hi, good day/evening/night,

quick question.. if you use pitched 808's/sinebass, how do you control/tame those higher notes?
or differently said, how do you keep it's perceived loudness balanced? velocity, compression or...?
also do you set one fixed decay setting, tailor every note to it's custom decay setting or...?

thanks!

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2016

bump, nobody here likes discussing 808's?

 

Same thing you would do with bass guitar or synth. multi-band compression. Treat it how you would treat any sub bass

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2016

There are 100 ways to skin a cat. You can tame them with velocity, or volume automation. Automate the decay, glide time etc. Key word here is AUTOMATION.

 

thanks for your insights, keep it coming yall!

never thought about automating the decay settings, i was about to bounce 10 differently decayed 808's whaha LOLOLOL

 

So.... you mean 808 hihats? Or toms? Or what?
First thing to do would be control your room. A lot of boost happening in those regions is attributed to resonancy in your room. You've got to make sure what you hear is what you've got.
Then, most of the 808 (kick?????) signal is a sine, so it's easy to take care of.

 

you are correct, i should've been more clear, but i'm talking 808 bd and/or sine bass. anyway my room is really bad, annoying resonances all over the place and that's not gonna change anytime soon. i tried 'getting' used to my speakers, but i gave up on that, now i'm trying out all your suggestions on my sennheiser hd650 headphone. would you say it's better to use that? (especially for looooow frequencies?)

 

The problem is more than likely related to your room as suggested, bt things you need to consider is how we/our ears/brain perceive levels at different frequencies....Google Fletcher & munson curves for an explanation as to why the higher your bass frequencies go, the louder they seem to get....upto a point....and why this happens.

Check your levels on an analyser to see if things really are any different to what you think... You might be surprised to see that nothing much changes in reality...

If you are running your 808s through any distortion/overdrive etc you might also find that certain frequencies/notes get more emphasised as apposed to others... This is the nature of such devices (and their plugin counterparts).

Check your mix on different systems, and listen in different rooms/car etc to see if you still have the same issues.

Consider all these things before eq"ing, automating levels, compression etc.

 

Most tips have been mentioned but try adding an Rbass then finding the best Frequency that fits the scale of your track, then just drop the level of your 808 and let the kick be the loudest element.. From all the trap/808 mixes i've heard, the best sounding songs have little to no processing on them (talking about the Atlanta type 808s eg: Dj Spinz 808 or the Lex Luger 808 etc) besides the obvious overdrive distortions used at times.

Metro Boomin and all those guys never allow mix engineers to mess with their drums because 9/10 the engineer will ' mess them up ' with added plugins, so I guess the secret is to invisibly tame your bass hehe)

Checkout this video if you ever have time to blow, he works in Atlanta:

Just some ideas.

Peace

 

this indeed. it doesn't really change so that's why i asked how to maintain a balanced PERCEIVED loudness. will look into those fletcher munson curves, never put much thought into it although i knew that those charts exist, thanks again for pointing it out to me.

is there a plugin which can maintain/ride PERCEIVED loudness?

 

will try the rbass tip. btw, i can find the most appropriate frequency on eq-freq charts right?

p.s. watching the vid now, interesting stuff

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2016

Yeah I use one to mix, but it gets more tricky with bass as you get those nasty notes that stick out, especially when you go an octave up or something.

 

Best tips are already given, I just wanted to point out another room factor - the eigenfrequency of things like your desk for example.

My large wooden desk starts to oscillate around 400 Hz, which makes it hard for me to get the low mids right without additional checks with linear headphones.

 

If you want the level of your 808s to be automated, Waves bass rider is a plugin that detect the volume of each bass notes during the playback, and adjust it accordingly to your settings. You might want to keep some slightly heavier hits (very underestimated trick for a 808 bassline, but otherwise it will sound too much lifeless, like a sub-freq pad).

I tend to prefer manual adjustments (simple volume automation): as for 808s it's more a cyclic 4 or 8 bars pattern than a full-song live performance, it's not a big deal.

In short : keep some life i your 4-8 bars pattern in terms of volume, preceived loudness and decay, then loop it! Some minor changes every now and then, when the mood of your instrumental needs it, and IMHO you're good to go.

 

Have you thought of getting something to put between your desk and your monitors to act as a buffer. I use old science encyclopedias. They work well, but since I just bought a thing called Glorious DJ Workbench I am going to need something else to keep it looking clean as well as functional, that is so not to get that sympathetic resonance that you mentioned. I already need the lose the acoustic guitars when I sing ballsetto (I just made up a word, means to sing balls to the wall) lest the strings begin to make a racket. http://medias.audiofanzine.com/images/normal/glorious-dj-workbench-black-1104980.jpg

 

Good idea! I'll experiment with different material (loads of books here, but the may be too stiff). And if you allow, I'll use "Ballsetto" from now on as well

 

Since sine waves are pure fundamentals (no overtones/harmonics), you can just use a slow slope (6dB/oct) lowpass filter. That will act as a "volume/gain attenuator" for the higher notes. The higher the note/frequency, the lower the volume will be.
Increase steepness of the filter if needed.

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2016

https://www.thomann.de/de/zubehoer_fuer_monitore.html

 

So many great ideas, thanks everyone

 

co-sign on this, big thanks to everyone chiming in. some tips are really useful!