#163: How to Create Powerful Sub-Bass in Any DAW: Step-by-Step Guide

Struggling to create a good sub-bass? Whether you’re wondering how to create sub-bass in Logic Pro, what the sub-bass frequency range is, or which sub-bass VST to use, EP 163 of the Inside The Mix podcast has you covered.

In this episode, I break down the essentials of crafting a rich, powerful sub-bass in Logic Pro, drawing from my recent guest appearance on the Let's Talk Synth... Seriously!! podcast. I'll show you how to build a deep, punchy sub-bass sound that will bring life and depth to your tracks. From understanding what sub-bass is to exploring advanced sound synthesis techniques, I guide you step-by-step through using Logic Pro’s Alchemy to shape and perfect your sub-bass. You’ll also learn how to visualize your sound with TDR's Prism, helping you fine-tune the low-end with precision.

This episode isn’t just about technical skills—it's also an invitation to join a growing community of producers and sound designers. Share your feedback or thoughts through Speakpipe, and your voice could be featured in a future episode. Plus, by participating, you’ll enter a monthly draw to win a Starbucks coffee voucher.

Here’s what we’ll cover in this episode:

• What is Sub-Bass?: A breakdown of sub-bass and how it can define your track’s low end.
• How to Create Sub-Bass in Logic Pro: Step-by-step guidance on using Alchemy to design the perfect sub-bass.
• Sub-Bass Frequency Range: Learn the optimal frequency range to make your sub-bass stand out without overpowering your mix.
• Sound Design with Alchemy: Tips on waveform selection, adding oscillators, and mastering filtering techniques in Logic Pro.
• Visualizing Sub-Bass with TDR's Prism: A guide to using spectrum analyzers to perfect your low-end sound.

Tune in to discover new techniques, refine your sub-bass creation process, and connect with other producers who share your passion for music production.

Click here to listen to my chat with UAP on the Let's Talk Synth... Seriously!! podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/lets-talk-synth-seriously-14-marc-matthews/id1647789052?i=1000671717805

Got feedback? I’d love to hear from you! Click the SpeakPipe link to leave a review, share your social media handles or website, and get featured in a future episode:

https://www.speakpipe.com/InsideTheMixPodcast

Plus, one lucky reviewer will win a Starbucks voucher each month!

Transcript

Marc Matthews: 0:01

You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, mark Matthews. Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you want to know more about your favorite synth music artists, music engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years and I want to share what I've learned with you. Hello, folks, and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. If you are a new listener, make sure you hit follow on your podcast player of choice wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you hit subscribe and that notification bell as well. And to the returning listeners, as always, a a huge, huge welcome back.

Marc Matthews: 0:45

So I was recently interviewed or had a chat with UAP on the let's Talk Synth Seriously podcast, which is going to drop on October, the 4th. So by the time this episode goes live, it would have dropped, so I'll put a link to that in the episode description. In my chat with UAP, we talked about sound synthesis and sampling and how I got started, and I haven't done that really for quite some time and it inspired me to dive back in. So I was recently working on a project where I wanted to create this evolving sub bass sound in the middle eight and I thought you know what? I'm going to use Alchemy and Logic Pro to see what I can come up with. So in this episode I'm going to demonstrate how I created a really basic sub bass in alchemy, in logic pro. So let's dive in. We're in logic pro and I'm using the native synth alchemy in logic pro and we're going to go from this initialized default setting to this. So let's start right at the beginning. I've got this sub-bass software instrument track and I've got a MIDI region on there with some MIDI notes and I'm going to find the instrument and I'm going to go to Alchemy. So let's add that as an instrument on here and I've opened it and I've got the default preset. If that doesn't ever open, if you want to go back to the initialized preset, if you go to file and then you can select initialized preset and then you get this, which is just a sawtooth wave, right? Not what we want, but we're going to build on this. We need to be in the advanced view and if you're not in the advanced view. At the top left it says advanced, so you can click on it because you've got simple and you've got browse.

