BIG Saturation test - Mbassador/RBass/MaxxBass/bx_subsynth/LoAir etc

[BMoore]

how do you use them

Use your ears, and not analysers

Assuming you have golden/good ears.
Visualization will, among other things, help you on your way to train your ears in that regard.

[simon.a.billington]

bx_subsynth will generate a lower harmonic, plus synthesize higher harmonics, to give the illusion of a bigger bass sound.

Whereas LowAir, just does the lower sub frequency, MaxxBass and Ren Bass just does the higher, I believe. Working with LowAir along with one of the other two, you should get an effect similar, but not the same, to bx_subsynth.

I’m not experienced with the others but I would say the fall into the same categories, sub harmonic synthesis, upper harmonic synthesis, or both.

[MogwaiBoy]

This is just me... at the end of the day, if you can choose a bass synth that has all the harmonics built-in straight from the oscillators, you're golden and you won't need to resort to additional synthesis.

In saying that, carry on please

[The Noodlist]

Thanks for the article, and the effort you put into it.

I assume the tests concluded here are aimed at perceived bass frequencies/translation on smaller speakers and earbuds.
I heard that passing audio through a device containing transformers also does the trick.
Also, the variables in price can be significant.

Melda MSaturator and LVC Audio Phuzz, both free, provide interesting results.
A sine wave at 60hz, running through an HP monitor's built-in speakers, essentially laptop speakers, is inaudible.
With the Phuzz module set to nickel, ¾ drive and wet/dry set to taste, the sine wave became audible, as with MSaturator.

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P&M Analoger seems to perform better if the is high EQ is slightly boosted with low flat, with the entire plugin running in parallel/blended.

Also, G-Sonique's XBass 4000L produces interesting results. When analysed using Christian Budde's VST Plugin Analyser, the XBass 4000L produced harmonics along with a peak boost, not solely harmonics.
A small peak boost at around 275hz brings out the higher bass.

Melda's MEqualizer has a harmonics feature, where, you can adjust the fundamental and its overtones higher up the frequency range. The picture below is the harmonic feature set to negative values.



G-Sonique's XBass 4000 is the best I've tried, it never failed to get the bass poking through on smaller speakers.

[HansR83]

You should also check out the new TAL-DAC.
I'm really impressed with this one:

[_al_]

My layman advice: Get Klanghelm SDRR. Only 23 €, and it is very versatile, with different modes

+1
This is the one i recently settled on. Sounds great on my techno bass-bus

[Ah_Dziz]

Hmmmm LoAir in particular looks like just a big blobby lump, but actually that's a sub octave peak hiding under there. If you increase SPAN's 'Block Size' you should be able to see it in detail.

It is. Low air generates subharmonics which are then further processed. The questions regarding why the nots aren’t spread evenly at octaves seems to me to indicate you don’t understand how the harmonic series works. Any integer multiple of the fundamental frequency is going to be in that series. The ration of even to odd harmonics makes a large difference in the sound you get out, then the phase relationship between the generated harmonics and their relative phase to the fundamental also can have a large effect especially in the lower harmonics. I don’t know if you are into math but if so you should look into transfer functions and analyzing them using Fourier Analysis. Lots of the tools you showed do very different things, but the common thread is that they take the original signal and generate new frequency components that are mathematically related to the input frequency, and then they may further process the signal from there. This can be used in lots of different ways, but mostly for adding either a bit of information below the original signal, in order to give it more weight in the sub region, or to add a nice mix of higher frequencies that trick the ear into “hearing” the extremely low fundamental frequency without having to crank its volume up to the point that it eats all your headroom.

[dangayle]

if you want decent saturation just use the Drop. Turn off all other parameters on it. Personally I think a bit of it or free Krush does good job and use Trash from Izotope otherwise. I also now like Blueface of Audiority at slight bit. I made many presets in the Drop just for saturation.

What kind of settings? Do you adjust the trim, select the filter model and adjust the saturation to taste? Every time I’ve tried to use this filter for saturation, it goes fizzy and cuts all the low end. What am I doing wrong?

[Touch The Universe]

Melda's MEqualizer has a harmonics feature, where, you can adjust the fundamental and its overtones higher up the frequency range. The picture below is the harmonic feature set to negative values.

Is this feature new? I remember requesting this exact same thing nearly 2 years ago. Nice to see it regardless

This is extremely useful when eq'ing synthesized drums. To my ears, does no matter what frequency I start with to boost, it will sound very good as long as the successive boosts are octave's apart (harmonics). I usually start boosting at whatever the key of the song is, the closest fundamental in key.

[The Noodlist]

Is this feature new? I remember requesting this exact same thing nearly 2 years ago. Nice to see it regardless

I don't think it's a new feature. The photo comes from a Sound on Sound article from 2011.

The sliders could be improved, I find they can sometimes be tricky to operate. A knob might be the solution.

[Touch The Universe]

Yes. This is exactly what I had in mind. Wonderful. Thanks for sharing

[Caine123]

anyone knows how SPL Vitalizer Mk2-T is ?

[Eauson]

This is just me... at the end of the day, if you can choose a bass synth that has all the harmonics built-in straight from the oscillators, you're golden and you won't need to resort to additional synthesis.

In saying that, carry on please

+1
Possibly the best advice, use the source Luke
If your sample based then it is a touch different, although similar results can be achieved with some adjustments and additions.

[badass_billy]

IMO, saturation/distortion is very difficult to get right in digital/software form

I actually think it's pretty easy. I jut open an instance of sound toys decapitator, quickly click on each of it's options until I find what I like. Then tweak a few knobs and I'm done.

Couldn't be any easier.

[Halonmusic]

IMO, saturation/distortion is very difficult to get right in digital/software form

I actually think it's pretty easy. I jut open an instance of sound toys decapitator, quickly click on each of it's options until I find what I like. Then tweak a few knobs and I'm done.

Couldn't be any easier.

I do believe he meant that it is difficult to proper emulate saturation/distortion from hardware to software.