is my bass to low?

[fl0w]

I was talking about bass and kick with a friend recently.

I think the bass nowadays goes much lower than before, while the kick is "thinner" (though it produces the impact that the bass lacks).

Also I suspect (but I'm not a specialist at all) sound systems filter various frequencies and even if your bass sounds quite low in your studio, it may produce the desired effect in club. If the frequency is here (and the sound system not too bad) you'll hear it. But I might be totally wrong :-/

Oh, and watch Andy Vax' tutorial (this a free advice, I haven't listened to your track).

Edit: I have listened to your track on my headphones, the bass sounds OK

[steevio]

My probem with the dreaded bass is; I always seem to end up with the majority of power at circa 60hz, generally bang on where my kick peaks. (doh)

I usually cut so much around that area i loose all that subby power i lurrrve so much. Sidechaning helps, but doesnt solve it.

Maybe i just need to comprimise between either;

A. Big Bass / Small Kick

or

B. Big Kick / Small Bass

I dont know, but the funs in trying....

or you could add ;

C kick and bass never together, using the kick as part of the bass groove,

for the last three years i've written my tunes this way, but now i feel i've exhausted the possibilities a little, it definitely gave the tunes from that period a different feel

D just make sure you're using different notes in your kick and bass, but ones that compliment each other, it doesnt matter that the frequencies are close, but its best to keep your envelopes tight. if ive got a bass note just before the kick, i usually use a short decay.

[MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE]

@ Steevio

C. A good point, but like you i wouldnt like to be limited to a particular kind of arrangement, although that is a good solution

D. Again, sound advice, i often use my kick preset and lower the square osc volume (click), raise the atack and release a little to get my bass sound; the release blurs the low end; shorter decays are the way forward

I also need to listen to my kick and bass part playing concurenlty when im knob twiddling more; bass sounds BIG on its own, but turns to mud as soon as i layer my kick over it.

Thanks for the advice though man, much appreciated

[532nm]

we should create a new notation system for techno using actual frequency instead of note letters.

it seems really hard if not impossible to determine notes for sub bass and bass drums which make making complimentary kick/bass patterns hard to make. i suppose this is part of what makes great producers great, i.e., just using you ears to find what sounds right together.

but in general you dont have to be nearly as carefull making sure that freq's dont collide if your using sidechaining properly.

and it seems really important to layer kicks, to get deep low's with a lot punchy mids. also make sure youre not making your kicks too long, cuz they will lose focus.

[provaznik]

one thing to be careful of in adding a note one octave higher at the same point in time is that he original tone, unfiltered, is still playing that pitch as well. i usually add a note that is a perfect 5th or 7th above the original note. every musical note we hear also has a series of overtones that go with it. for instance if you play A440 as a pure sine wave look at it on a frequency spectrum, you will also see a series of pitches being played above it. but keep in mind that there are no pitches that are played underneath it, i don't know why as i believe that the answer is way above me but i do know from experience that this is how sine waves work. i seem to recall a sos article that came out some years ago that talked about how different oscillators affected harmonics, this may be an interesting read for you. maybe try a google search for it or something. ok back to overtones, if i play an A440 there will be a harmonic one octave above it at A880 and then another harmonic at a major 5th above the A880 then another harmonic at a perfect 4th above the major 5th then a 3rd above the 4th, a 2nd above the 3rd, and so on into infinity. but as they approach infinity, and more importantly away from the dominant frequency, in this case A440, they follow a very distinct pattern as far as how much they drop volume as they move away from the dominant frequency. i hope that helped man, i know it was a bit of a long winded post but maybe it helped.

[steevio]

you've got that slightly wrong bro, a pure sine wave has absolutely no harmonics whatsoever, its a pure tone, just one frequency.
a sawtoothwave has all harmonics present, a square wave only odd numbered harmonics, and with a pulse wave it varies depending on the pulse width.
it's very interesting to spectrum analyze different width pulse waves, because you can select which harmonics you want to go with the fundamental.
i do this with my SH101 for bass sometimes, if say i'm only using a couple of notes in a tune, i might use a pulsewave for bass which has the same or complimentary harmonics as the notes in the tune. i then filter down the wave to just the fundamental and a couple of those harmonics.
so in effect the bass is a like a chord even though its just one wave.
of course you can just do this by ear, maybe i'm just a boffin.