Marc Matthews: 2:30

There are some great patches in here that I've only really scratched the surface. I was playing around with it earlier and there are some fantastic ones, particularly the soundscapes and the evolving soundscapes, some really good stuff in there. I'll highlight one that I found earlier. Where is it? So we've got Soundscapes Evolving and if I go to, I've got one saved in here somewhere. I'm going to find it. It's called Sub Aquatic Dreams. In fact I'll play it because it just sounded incredible. I mean, how nice is that? It's giving me Limp Bizkit my Way vibes at the beginning of that track. If you're into new metal, you'll know what I mean. I'll play it again.

Marc Matthews: 3:21

Anyway, I deviate from the demonstration here, so I'm going to go back to file and I'm going to go back to initialize presets. So we're at the beginning and with the advanced view, I'm going to highlight a really useful and free frequency analyzer and it's by TDR and it's called Prism and I like to use this so I can have a look and see what these oscillators are generating when I'm doing sound synthesis and sampling, so what the synth is generating essentially. So at the moment I've got a sawtooth wave in this A source or this oscillator, and I'm going to change this to a sine wave. So I'm going to go to basic and sine. Now, when I play this, you'll see and I'll describe this for those who are listening you'll just see that sine wave on the frequency analyzer in PRISM. So I'm going to add another oscillator, or source as it's called in Alchemy. So I'm going to click on B and I'm going to use the drop down menu and select sine.

Marc Matthews: 4:18

Again, you can select more complex sine waves so you can experiment with those. For example, you've got sine, add 12, add another octave, and the list goes on. But in this instance I'm just gonna go with basic and hit sine and I'm actually gonna detune this one by 12 steps. So I'm gonna detune it. I'm gonna go down an octave. Now this all depends on where your MIDI notes are. So my MIDI notes are in the range of C1, and if they were lower than that then I wouldn't need to detune the second octave. So you've got to think where your MIDI notes are in terms of where you're tuning. So in this instance, because they are in that C1 range. I'm going to leave the first oscillator as it is and this second oscillator, or source, I'm going to detune by minus 12. So when I play this and we look at the spectral, the frequency analyzer rather you will see those two discrete sine waves.

Marc Matthews: 5:13

Now we're going to move on to some filtering to sculpt this sound. So in the filter section make sure it's on there's a dropdown menu and I'm going to use the band pass option. There are low pass, high pass and others as well. And I'm going to use steep slopes here because I want to create resonances around those frequency cutoffs at either side of this band pass filter. And I'm going to go with edgy to begin with. There are others that you can trial, so I'm going to click on edgy, then we're going to use the cutoff parameter to move that band pass around until we hit the sweet spot where the sub is sounding right.

Marc Matthews: 5:44

And I'm going to use the frequency analyzer, tdr prism, because I want to get to a point whereby I'm seeing the upper octave is at approximately the same level as the lower octave. So we're using our eyes and our ears in this instance. So we'll play it and then I'm going to bring this cutoff down. It's probably going to be around 50 Hertz in this instance. So we'll play it and then I'm gonna bring this cutoff down. It's probably gonna be around 50 Hertz in this instance, but obviously depending on your MIDI notes and the key you're in, this will change. So just sweep around until you find that sweet spot. So let's give it a go. So we're gonna be looking at prism and also listening as well.

Marc Matthews: 6:30

I've settled on about 60 hertz here, but what I'm actually going to do is I am just going to bring the volume down of the upper octave sine wave by. I'm going to bring it down by about minus 1 dB and now I'm going to play it because I want them to be about even on the frequency analyzer. Maybe a touch more. Let's go down to minus 7.5. I mean, I'm being really pedantic here. We'll leave it like that for the time being. I'm trying to get them as even as possible in the sub-frequency ranges or the lower frequency ranges. So I'm just going to play it once more. Yeah, about 30 to 40 hertz, it's about there. I mean we could go lower, but in this instance the notes I'm using aren't that low. But you could trial this yourself. So when you're creating your sub-bassion, you really are delving into those low-frequency notes.

Marc Matthews: 7:30

Just play with the position of that band pass filter and the relative volume of each of your oscillators. Then what we could do is we could add some. Let's add some drive to this as well. Let's add some overtones. So I'm gonna play it and gradually increase this drive parameter in the filter section. So I've settled on about 45% there and if you're watching you'll see on the frequency analyzer you'll start to see those overtones represented on the frequency analyzer itself. And then a bit of resonance as well. So we're adding resonance at the cutoff frequencies of this bandpass filter. Let's have a play around with that. So I've gone for about 18%. With that I might bring the drive down. Actually I'm going to bring the drive down to about 40%. I'm just going to play it again. Okay, so I'm going to bring it down to 27%. I'm happy with that.

