Organic sub rumbles?

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
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Hyle
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Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Hyle »

Hi folks!

I'm curious to hear your opinion.
I got kinda tired of synthesized sub bottoms, always the same sine-y stuff.

I'm experimenting some ways to generate more organic subs.
For example, I recorded some vents, pitch the recording down, EQd and played it in a sample.
I'm also considering to use a sub enhancer (like Brainworx bx_boom) to generate some bottoms from field recordings...
But, up to this point, the results weren't this good. Just wanted to know your techniques and ways of experimentation to get some new ideas/starting points.

I'm looking for sub basses with some real world grain and vibration, but still able to hit the chest.

Let me know ;)

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tsaro
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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by tsaro »

Volcano rumble maybe?
how far do you want to go

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Hyle
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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Hyle »

vo0doo wrote:Volcano rumble maybe?
it seems a good idea, thanks. I'll look for a sample on freesounds.org

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Lost to the Void »

Buy a contact mic and head out recording stuff.

Some stuff I have used for sub texture.

Pavement next to busy road that a lot of heavy goods vehicles use.
The sound picked up through the ground by the mic is amazing.

Flagpoles and long hand rails, hit em, longer the better for big low resonance.

Steel staircases, go to the bottom attach to a step and wait until people walk down (also works for some concrete stairwells).
Walkways, road walkways or in stations, they reverberate like fuck.

Steel structures, buildings sites are good for exposed steelwork.

Truck containers, big empty dumpsters.
A tricky one is to get on a long escalator, attach contact mic to the escalator step in font and record. I've gotten good results, low rumbles with rhythmic clunking.

Support struts on flyovers. Spiral ramps on multistory car parks.

Run an engine and stick contact mic on bonnet to get vibrations.

Attach to the floor of a train in a motor compartment.

That's a few ideas that worked for me.
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tsaro
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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by tsaro »

Yeah that's probably a better idea, a while back I was really into that sort of thing. Not really sure why I stopped doing it, probably because it's just easier to smack some effects on random samples and pitching it around a bit, saves a bunch f hassle when you're a lazy bum like me :v

I think it was on DOA that I read about people doing crazy shit like wrapping contact mics in a condom and then flushing it, I broke one once when trying that 'technique' with a dishwasher :P
how far do you want to go

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Hyle
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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Hyle »

Lost to the Void wrote:Buy a contact mic and head out recording stuff.

Some stuff I have used for sub texture.

Pavement next to busy road that a lot of heavy goods vehicles use.
The sound picked up through the ground by the mic is amazing.

Flagpoles and long hand rails, hit em, longer the better for big low resonance.

Steel staircases, go to the bottom attach to a step and wait until people walk down (also works for some concrete stairwells).
Walkways, road walkways or in stations, they reverberate like fuck.

Steel structures, buildings sites are good for exposed steelwork.

Truck containers, big empty dumpsters.
A tricky one is to get on a long escalator, attach contact mic to the escalator step in font and record. I've gotten good results, low rumbles with rhythmic clunking.

Support struts on flyovers. Spiral ramps on multistory car parks.

Run an engine and stick contact mic on bonnet to get vibrations.

Attach to the floor of a train in a motor compartment.

That's a few ideas that worked for me.
Whoa, thanks a lot. Lot of new ideas.

I don't have a contact mic, though. Are they particularly expensive?

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Lost to the Void »

nope.
you will need a portable recording device to plug the contact mic into, and a preamp to impedance match the contact mic or else you lose low end.

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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Huck Farper »

can't believe nobody mentioned mic'ing up farts

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ZenoSupreme
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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by ZenoSupreme »

^+1 :lol: :lol: :lol:

how about a harley davidson engine rumble, should be enough samples online.

earthquackes also seem to have a low rumble, and so does thunder and off course under wather sounds.

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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Evert »

Yeah, I think just about anything goes as long as you pitch it down and process it correctly.
I recently made a sub out of a sample of a piece of wood that gets hit, which sounded quite nice.

Try some stuff out. Experimentation is key.

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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Lost to the Void »

Pitching down isn`t really a catch all solution.
A lot of stuff will fall apart before it gets into the bass register, and lose weight and power.
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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Evert »

I see. Hadn't come across that issue yet in my limited experience, but I'll take note of that.

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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Lost to the Void »

You are basically lowering the sample rate when you pitch a sample down.
You are playing less samples per second as you pitch lower, so the sound begins to deteriorate. Eventually it will just be a juddering mess.

So there are limits as to how useful pitching down can be (it is why higher sample rates are better for sound design in this respect). Obviously you can use timestretch algorithms, but at some point the algorhythm becomes more apparent.

So finding lower register stuff is always preferable as you might not need pitching so much.
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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Inscribe »

wayfinder wrote:2 rules of thumb:

-the more "siney" the original sound is (ie the fewer overtones the main characteristic has), the more it'll lend itself to sample rate reduction (like downpitching).
-noise will turn to rumble (a sample rate reduction is also a lowpass filter)
The two actually lend itself to how I usually get a sub rumble.

I blend a pitched sine wave signal with audio that will turn to bursts of noise when timestretched, percussion works well so use jungle drum loops a lot. Then I paulstretch the two together, which blurs the percussive hits and creates what feels like real movement of the sub once lowpassed. Then it's just a case of finding the interesting portions to create sub loops. Find it gives a lot of the characteristics of a reverb rumble but with much more interesting results.

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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by over9000 »

Inscribe wrote:
wayfinder wrote:2 rules of thumb:

-the more "siney" the original sound is (ie the fewer overtones the main characteristic has), the more it'll lend itself to sample rate reduction (like downpitching).
-noise will turn to rumble (a sample rate reduction is also a lowpass filter)
The two actually lend itself to how I usually get a sub rumble.

I blend a pitched sine wave signal with audio that will turn to bursts of noise when timestretched, percussion works well so use jungle drum loops a lot. Then I paulstretch the two together, which blurs the percussive hits and creates what feels like real movement of the sub once lowpassed. Then it's just a case of finding the interesting portions to create sub loops. Find it gives a lot of the characteristics of a reverb rumble but with much more interesting results.
thx for this input, will try it out :)

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Re: Organic sub rumbles?

Post by Andre_Crom »

Inscribe wrote:
wayfinder wrote:2 rules of thumb:

-the more "siney" the original sound is (ie the fewer overtones the main characteristic has), the more it'll lend itself to sample rate reduction (like downpitching).
-noise will turn to rumble (a sample rate reduction is also a lowpass filter)
The two actually lend itself to how I usually get a sub rumble.

I blend a pitched sine wave signal with audio that will turn to bursts of noise when timestretched, percussion works well so use jungle drum loops a lot. Then I paulstretch the two together, which blurs the percussive hits and creates what feels like real movement of the sub once lowpassed. Then it's just a case of finding the interesting portions to create sub loops. Find it gives a lot of the characteristics of a reverb rumble but with much more interesting results.
thx a lot for this! has been bugging me since ages, how to create more organic and energetic sub loops and this combination as described here works really well for me.


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