Gloopikat
New member
I suspect that someone somewhere must have covered this, but also find that people are generally more concerned with general tactics than the question that bugs me. My sub bass line contains five notes, with their lowest harmonics all below the 100Hz mark, naturally. In pursuit of level equality, I've gone to great lengths (aside from cutting below 20hz) to try and reduce each note's region accordingly, so that the loudest note is reduced a little more than the second loudest, and so on. I did this because no amount of soft compression allowed me to escape the squishy sound effect that comes with compressing sub bass.
My curve basically consisted of a smooth cut below 100Hz, interrupted by wavy dips with narrow Qs, increasing as they approached the deepest note. The problem was that the sub note closest to 100Hz (above which I planned to have the body of the bass) lacked energy - even though the main task of keeping the level difference to +/- 2Db difference was achieved (or it was some other audible or inaudible decibel problem). When I tried just to have a smooth slope below 100Hz, it left me with the problem of some notes naturally sounding louder than others. But since there were no harmonics to cut above the 100Hz mark, it left me stumped... there was literally nothing else to boost or cut.
My question is this: what needs to be sacrificed here - the audible loudness effect, or the decibel difference? How do artists get that incredibly even-sounding level across the whole 5-note progression in the sub region? All the advice I found is incredibly general.
My only other guess is that I was on the right track, but should use a limiter, set to to squish the quieter/louder notes into submission? Or maybe the wavy, incremental note EQ'ing isn't the way to go at all, and all I needed was just one smooth line of reduction below the 100Hz mark + limiter/compression to compensate for the louder nature of some notes?
For instance, this track contains three notes in relatively the same frequency range, but then there's also a note that's much deeper that completes the progression later for variety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdAv8GxLGaY
Sorry for the boring description. Your advice will be much appreciated!
My curve basically consisted of a smooth cut below 100Hz, interrupted by wavy dips with narrow Qs, increasing as they approached the deepest note. The problem was that the sub note closest to 100Hz (above which I planned to have the body of the bass) lacked energy - even though the main task of keeping the level difference to +/- 2Db difference was achieved (or it was some other audible or inaudible decibel problem). When I tried just to have a smooth slope below 100Hz, it left me with the problem of some notes naturally sounding louder than others. But since there were no harmonics to cut above the 100Hz mark, it left me stumped... there was literally nothing else to boost or cut.
My question is this: what needs to be sacrificed here - the audible loudness effect, or the decibel difference? How do artists get that incredibly even-sounding level across the whole 5-note progression in the sub region? All the advice I found is incredibly general.
My only other guess is that I was on the right track, but should use a limiter, set to to squish the quieter/louder notes into submission? Or maybe the wavy, incremental note EQ'ing isn't the way to go at all, and all I needed was just one smooth line of reduction below the 100Hz mark + limiter/compression to compensate for the louder nature of some notes?
For instance, this track contains three notes in relatively the same frequency range, but then there's also a note that's much deeper that completes the progression later for variety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdAv8GxLGaY
Sorry for the boring description. Your advice will be much appreciated!