Tiny reeverb not a humming one with 4 seconds of decay.

Well that was just an example. The mid range bass, which could be layered with the sub, could be chorused etc.? It doesn't have to be mono?

Well, the midrange bass could be spiced up with some FX yes. I think I agree with Joris Voorn for the most part. Back in the day with vinyls, as Eric J said, bass was always kept mono, because of the problems that would arise when you didn't. Also the most producers were always lowcutting their tunes from 30 HZ, because not doing it often made the needle skip on the turntables, but since the greater part of this industry is all about MP3's and CD DJ' ing that is also not a problem anymore. Just experiment, do what you want. High bass and midrange bass can have some fx like delay's and reverb, but I still would NEVER put FX on my subbass. Subbass is a very important part of your track, it's easily to f*ck it up when you go and start putting FX on it, other than EQ and Compression.

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Last edited by AirPole on Sep-23-2010 at 11:18

I always put just a little tape distortion on sub bass and sometimes chorus because it makes it warmer.

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Originally posted by Mad for Brad melody isn't really going to make people stop dancing but a track with serious bass phase issues might.

But did you try what I posted? The melody completely disappears. It just sounds like noise.

I've also seen the Joris Voorn video and many other producers who put tons of shit on their bass. I.e. I remember reading somewhere that A&B like to put delays on basses, because it sounds bigger etc. And everywhere online you read people suggesting to make bass mono, to check your mix for phase issues...

As I said, I'm not a DJ, else I'd be playing that Ernesto & Bastian track in every club and see what happens when the melody kicks in. Also, if you check that youtube link I posted you can hear the melody just fine live.

I'm still investigating this issue, but from what I know thus far it seems to me you'd make your sub bass mono only because it won't lose punch/presence (can't find the right word right now), because an identical sound coming out from both speakers at the same time gives a lot more punch.

just did some more research into this as I typed this:
Just found out that some of Peter Gabriel's stuff has a lot of bass and sub bass in stereo! And that The Dark Side of the Moon has phasing problems! Both of these artists had engineers that knew wtf they were doing. I also just read that bob katz mastered a lot of tracks with phase issues so I wouldn't feel too bad if a track of mine wouldn't translate too well to mono.
I'm still investigating this shit further - any of you Djs want to help me out by playing that Ernest track in your sets in a club and report back? Or maybe we can throw together a track with some serious stereo sub bass and let you play that out and report?

As for the Mr. threadstarter: I wouldn't worry too much if I were you, but if you want you can read more about this online - just be careful to skip through all the nonsense; ie. contact respectable MEs and ask them about this or something.

edit: typo

Last edited by vikernes on Sep-23-2010 at 23:36

Youtube has removed all the vid's of joris voorn in the studio. but you get the drift for those who hadnt seen it.

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quote:

Originally posted by alanzo It's like sifting through cat shit to find a penny. In the end, it wasn't worth the effort.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes But did you try what I posted? The melody completely disappears. It just sounds like noise.

That's phase cancellation.

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Originally posted by vikernes I've also seen the Joris Voorn video and many other producers who put tons of shit on their bass.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to Voorn on that one. He may be a good producer, but that statement was ill informed. Its pretty much standard practice to have a mono low end in dance tracks, AND most of the better mixed tracks have 90% of their sounds in mono anyway. It makes things easier to mix and makes it easier to control the stereo field. I put about as much stock in that comment as Sean Tyas telling me not to buy a Virus. It's a common mistake for less experienced producers to think that every track in your project needs to be stereo. It doesn't.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes I.e. I remember reading somewhere that A&B like to put delays on basses, because it sounds bigger etc. And everywhere online you read people suggesting to make bass mono, to check your mix for phase issues...

In the case of A&B they were referring to putting delay on low frequency elements way above the sub bass range. I frequently have tracks with a extremely low frequency element playing a simple pattern, no reverb or delay. Then I'll have another bass sitting in the 200 range that may have reverb and or delay, but this only works because that part isnt present in the lower range.

A&B do this on a ton of their tracks, a lot of trance guys do it the same. The'll have a sub bass part extremely low that gives the track some bottom end foundation, then they'll put their rolling bass parts an octave up and add delay or reverb to that part only. In addition, for this technique, it needs to have a delay plugin that allows you to apply the delay to only a specific frequency range. Logic Tape Delay has this and I use if frequently to make sure nothing below about 120Hz has delay.

