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Bass frequency power shifts...
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NikC
BeatNik
Started Topics :
40
Posts :
601
Posted : May 16, 2005 00:19
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How come, that when a bassline changes pitch, the power of the bassline seems to change as well even though no changes have been made to the actual sound.
Is there any way to stop this? I believe that compression is probably the way to go, but how should I compress the bass so that only the more powerful frequencies are weakened...
Hope you understand what I mean
Peace |
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High Pulse
Darkpsy
Started Topics :
57
Posts :
1187
Posted : May 16, 2005 03:04
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man pitching is nothing like going up octaves and semitons , and if u are going upor down u are changing notes in this case frequency , so my best option for u , each time u want to change pitch , make a new bassline channel or in the same channel use a new EQ but use the automation to bypass when is no more necessairy . i hope this simple solutions help
about the compression u might maybe maybe can do this as well , but for that u needd to know the sinosoide of the freq of the bass (lenght of wave shape) then u need to make some matematical equation to give u the exaclt attack and release u need to give to the compressor to catch and pump up the frequency were u really need it .
its very hard to explain like this and i dont have much pacience for now to explain bether way
i hope it will give u some help
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billy ambulance
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
43
Posts :
560
Posted : May 16, 2005 13:23
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well, what i do is to fix the velocity and length of the notes in the midi. i dont open different eq or channel but i compress it,
not by matematical equation but taking my time to perferct the setting of compressor using my ears.
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High Pulse
Darkpsy
Started Topics :
57
Posts :
1187
Posted : May 16, 2005 15:48
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sy000321
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
46
Posts :
1142
Posted : May 16, 2005 16:06
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hmmm... i feel the decrease in the bass line when i transpose too.
i think the best bet is to make sure you're not cutting the fundamental with filtering and eq.
with filtering you can use the filter tracking settings, but it may be a little too difficult to get it right (depending on vst or synth design)
about compression, i think you don't need to care about this since a bass note (even a short one) is more than the wavelenght of said frequency = one bass note are more than just one wave (sinosoide, saw or square). unless you're going really down is bass freqs (but then, who's gonna hear them?).
there's also a harmony factor it the subject... when you transpose the bass you may loose the harmony relation whit the kick, snare, hats, melody, etc, and i believe that's where the feeling of power is.
make sure the change in bass note (or root) make sense harmonically with the rest of the notes, samples, being played.
psycoacoustically the bass might loose more power if you're always playing the same note and for a long time since the brain might become used to it and feel awkward when you change the pitch...
also, make sure your synth/vst is not applying any keyb tracking (on velocity, modulation depth) you haven't asked for... wich might kill the ilusion of power on the bass...
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joao
roll a joint or STFU :) |
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Colin OOOD
Moderator
Started Topics :
95
Posts :
5380
Posted : May 16, 2005 16:42
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When the bass note changes, sometimes one note can be at a resonant frequency of the room and can seem much more powerful. If this is the case, listening to the track with headphones on should sound ok.
If the 'power' is still different with different notes it could be an EQ problem. Perhaps you're EQing the bass after the compressor - in this case try moving the EQ to before the compressor. Also if you have a lot of EQ and the bass note moves around a lot it's possible that frequencies that are cut out for one note might not be cut out for another.
One other thing that can cause this problem is the filter in the synth that's making the bass. Check the filter - is the resonance up and the keyboard tracking set to less than 100%? If this is the case, the resonance will be boosting frequencies in the sound but the filter will not be tracking the keyboard fully so it might happen that some notes just happen to have a resonance boost at frequencies where they have loud harmonics already, whilst other notes get the resonance boost at frequencies where they don't; the result can be that some notes sound much louder than others. To fix this involves changing the sound a little at its source (ie. the filter settings).
Hope this helps.
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billy ambulance
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
43
Posts :
560
Posted : May 17, 2005 12:38
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another tip on the issue:
export / record your bass to audio and than edit it in the audio channel. it will get you more control of the bass signal. lower the notes that jump too high.
you can also edit the bassline to be more precise.
work for me..
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index
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
36
Posts :
548
Posted : May 17, 2005 17:22
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Quote:
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fix the velocity and length
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14-year old e-tard
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
11
Posts :
797
Posted : May 17, 2005 17:39
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Do what Colin said. If you can't sort the problem out at the source and it is not your room's acoustics messing with what you are listening (besides using headphones, you can simply look at the bassline channel's meter to see if it goes higher at the louder notes), insert a compressor and set the threshold so that gain reduction is applied only to those louder bass notes. You might need to use a fast release if you have a typical 16th full-on bassline so that there is no, or as little as possible, gain reduction applied to the note right after the loud bass note.
Me>You |
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vox
Started Topics :
2
Posts :
114
Posted : May 17, 2005 18:38
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Quote:
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On 2005-05-16 00:19, NikC wrote:
How come, that when a bassline changes pitch, the power of the bassline seems to change as well even though no changes have been made to the actual sound.
