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bassline stereophase? (pg. 2)
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| jey |
| whats wrong with having your subbass mono but adding a mid/high bass with stereo effects!? |
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| Limit |
| quote: | Originally posted by jey
whats wrong with having your subbass mono but adding a mid/high bass with stereo effects!? |
Nothing wrong with that at all. |
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| B_man |
Layering...
1. Sub bass is mono.
2. Mid bass can be thicker on the stereo field.
IF there's a 3. Higher bass can definately be thicker.
It's generally a bad practice to increase the stereo on the deepest parts of the bass. I don't know why, but I've tired it over and over again, and it's better to have the FUNNEL-shaped principle apply to bass/basslines in music in general... not just EDM. |
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| paulc_dj |
| At what frequencies would you HP and LP the sub/mid etc.... ? |
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| Derivative |
Some weird advice in this thread... :\
If you high pass your bassline then ...its not really a bass anymore is it?
Mono compatibility is always good but its no longer a necessity. Sort of. Club soundsystems will output mono as positional audio doesn't work well on a dancefloor - not being equidistant between the high and low frequency drivers would change the way stereo sounds are projected. That goes 10 times as much for surround sound playback as not everyone in a club is going to be in the ideal listening position.
Mono compatibility is also desirable for radio playback. It is also a necessity for vinyl where phasey bass can skip the needle out of a groove.
For everything else, its easy to get away with spreading bass around the stereo field and it happens quite often in Psytrance and its derivatives. Infected Mushroom's Muse Breaks Rmx has a bassline that is painfully spread in stereo. It feels like my brain is being sucked out of my ears when I listen to it. Its the same deal with Cosma's Cusanam. Both of these tunes translate well on the dancefloor so it depends on how you do it.
| quote: | | no weird as in thepeople dancing will wonder why the the bass is always cutting in and out. |
It doesn't really work like that. An easy example would be to take 2 different bassdrums (with different periods) and sum them to mono. Because both drums have different periods, they do not oscillate together and comb filtering will occur. If you open the summed bassdrum in a wave editor you will see really large peaks where the in phase signals double up and greatly reduced peaks where destructive phasing diminishes the amplitude of parts of the drum. It looks like its 'cutting in and out' but if you listen to the sound it actually isn't. The resultant bassdrum will sound different though, the more you increase the phase offset. And it will sound totally different than summing two bassdrums with identical periodicity and pitch.
We work in stereo in dance music because it makes positional audio possible. Not only that but many effects such as choruses, flangers, phasers and delays only work on stereo signals. You can sum both channels to mono afterwards though. And as you know, it is not uncommon to run a chorus on a bassline.
Without getting into the maths of it, you can get away with spreading bass in stereo in dance music but you do have to be careful. The most obvious solution is to constantly reference on a mono sound system or sum your mix to mono and take a listen. If it sounds really different or if certain instruments become very quiet or disappear altogether - then you have phasing problems. |
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| Subtle |
| quote: | Originally posted by Derivative
Psytrance and its derivatives. |
:p
so basically what u are saying, that its a good idea to check how your mix sounds in mono ? and if it sounds wierd, there is something wrong with it ? |
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| Derivative |
Yeah. I do it all the time. I also use a few Voxengo Plugins and these are amazing because they have a force mono switch on them. So you can do it mid mix.
I also make liberal use of the 'Reverse Polarity' switch in FL Studio which is a godsend. Soundforge has this too. What it does is flip the signal into antiphase. I do this all the time to check mono compatibility with other sounds. Sometimes it can really change a sound or make it seem like its coming from a different angle. In some cases, reversing the polarity of a signal can make it almost disappear in a mix. Which means that it was slap bang in phase in the first place. Good if you want to preserve mono compatibility. Bad if you want to preserve headroom. |
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| Subtle |
| This is news to me, but a very good way to find flaws in older tracks i`ve made as well. interesting. :) |
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| djms |
| it;s ok to put stereo on your bass - you would only really do this though if it was a bass driven track. SVD just used a stereo bass in his new track "back by dope demand" |
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| Derivative |
Its mostly a habit from days gone that people record and build bass drums and bass instruments in mono. But people stil ldo it to preserve mono compatibility if a mix is destined for mono playback (clubs and radio mostly). Pretty much every free sample of an 808 and 909 that I have has been recorded in mono.
Saving them as single stereo files doesn't change anything. It will be exactly the same sound as chances are you are outputting mono signals to both your left and right speakers.
The only thing that will change is if you arrange it with other sounds with different lengths and periods or when both left and right channels are not totally symmetrical. Then when you sum the stereo file back to mono you will get comb filtering. Good or bad depending on what you wan't to achieve but its very hard to predict what the result will sound like. |
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| RichieV |
| has anyone actually listened to the orginal example that started this whole convo ? Listen to it in mono. You will notice weird phase artifacts. Using stereo effects on a base like the one presented seems redundant. The bass is never really at the forefont of the mix and whatever atmosphere you might gain by using a stereo bass is lost because well you never actually hear the bass. The bass is used as a percussive like element that sort of frames the bottom end. I dont' understand why you would want to undermine that with stereo effects. |
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| Derivative |
| quote: | Originally posted by D.Edge
i do believe that it was a necessity - back when stereo came about and vinyl was the main medium, mastering engineers found that low frequencies had to be in the centre otherwise there would be problems with cutting and/or tracking the vinyl.
there are some recordings which buck the trend though. the first one that comes to mind is Roy Davis Jr. feat Pevan Everett - Gabriel. the bass is panned to the left and the kick is panned to right. its almost impossible to listen to on my bassy Beyerdynamics. |
Yeah sorry - I meant alot of people centre and mono bass instruments for that very reason. Some people still do even though a mix isn't destined for mono playback - you notice it in some film soundtracks - especially on dancey type tunes made for film.
Richie, I get where you are coming from but it really is common to run a bass through a chorus - at least it was. Not sure about now but I have heard a number of tracks that use basses that are supersawish. And a big part of the supersaw sound is chorus.
If used sparingly you can get away with this and summing it to mono won't totally it up. It really depends on what else is in the mix that peaks in anti phase at the same time and in the same frequency range.
Thats the really important bit and its another reason why having a reverse polarity option is good. You can temporarily flip your bass instrument into anti phase, sum to mono and check out the damage. If you messed up in the first place it will actually sound more like the original stereo mix.
The bass in the example is more like a percussive element - I agree. But I guess other people might want to know what happens when you spread basses in stereo. You know, when the bass isn't a percussive instrument that frames the 'bottom end' - I'm talking about when the bass is the bottom end. And the answer is: it depends (and thats a pretty common answer to many questions on this forum). |
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