How to generate nauseating sub bass??

[gombul]

Hi,

For an intro, I am trying to generate an atmosphere of being underneath an arctic glacier that is moving.

The film "Titanic" had a lot of fans, but 99% of these were the soppy variety. I loved the film for the sounds the ship made as it buckled under enormous pressure. I want to translate this to my glacier and generate a sub bass to accompany the grunts and groans as it crunches it's millions of tonnes across the tectonic plate.

Any ideas? I'm talking about a bass that causes vibrations in your neighbours' tea cup. Oh, and I'm using Reason 4. I guess I could look at cinema to see how they do it.

[alexc]

First think notes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies. So looking at this you probably want them somewhere between B0 and G2.

Once this is done a sine wave, or two an octave apart and your done. Sine waves have no harmonics so a low-pass filter just becomes a volume control. Make sure your notes are right so the frequency of your sub is not clashing with your kick drum and there you go.

Square and Triangle waves are also used for subs and each give you a different sound. These both have harmonics to worry about so you'll need to be low-passing them keeping in mind what frequency your kick drum is peaking at, make sure those frequencies aren't overlapping.

Play about with the notes, waveforms, and try with just one octave or a two octave spread. Find which is right for your track, it's all about experimenting.

Hope this helps .

[ReSet]

Wave 10 on the subtractor is also great for sub-bass tones

[Ekol]

What I always do is get a square wave, a sine and a really stange harmonic wave. I distort them, octave them, the low pass the whole sound at about 100/120Hz.

[alexc]

What I always do is get a square wave, a sine and a really stange harmonic wave. I distort them, octave them, the low pass the whole sound at about 100/120Hz.

I never feel the need to do all this. Does it really add that much?

[ReSet]

Such is the art of producing. It's the little things that no-one really notices that can make a track sound unique, even if you don't know why

[Ekol]

What I always do is get a square wave, a sine and a really stange harmonic wave. I distort them, octave them, the low pass the whole sound at about 100/120Hz.

I never feel the need to do all this. Does it really add that much?

Well, I always do the sine and the square, and yeah. The sine wave is only one frequency, where as a square wave is a lot more harmonic (full) sounding. by mixing these together, and distorting, you get a really thick sub. Imo!

[alexc]

What I always do is get a square wave, a sine and a really stange harmonic wave. I distort them, octave them, the low pass the whole sound at about 100/120Hz.

I never feel the need to do all this. Does it really add that much?

Well, I always do the sine and the square, and yeah. The sine wave is only one frequency, where as a square wave is a lot more harmonic (full) sounding. by mixing these together, and distorting, you get a really thick sub. Imo!

Yeh alright quite a few times I have used both a sine and a square just cause it seemed to sound better but the distortion?

[ReSet]

The distortion would be there to throw in some more frequencies to the bass, and would serve to 'blend' the two waves together, in a sense. It would just give it some kind of character, I guess

[alexc]

Well cheers for that people. I guess I never really looked into my sub that much.