Sub bass is an area around 50Hz and below and while you CAN put delay on thee, you're probably going to make a hell of a mess on your extreme bottom end. Do yourself a favor and keep the reverbs and delays out of that range, you'll thank me later.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes I'm still investigating this issue, but from what I know thus far it seems to me you'd make your sub bass mono only because it won't lose punch/presence (can't find the right word right now), because an identical sound coming out from both speakers at the same time gives a lot more punch.

In dance music, since the kick and bass are "supposed" to be the most dominant element, having them in mono puts them front and center in your track. Doesn't really have anything to do with punch specifically, but more about the contrast with wider stereo or panned elements. You have to think about mixing horizontally as well as vertically.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes just did some more research into this as I typed this: Just found out that some of Peter Gabriel's stuff has a lot of bass and sub bass in mono!

Right, which is how most mix engineers will do it. Its standard practice for some time in the industry.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes And that The Dark Side of the Moon has phasing problems!

Which is a bad thing.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes Both of these artists had engineers that knew wtf they were doing. I also just read that bob katz mastered a lot of tracks with phase issues

Does that mean he introduced or corrected the phase issues? My guess is that whatever you read was referring to him needing to correct phasing issues, not introduce them.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes so I wouldn't feel too bad if a track of mine wouldn't translate too well to mono.

You'd probably feel terrible if you played it out in a club and it sounded like crap due to phasing. I've seen this happen plenty of time with less experienced producers. Now, if you dont care about having your track sound as good in a club as it does on your earbuds, then you can ignore it. Otherwise, you'll probably want to follow the guideline of keeping everything that low mono. In fact, keep as much stuff in your track mono as possible, that way the few stereo elements will stand out. You'll be surprised at what a profound effect on your mix this can have.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes As for the Mr. threadstarter: I wouldn't worry too much if I were you, but if you want you can read more about this online - just be careful to skip through all the nonsense; ie. contact respectable MEs and ask them about this or something.

On the contrary, this is one rule you may want to consider following to the letter if you are concerned at all about how your music will sound on a typical club system. One of the primary jobs of a mastering engineer is to ensure that your track sounds consistent across many different mediums. So most ME's worth their salt are you to tell you that a club track should have a mono low end for exactly the reasons laid out in this thread.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J I wouldn't pay too much attention to Voorn on that one. He may be a good producer, but that statement was ill informed. Its pretty much standard practice to have a mono low end in dance tracks, AND most of the better mixed tracks have 90% of their sounds in mono anyway. It makes things easier to mix and makes it easier to control the stereo field. I put about as much stock in that comment as Sean Tyas telling me not to buy a Virus. It's a common mistake for less experienced producers to think that every track in your project needs to be stereo. It doesn't.

Actually, grab bx_solo (M/S tool - its free) and put on an insert and then import tracks from known producers and see how much stuff is in the S channels. And actually I'll take a word of someone who is an established producer any day. And couple that with my own researching of tracks and hearing for myself how much stuff is stereo... Though kicks are generally mono, but most have the top in stereo. The most obvious one I can think of right now is Tiesto's Love Comes Again (which incidentally also has a tiny bit of the sub bass in stereo).
I'd never use a stereo sub bass (say, anything below 80Hz) for the reasons I said in my previous post, I'm merely saying there doesn't seem to be any (real) technical reason not to use it if you want.

And that Sean Tyas comment was out of context. He said that because up until recently(?) the virus TI was complete shit on the mac with nothing but trouble. I think we've had a few users reporting the same issues here. He never bashed it for the sound.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J In dance music, since the kick and bass are "supposed" to be the most dominant element, having them in mono puts them front and center in your track. Doesn't really have anything to do with punch specifically, but more about the contrast with wider stereo or panned elements. You have to think about mixing horizontally as well as vertically.

Yes it does. The same sound coming out from two speakers at the same time 'pushes' more air/creates bigger pressure than ie. if one channel is delayed or whatever. English isn't my native language so I don't know the technical terms, but you search for that. Listen to Love Comes Again kick; the kick is predominantly stereo, but the low end of the kick is mono. And there are many more examples like that. Grab that tool and check your own favorite tracks.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J Right, which is how most mix engineers will do it. Its standard practice for some time in the industry.

That was a typo, I corrected it. What I meant to say was that some Peter Gabriel tracks have sub bass (<80Hz) in stereo. Again, I checked and you can do also.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J Which is a bad thing.

But not bad enough for the mixer/ME to actually fix it. Which is what this thread is all about.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J Does that mean he introduced or corrected the phase issues? My guess is that whatever you read was referring to him needing to correct phasing issues, not introduce them.