Marc Matthews: 8:44

Next, we are going to manipulate the volume envelope and I've got the attack, hold and decay set at 0%. The sustain is at 100% and the release I've just tailored to attenuate any clicks at the beginning of the MIDI notes. So when I play this now you'll hear that it transitions between notes a lot smoother. I mean, there's still a bit of an artifact in there, so I could play around with it a bit more. But that's what you would use the release for, and at the moment I've got it set to 0.0385 seconds, basically, and then just to add a bit more girth to this sub bass. In the effects section, under distortion, you've got the bass enhancer and I'm going to enable fat and I'm just going to drag this up probably to about 20%, just to add a bit more girthiness and fatness to this sub bass. I'm going to play it and gradually increase the amount. In fact, I settled on about 26%.

Marc Matthews: 9:56

One other thing that I sometimes do is I do add a sawtooth and I just sort of like tuck this underneath the two sine waves just to add a bit more richness in terms of texture. So I've enabled this, I've left it at zero in terms of tuning. Suppose you could experiment and make it an octave up or maybe a couple octaves up, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to drag it all the way down to zero, essentially where it says infinity on here, and then I'm going to drag it all the way down to zero, essentially where it says infinity on here and then I'm going to drag it up, just so it's tucked underneath the two sine waves, just to add a bit of richness. So we'll play that and I'll gradually drag it up. We'll probably get to about I don't know minus 12, minus 14 dB, but let's have a play and see what happens. So I settled on minus 14 dB, which is probably a bit too much, but I wanted you to be able to hear it effectively. And it's just an optional extra. It's a third oscillator or source. It's using the C source in Alchemy here and it just adds a bit more richness to the sound. But you don't have to add it, it's just an optional extra. If you want just pure sub bass and roll with the sine waves, you could try other waveforms as well and see how they sound. But that is essentially it, folks. So let's have a quick play of the finished sub bass patch in Alchemy.

Marc Matthews: 11:37

Let's do a quick recap of how we put this together. We're in Alchemy and we're using the advanced view. We went to File and we got Initialize Precept. We've got three oscillators in this instance, but at the very core it's two oscillators or sources, both sine waves. One of them was detuned 12 steps so it went down an octave. Then we use the band pass filter, the 12 dB edgy slope for this band pass, and the actual cutoff is around 50 to 55 hertz. Resonance, 28% Drive I've actually boosted the drive here, so it's at 70%, so it's a lot more than what I did earlier. And then, with the volume envelope, attack, hold, decay all the way slow, 0%, sustain at 100%, release tailored to get rid of those artifacts, those clicks at the beginning of a note. We then use the bass enhancer and I've got it set to 26% with the fat setting to add a bit girthiness. And then I added the additional oscillator or source using the saw and I tucked that underneath the two sine waves just to add a bit more richness to the overall sound. And that is a really quick way to put together a sub bass patch in Alchemy.

Marc Matthews: 12:44

So, folks, if you've enjoyed this episode, I want to hear from you.

Marc Matthews: 12:47

Click on the link the speak pipe link in the episode description and leave me a short audio message describing why you like this episode and why you would recommend it and also give yourself a shout out. Where can the audience find you? On social media, or maybe you've got a release coming up or some important news you want to share with the podcast audience, because I will include that audio clip at the beginning of an episode. It's evergreen promotional content for you and it's great that I can hear from you and your episode recommendations as well. And every month I will put all of the individuals who submit audio, your names will go into a proverbial hat and I will draw a name from that hat and you will win a Starbucks coffee voucher. And if you don't like coffee, just give it to someone else and tell them you bought it for them.

Marc Matthews: 13:35

So click the link in the episode description and leave me an audio message using Speakpipe. You don't need an account. You don't need a fancy microphone or anything like that. You can just use your phone as though you're't need an account. You don't need a fancy microphone or anything like that. You can just use your phone as though you're sending me an audio message, and I can't wait to hear your recommendations, folks.