Basically, I can get the track sounding/feeling decent with the subs at a lower level, but when I crank them up to the level of a reference track, it seems to take away from the rest of the frequency spectrum.
A little bit about my monitoring setup/process:
I have two PreSonus Eris E8's and a sub-pac at my "work station" if you want to call it that. Because my room isn't acoustically treated, I know it's messing a lot with my perception of the bass, so I also check it in headphones, but mostly in my car. I find that my car is the best system I have to test how it will sound across non-monitor stereo speakers because I can hear the sub well, and I can rest my leg against the speaker and compare the vibrations with other tracks. Also, issues in the non-sub frequencies stand out more than on my monitors.
A little bit about my process and the problem:
I use a pure sine wave as a dedicated sub instrument, put a near brick wall lowpass (highest setting in fab filter pro q) at 120hz and sidechain it to the kick, which I boost the sub of the kick considerably. I also ended up putting a gentler lowpass with the Q turned down on my latest track because the higher notes were louder which therefore increased the effect of the problem. I think this might just be a bandaid on the real problem though. I also put a high pass on every other track so it's silent at at least 120hz, and put multiband compression on my master. At the end of it all, it feels pretty good with the sub pac, and ill raise the subs so that it feels the same strength as my reference, but when i test it out in my car, the high end sounds awful, and i'll back down the level of the sub until it's not making a difference in the clarity of the high end anymore. At that point, it's not terrible, just not as powerful as my reference tracks. I know it's not the case since the frequency that is heard from the subs is the same frequency that is producing the vibrations, but it's like the artists of my reference tracks managed to turn down the audible volume of the sub without turning down the vibrations they produce.
Questions about a possible solution:
1) could the sub bass frequencies be fighting with the higher frequencies? I'm not sure exactly how this works, but my instincts tell me that two sounds will only clash when they are in the same frequency range, which wouldn't be the problem for me since i high pass everything and lowpass the subs.
2) I've seen videos where people explain that they duplicate all the bass instruments, change them to just a sine wave, and take off any effects and mix the subs that way (I think dodge & fusky put one out where they explained this). would doing it this way be any different?
3) would any processing on the subs themselves other than compression help?
Submitted December 06, 2016 at 02:03AM by WakkZylde https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/5gr1i4/how_can_i_keep_the_sub_bass_at_high_levels/?utm_source=ifttt