Of course. But my point was that a well known engineer as him, gets regularly tracks that have phase issues. Yet (in that particular case) he didn't feel the phasing was so bad to have it remixed or fix it himself.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J You'd probably feel terrible if you played it out in a club and it sounded like crap due to phasing. I've seen this happen plenty of time with less experienced producers. Now, if you dont care about having your track sound as good in a club as it does on your earbuds, then you can ignore it. Otherwise, you'll probably want to follow the guideline of keeping everything that low mono. In fact, keep as much stuff in your track mono as possible, that way the few stereo elements will stand out. You'll be surprised at what a profound effect on your mix this can have. ... On the contrary, this is one rule you may want to consider following to the letter if you are concerned at all about how your music will sound on a typical club system. One of the primary jobs of a mastering engineer is to ensure that your track sounds consistent across many different mediums. So most ME's worth their salt are you to tell you that a club track should have a mono low end for exactly the reasons laid out in this thread.

Then explain to me how can experienced producers like Ernesto vs Bastian and whoever mastered their track, put out a track that even someone like me can spot immediately that there's something strange going on with phase of the melody. It sounds like they used a stereo expander and put it to 200%. Not to mention there's a shitload of sub frequencies in the side channel. And it's not even a small issue, the ENTIRE melody drops out. Since I know none of you checked for yourself, here's the melody monoed: http://www.box.net/shared/4qe2qik6u0
You can hear how it sounds stereo on the beatport page I posted.

edit: since you're a dj, how about you play out that track in a club you regularly play at and tell us what happened. I think I'm even gonna email ernesto about this, because I'm curious why they did that.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes Actually, grab bx_solo (M/S tool - its free) and put on an insert and then import tracks from known producers and see how much stuff is in the S channels.

Nah, thats OK. I really don't care enough to be bothered with that. I'll take your word for it.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes And actually I'll take a word of someone who is an established producer any day. And couple that with my own researching of tracks and hearing for myself how much stuff is stereo... Though kicks are generally mono, but most have the top in stereo. The most obvious one I can think of right now is Tiesto's Love Comes Again (which incidentally also has a tiny bit of the sub bass in stereo).

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting to make your entire track in mono. Obviously anything above that lower range is fine in stereo.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes I'd never use a stereo sub bass (say, anything below 80Hz) for the reasons I said in my previous post, I'm merely saying there doesn't seem to be any (real) technical reason not to use it if you want.

Right, which is what I was saying. The only reason to do so is if you care about mono compatibility. Some people do not.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes And that Sean Tyas comment was out of context. He said that because up until recently(?) the virus TI was complete shit on the mac with nothing but trouble. I think we've had a few users reporting the same issues here. He never bashed it for the sound.

Voorns comment was that "mono compatibility is not important because no one uses mono anymore". That is an untrue statement and that was the ignorant statement I was referring to.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes Yes it does. The same sound coming out from two speakers at the same time 'pushes' more air/creates bigger pressure than ie. if one channel is delayed or whatever. English isn't my native language so I don't know the technical terms, but you search for that. Listen to Love Comes Again kick; the kick is predominantly stereo, but the low end of the kick is mono. And there are many more examples like that. Grab that tool and check your own favorite tracks.

We must have a different definition of punch, then. In my mind punch refers to the amount of contrast a single sound has versus other sounds in the track. You can increase "punch" with a simple EQ boost (or cut) and it'll have much more impact than the scenario you describe.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes That was a typo, I corrected it. What I meant to say was that some Peter Gabriel tracks have sub bass (<80Hz) in stereo. Again, I checked and you can do also.

I'll take your word for it.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes But not bad enough for the mixer/ME to actually fix it. Which is what this thread is all about.

Well, I guess in that particular scenario the phasing wasn't enough to warrant corrections. I just wouldn't use that as a justification to ignore the issue completely.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes Of course. But my point was that a well known engineer as him, gets regularly tracks that have phase issues. Yet (in that particular case) he didn't feel the phasing was so bad to have it remixed or fix it himself.

Yep.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes Then explain to me how can experienced producers like Ernesto vs Bastian and whoever mastered their track, put out a track that even someone like me can spot immediately that there's something strange going on with phase of the melody. It sounds like they used a stereo expander and put it to 200%. Not to mention there's a shitload of sub frequencies in the side channel. And it's not even a small issue, the ENTIRE melody drops out.

Right. This is a bad thing IMO, I'm not sure if you are saying its bad or good. If they are like 99% of the other producers I know in this industry, they mixed and mastered the track on their own, and just didn't fix it, didn't care, or didn't know. It's more common than you think. Just because someone is an "established" producer does not make them an authority on all things production. In fact, it is often quite the opposite.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes Since I know none of you checked for yourself, here's the melody monoed: http://www.box.net/shared/4qe2qik6u0 You can hear how it sounds stereo on the beatport page I posted.

