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I'm making a song in which the bass has to be as soft and deep as possible but I'd also like people to be able to listen to the song (being the bass an important part of this track) and hear, even if slightly, the bass on those stupid cheap in ear headphones. As an example I have this in mind

(Kryptic Minds - Hybrid) which I was able to listen to on various devices and on various headphones without ever losing the bass completely which is what happens with my track atm. Any suggestion on waveforms or other tricks that i should use are very appreciated, thanks :D

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  • This question appears to be off-topic because it is about music
    – Christian van Caine
    Commented Nov 18, 2014 at 7:26

4 Answers 4

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The most "proper" solution is to use a bass sound that in itself has some midrange as well. For normal subtractive synth sounds, that means: don't use too steep LP filters, try a simple 12 dB/8ve or perhaps 18 instead of 24 dB/8ve.

There's a trick that works pretty well on almost any bass, to introduce some "non-sub" harmonics: apply gentle overdrive/distortion, either just to that bass or in fact the whole mix, prior to mastering. This also acts as a very dynamic-preserving compressor, so it'll be easier to make the bass really loud in the mix without ducking the mastering stage.

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Sub bass will be entirely lost through in-ear phones. You can't get around this, as it's basic physics. The only real solution is to have bigger speakers.

So the way round it is to add in some mid bass - which will be audible, and if arranged correctly can give the impression of lower bass.

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As rory said, there is no proper way around this as the physics prevents it. You can however make it audible by low mids. either layer it up, or as as leftaroundabout said, introduce harmonics (which in turn would be better if layered, as you can choose what frequencies you'd want to mess with).

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There is a video out there

basically he doesnt use pure sound wave, so as to create higher harmonics which can be picked up on crappier speakers only very very slightly

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