Is there any way to stop this? I believe that compression is probably the way to go, but how should I compress the bass so that only the more powerful frequencies are weakened...
Hope you understand what I mean
Peace
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compression might be the way to go, but consider acoustical treatment, because that bass effect can happen because of your room. to correct this in your mix, an eq is a much better choice than a compressor. find the offending frequency, and pull it down considerably with very narrow bandwidth. it works wonders. also, what can happen is that, on that note, the basic frequency of your kick and the frequency of the bassline add to each other, and that is treated with eq.
http://myspace.com/voxproject |
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makus
Overdream
Started Topics :
82
Posts :
3087
Posted : Feb 2, 2007 00:10
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maybe i'm doing wrong rising this old topic but i just faced the problem. my whlole track bassline goes very good, its in one key. it sounds perfect with kik and other instruments. but in the end of a track the pitch of the bassline changes for a bar. and this bar sounds much more stronger than all other bassline. the thing is it sounds SO much stronger that it becames annoying. i used VB-1 for this track. I asked some of my friends (artists i mean), searched the forum and the sollution i found was
1. eq.
2. compression
3. length/velocity
well, in the end i've fixed my bass problem - my sollution was complex - special eq'ing (i found the louder freq and cut it), compressing louder notes, cutting out everything under 45 Hz and minor changing bass melody. Anyways, its not perfect. Now i have some questions: what about keyscale? Maybe some of you guys found new ways to fix the problem?
www.overdreamstudio.com |
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l337
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
55
Posts :
817
Posted : Feb 2, 2007 01:04
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Quote:
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On 2005-05-16 00:19, NikC wrote:
How come, that when a bassline changes pitch, the power of the bassline seems to change as well even though no changes have been made to the actual sound.
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correct me if i am wrong, but isnt a pitch shift the equivelant of a frequency change, see for yourself, by take a sample, look at it in a freq analyser, pitch shift it and look at it again and you will see the spectrum profile will be different and here lies the reason why the power alters.....
depending on the tonal qualities of the sound the pitching will effect the power, for example, a piano's lower notes sound more impressive than the higher ones/
reason is... lower frequency wavelengths are longer and therefore carry more energy, (hence the power in laymens terms) , when you pitch up you loose this energy as the wavelengths shorten ....
not sure how to remedy this...possibly doubling or adding atonal sub-harmonics that match that of the original bass sound...
maybe |
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makus
Overdream
Started Topics :
82
Posts :
3087
Posted : Feb 2, 2007 01:09
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ok l337, its quite clear about why this happens.
here i got the contraversary thing to what you said - i changed the bass note to a HIGHER one and the power doubled. its all about one thing, however i'd like to discover some practiacal sollutions.
www.overdreamstudio.com |
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shamantrixx
Started Topics :
7
Posts :
549
Posted : Feb 2, 2007 02:20
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It's due to the sample rate of your soundcard and the standard equal temperament tuning. Try to switch samplerate to 48kHz and tune down your instruments to 423 Hz instead of 440 Hz. You'll be amazed with the clarity of sound.
From the scientific point of view such problems with bass sounds (and others) are caused by the "rounding" errors during the sampling process in the soundcard. If you have a bass line playing in the key of C (let's say a 130,81 Hz) your soundcard is processing this frequency trough 44100 samples (fixed mathematical points) per second. So since we have a bass line with 130,81 cycles per second and 44100 points per second we get that each bass cycle has to be calculated within 337,13018882348444308539102515098 fixed frames. Obviously soundcard will process this as a 338 samples and next bass line cycle will start in 338th sample and that is like 0,8698111765155569146089748491 samples later. Since Soundcard can't really delay the cycle it will simply ignore this difference and new cycle will not start from zero crossing but will have a missing part or a kind of phase delay if you like.
If you retune the C note to 128 Hz and calculate it within 48000 fixed points you get a clean 375 samples for each cycle. Further on... if you use Phytagorian (or similar non equal) temperament all other notes will be coherent with the note C and you'll have far less rounding errors, phase distortion and most certainly less problems with altering power when altering pitch.
Keep in mind that everything in nature is coherent with whole numbers. All life starts as a single cell and than divides in 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 cells etc. In nature there is no such thing as 337,13018882348444308539102515098. It's 337 or it is 338. Speakers also can not play 337,13 sound frames... they play 337 or 338 cycles. Everything in between is lost, damaged and makes various strange anomalies. Those anomalies when run trough effects, EQ's and other plugs get miscalculated for many times before you finish the track. Less errors in the start - better sound in the end.
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception"
Albert Einstein, speaking about his theory of relativity |
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in-human
Started Topics :
4
Posts :
28
Posted : Feb 2, 2007 03:13
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then u need to make some matematical equation to give u the exaclt attack and release u need to give to the compressor to catch and pump up the frequency were u really need it .
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.... I've heard this before. Does anyone know this equation?
I'm guessing that the formula will change depending on the BPM of the track. |
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