Again, I'm not sure if you are saying the phase issues are a good thing or a bad thing in the above statement. For me, phase issues are bad, so I try to avoid them and in order to do that I check for mono compatibility and use a few stereo tracks as possible.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes edit: since you're a dj, how about you play out that track in a club you regularly play at and tell us what happened. I think I'm even gonna email ernesto about this, because I'm curious why they did that.

Yeah, I don't really play this kind of music, but maybe one of the other guys on here that plays out regularly and plays this kind of full on trance can try it out for you.

My bass, sub-bass, and kick are always in MONO - period. I do this for a number of reasons, most especially 1) to avoid muddiness and 2) have these sounds hit dead-centre every time with no variance in 'where' they hit. For a long while I also had my snares/claps in MONO (again to avoid dissimilarities between the L and R speakers); but lately I've been using a number of snares/claps to make up my snare sound: they're all set to MONO first, and then each is panned a bit to one side or the other (I'm referring to claps/snares that have different attacks - if you use the exact same sample each time the stereo effect is negligible.). My shakers are usually spread way out in the stereo field to give the track a few really wide sounds; plus I can then use a few instances of closed and/or open hi-hats within a narrower stereo field to make up my hi-hat sound.

Essentially, most of the time if I'm using a sound that hits significantly more on the L than the R (or vice versa), I will either make the sound MONO and leave it as such, or make it MONO and then apply a pan-effect to the sound to get more of an equal stereo spread.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J Again, I'm not sure if you are saying the phase issues are a good thing or a bad thing in the above statement. For me, phase issues are bad, so I try to avoid them and in order to do that I check for mono compatibility and use a few stereo tracks as possible.

Eric, he's saying it's a bad thing. He wants to know (as do I, I might add) how this track was played by top DJ's in clubs around the world when the melody clearly disappears on mono setups? Did all the top Dj's not give a shit? Did all the clubbers hearing the track not notice?

It's one thing for some tracks to make it to release without being mono compatible. It's quite another for one of these tracks to be played out by big name DJs and somehow no one has a problem with it.

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quote:

Originally posted by G-Con Eric, he's saying it's a bad thing. He wants to know (as do I, I might add) how this track was played by top DJ's in clubs around the world when the melody clearly disappears on mono setups?

It happens, I've heard it. Haven't you ever played a record in the club and it sounded different than when you played it at home?

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Originally posted by G-Con Did all the top Dj's not give a shit?

Possibly. I guess I would need a better definition of "all the top DJ's", because I have never heard of these guys before. I didn't find anything particularly special about their production or their music, so I guess I'm a bit confused as to why they are being held up as some sort of example. It wasn't bad, it was just unremarkable.

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Originally posted by G-Con Did all the clubbers hearing the track not notice?

Probably. Its probably their first time to hear the track anyway, and even so, things always sound different in that environment, phasing issues aside. Besides that, most of those clubbers probably weren't paying attention anyway.

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Originally posted by G-Con It's one thing for some tracks to make it to release without being mono compatible. It's quite another for one of these tracks to be played out by big name DJs and somehow no one has a problem with it.

I don't know how much time you have spent in a club, but if you are playing this kind of huge trance in a less than stellar sound system in a club, sometimes it sounds like a huge wall of noise. It doesn't matter to the clubbers anyway because they are usually too fucked up to notice or they have never heard the track before so they do not know what to expect.

I really don't understand why this is such a surprise to each of you. Again, like I told the other dude: just because a producer becomes "established" (whatever that means), doesn't immediately make them an authority on everything production. Maybe they just fucked up or they didn't know any better. Again, it happens more often than you might think.

quote:

Originally posted by G-Con Eric, he's saying it's a bad thing. He wants to know (as do I, I might add) how this track was played by top DJ's in clubs around the world when the melody clearly disappears on mono setups? Did all the top Dj's not give a shit? Did all the clubbers hearing the track not notice? It's one thing for some tracks to make it to release without being mono compatible. It's quite another for one of these tracks to be played out by big name DJs and somehow no one has a problem with it.

I've been in clubs where I've been amazed at the terrible quality of the sound, where everything was geared towards the low end - I was straining to hear melodies/leads in any of the songs (they were very, very faint). And plenty of people were on the dancefloor dancing.

In terms of the topic on hand though, it also depends how these clubs with mono systems are set up - if they're playing just one side of the stereo image, the lead will come through just fine, since the other side of the stereo image isn't there to cancel it out.