics (could be useful)
2. A new panel (Fake Bass) that only generates the harmonics and is a similar set of harmonics to that of MaxxBass.

[Niowiad]

As the subject says - Can a MaxxBass Clone be built with MXXX?
As far as I understood the theorie, it treats the incoming fundamental frequency as if it was actually the 2nd in the harmonic row, i.e. adding frequencies by factor 1.5, 2, 2.5, ... if you multiply these by 2 it would be the normal harmonic series, but we want to fool the ear a bit ...by using the factors mentioned above...Then the effect is that the brain adds the 1st fundamental which is then actually an octave lower then the incoming frequency...
But this is only as far as I understood...

Any experts here that say this can be done and how?

Hi. I'll just report what I'm able to observe as a MaxxBass owner.
This screenshot shows MaxxBass on top of a 100Hz sinewave. Red is pre-fx, White is post-fx.
It's just showing the "usual" upper harmonics... 200, 300, 400, 500 etc... no 150 or 250Hz.

I don't know what's exactly happening under the hood, but on a purely practical standpoint I've always considered MaxxBass as a simple bass saturator, although quite "surgical" thanks to its pre and post filtering. It's a very handy plugin to dial-in the right amount and range of upper harmonics in situations when other preamp/saturator plugins would be harder to control and not as flexible.

MBassador achieves somewhat similar results with its "BASS" and "CROSSOVER" sections, although it has a different saturation character.

Maybe I'm wrong but it seems like this thread started over the assumption that MaxxBass generates upper harmonic content relatable to 1st subharmonic, but that actually wouldn't be the case.
The idea behind MaxxBass was to generate upper harmonic content relatable to the very fundamental (as shown in the screenshot), so that crappy speakers lacking low-end could provide a sense of that "missing fundamental" tone without physically reproducing it.

https://www.waves.com/bass-plugins-and- ... s-compared
"The psycho-acoustic phenomenon creates an illusion for the brain, forcing it to imagine a “missing fundamental”. The brain perceives pitch not only by a tone’s fundamental frequency, but also by the relationship between the tone’s upper harmonics. If, for example, 200 Hz and 400 Hz are reproduced by the speakers, the missing 100hz fundamental absent from the speakers is still interpreted by the brain as being present."

[jmg8]

Cool, thanks for this insight, nice info. I did believe that it created harmonics based on an octave lower than the fundamental, but this seems to prove otherwise.
I notice that the harmonics generated by MaxxBass here seems to be equal for odd and even harmonics. However, in MBassador, the harmonics are higher for odd than even. This might be part of the problem, as I imagine that the even harmonics are probably more important in creating the psychoacoustic trick.

When I find the time I will download the demo of MaxxBass and do some more comparisons. It is seeming that a solution for MBassador would be to have a level control to reduce/remove the fundamental, leaving only the generated harmonics.
But also, an "Analog" parameter (as seen in MSaturator) that would generate even harmonics.

[Niowiad]

Yes that's what I meant with MBassador having a different "saturation character". The relation between even and odd harmonics can vary a bit tweaking some parameters, but as you also noticed, there's generally a prevalence of odd over even.

For MaxxBass up there I took a screenshot in a particularly "nice looking" ( ) decay configuration, but eventually adjusting "Ratio", "Response" and "Decay" there are also ways to lower the even harmonics and changing the pattern.
But generally speaking the harmonics in MaxxBass tend to decay more in a "visually linear" fashion compared to MBassador which tends to show a more irregular pattern.

[jmg8]

So I did some testing and it seems as though the harmonics generated by MBassador worked really well at creating the psychoacoustic trick. I hope I tested correctly, it got somewhat confusing, but I think I got it right.
Basically I used phase cancelation to leave only (I think) the harmonics, then blended that with the dry signal.
This in my opinion in side by side tests, sounded exactly like MaxxBass.
Although MBassador goes 1 step further by doing the same trick but with an octave lower than the fundamental, which BTW sounds really awesome.

Vojtech, is this feature possible to add please?
The reason for wanting it, is to give the impression that there is more bass, when really there is not.
Maybe a switch on each panel (bass, sub, sub2) named "Harmonics only" or "Remove fundamental.

[operator]

dp

[operator]

dp...

but yes... please Vojtech, please give as a option to null out the Fundametals of each generator (Bass, Sub, Sub2)

[MeldaProduction]

We'll see

[MeldaProduction]

The high-pass is already there! Try this in MBassador:

$eNpVj10LgjAUhu-7FeN428c0NQctwTC8KIqMup65ZLQ22GZEvz7EPujyPC-vw3vm6eMm0Z0bK7Si4I8xIK7OuhaqodC6yyiBdDGYbzJmLau1sdw5oRqLPAo+IK-juWKV5DUFDMjbM9XwzhSHEQ4IIVEcf3CAr8Wz75Vt9a2975K51jDXD+nRQavOBcg7cVfsKARjH5OfdqmVM1pKbv5G5LVw2pTiySkkOBmGcQRowx7r1TaT+nztk2kA6Pj5nPizCIcwWQxejodRIg==

[jmg8]

What slope is the HP?
Surely it will not cleanly separate the harmonics without including some of the dry bass signal?
Plus this is global, so it won't work individually for each processor.
We were hoping for the processors to generate ONLY the harmonics, is the HP really going to do that? Maybe so, I'm not sure, I will do some more testing and report back.
Thanks for taking a look

[operator]

The high-pass is already there! Try this in MBassador:

I asked this already, but is this HP-Filter Linear-Phase?
If there would be a possibiity of "nulling the Fundamental out" the result would be a linear phase cancelation without pre-ringing.

edit: ok, it tested it, and it´s not LinearPhase... would be better if it would be clean, especially in this case as this Plugin focus on the bass portion of the spectrum.

[HSum]

it would be linear phase without pre-ringing

Not possible due to the laws of physics.

[operator]

it would be linear phase without pre-ringing

Not possible due to the laws of physics.

OF course, when cancling a frequency with the phase inverted copy.. it is a linear phase cancalation (filtering) without any ringing.