Super long Sub-bass Question

[djglenn]

Looking for some suggestions....

Just realized maybe we can call this "The Project of the Day" (Sorry if I'm asking a bit much.....)

I've attached a sub bass that I'm working with for a track.

First thing is, it's not the cleanest sample I've ever heard. Rather than try and fix it myself, I'd rather just start with a better sample similar to it. How does one go about creating a sub-bass like this? Especially one that doesn't have a little click in the beginning and that can just start right away. (meaning, no delays before the meat of it comes in. I find a lot of sub samples that have a good amount of delay in the beginning). Or, have you seen a good sample-set of subs like this before?


2nd....I like it's overall tone, but I'd love it to be a lot "bigger" sounding. How can you make a sub like that sound bigger, but without taking up all your headroom and making the whole mix sound muddy?

I've added this picture for reference...




(My monitors are small, so I may be over-compensating this part. Actual db's could probably be lower I suppose)



The track itself if a "kinda breaks" track. (think they have an actual name for it...but it escapes me) The kind that has a kick on the 1 and 3, with a snare on the 2 and 4.

I've got a nice sounding bassline, which has a good amount of upper frequency, as the below picture shows, and also doubles as the lead at times. It's certainly sharing some freq's with the sub. Listening to it however, it sound ok. Filtering some of the bassline off does kinda change it's sound, but I'll prob have to do that.





Now comes the kick.... The bassline and sub are definitely needed, and again, seem to work well just the two of them together. The kick I've got sounds ok with the sub and bass, but has little power, that's for sure. I think I want to start over and grab a new kick, one that has little lower freq's; Something with a well defined mid/upper freq's.

But then, where do I get the 'punch' from? Seems that, trying to get a good solid punch will just end up destroying everything. What do you think? Or just forget about the punch and let the sub and bass do the talking?


So basically, with having a sub and bass that looks like that, then trying to find a kick that will work, will that be a hopeless venture? Will a track like that have a chance of succeeding in the lower freq's?


I think I can pull it off.....

Thanks for any insight and sorry for a super long, drawn out cry for help (and knowledge)

Glenn

[admin]

That subbass sample sounds like maybe it's been compressed too much in the attack.

I did something similar with a long sub bass on a recent track, so listen to this and see if it's along the lines of what you're looking for. Although in my example the bassline is just one note.

[djglenn]

Not exactly what I'm looking for, although I'd be interested to know how you did that.

I think an example shouldn't be hard to find. I'll post one up tomorrow.

Thanks

[admin]

I've got another one I'll post later, again not quite the same as yours might but still be helpful. Was meaning to anyways due to the discussion on basslines not too long ago.

[admin]

http://www.medwaystudios.com/watching.mp3

This is a clip of one of my favourite basslines I did back in 2005, used to sound really thick in the clubs. It's also a good example of a track mixed in a DAW but using a lot of hardware as well. There's daking comp, daking eq, frostwave filter, speck eq, fatso, sp12, mirage sampler and more going on here.

[Rambunkcious]

Slightly of topic, but i looooooooove that track, both original and your remix kiks asss

[admin]

That one was a bit of sleeper hit for me, still use it as a reference sometimes when I want to hear how the old hardware was sounding. Was all mixed in Paris though but due to that having no latency I was able to insert hardware live which helped.