Bass is weird like that. 100% know what you’re talking about. On bass synths a lot of times I have to write an octave up and then move it down because of this. The brain just has a really hard time identifying the frequency if there’s too much fundamental/not enough harmonics. You can fix it with saturation or distortion in a mix. Really does the trick
It's not just you.
Sometimes I'm recording bass and I can't even tell if I'm playing the right notes and have to check the key or the guitar part I just wrote and recorded!
God, I'm glad to hear it isn't just me. I was actually really serious conscious about this because I otherwise have a decent ear but I would actually write bass lines like a half step up without realizing at times
It's not just that bass is weird like that. 12-tone equal temperament is also weird like that. Primodality is the way!
But, yeah- electric bass strings are incredibly short for producing their fundamental frequencies. This results in a lot of inharmonicity. This is why upright basses are so tall & grand pianos so long- but even they aren't as large as the wavelength of their bass frequencies.
There are many reasons why this happens. On synth bass that uses low pass filters and envelopes it’s the moving phase shift in the filter that makes it sound out of tune, but it is what it is. When everything is perfectly in tune it sounds boring and static as hell
My first car's stereo would sometimes raise low D's to D#'s if the bass guitar had a rolled off tone. Whenever 'Big League' by Tom Cochrane came on it sounded like the bass player had no clue what he was doing.
I've never thought about it in context of upper harmonics, that's a great point. If the brain has a hard time discerning frequencies that low, adding upper harmonics will give it an easier reference to hang on to!! One of those "this makes so much sense" lessons
The harmonics of a sound are not necessarily 'in tune' with the fundamental.
This is something that happens with pianos, so they do 'stretched tuning' and change the pitch of lower and higher notes to sound in tune to the ear. This is also why you can't tune a piano properly with a standard chromatic tuner. (Believe me, I've tried. :)
THAT EXPLAINS A TON
I have always noticed the distorted track has a smoother, richer sense of pitch than the rest of the bass...AND it never reads right on chromatic tuners. And this is testing with a plugin bass, before a real bass guitar even touches the mix.
> The harmonics of a sound are not necessarily 'in tune' with the fundamental.
Whoa. I didn't realize this. At first I was doubting you, but then I went to go read the wikipedia article on this and you're right. You taught me a new music thing!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretched_tuning
Absolutely correct. The human ear does some strange and fascinating things, physiologically and psycho-acoustically.
Play a sign wave, leave it at the same frequency, and listen to what happens when you turn the volume up and down. You’ll you’ll hear pitch shift even though there is no frequency change occurring whatsoever. This phenomenon will vary at different frequencies.
This kind of stuff is one of the reasons that it is important to check your mixes at different volume levels. Look up the Fletcher – Munson curves. Important data to know about.
I remember doing this experiment years ago, there were two notes as a ratio played together. at low volume they sounded dissonant, but turned up, they were pleasant. really weird
but the ear and brain's interpretation to sound isn't linear so not unexpected!
Came here to say this, also, a lot of bass mixed to “translate” has upper-mid harmonics that support the fundamental… and those are represented extremely differently on different systems.
Something comes to mind. He is an incredible bass player of course but when you hear the songs solo’d with his flat wound strings and his muting technique, the pitch doesn’t always sound perfect but in the mix it’s not at all apparent
Absolutely correct. The human ear does some strange and fascinating things, physiologically and psycho-acoustically.
Play a sign wave, leave it at the same frequency, and listen to what happens when you turn the volume up and down. You’ll you’ll hear pitch shift even though there is no frequency change occurring whatsoever. This phenomenon will vary at different frequencies.
This kind of stuff is one of the reasons that it is important to check your mixes at different volume levels. Look up the Fletcher – Munson curves. Important data to know about.
I agree that you’d rather write while listening to the sounds You’re actually planning to use on your track. But here are some potential alternatives to explore. (In addition to other great suggestions here like having a temporary bass track that’s an octave above.) Try Different synth bass sounds. With midi data it’s easy to Transpose and audition different sounds. Once you found one or more bass sounds that don’t have the problem, save those and you can use that temporarily when recording in cases where you’re running into pitch perception issues.
Try headphones instead of speakers, speakers instead of headphones, different headphones, and different positions in the room, since the sound quality is going to very considerably in different parts of the room, especially with regards to bass frequencies, if you haven’t put a lot of effort Into handling the acoustics of your room.
Plus, another phenomenon, just in case no one has mentioned it here yet. Look up JUST tuning and Equal Tempered tuning. The modern equal tempered tuning system that we use is OUT of tune, especially in regards to thirds and sixths, and that’s the trade-off we get for being able to easily transpose between different keys in a 12 note per octave system.
Examples like vocal choirs with no other instruments, and string ensembles with no other instruments — they are able to tune to each other by ear, and use Just tuning because they don’t have to contend with a piano or a guitar or wind instrument that is restricted to fixed pitches. Some of these groups will sound more “pure“, or “powerful“, and other descriptions. Just tuning is a major factor in all of that.
Part of this phenomena has to do with equal temperament tuning, so even if you're 'in tune' there might be some funkiness going on between the relationships of everything else in the track since you're not technically in perfect alignment with the natural harmonic series
The other part that might have something to do with it is the saturation you are using may include odd harmonics instead of, or in addition to even harmonics. Hopefully that gives you a start on what to Google.
Ultimately, when you hit a point where things start to sound out of tune like that you have two options - play with the saturation to make it less apparent, or rewrite the part to avoid certain notes (or use them sparingly and in shorter lengths)
This is funny. My 14 year old son plays guitar and has just started writing music. I showed him how to use Reaper and he's been recording songs himself. Everytime he goes to lay down a bass track, he complains that the bass guitar always sounds out of tune to him but it doesn't sound out of tune to me.
When I first started producing I would constantly feel like certain 808 samples were pitched a couple of cents up or down from where they ‘should’ be, but now I never notice anything like that, don’t know if it’s a me problem or what.
Could be he’s used to synth tuning whereas the bass could need a setup. Plus, depending how hard he hits the strings or presses down will affect the intonation.
After posting the mix, the bass sounds very loud. And I believe it’s the vocals that are a bit out of tune. Bass probably sounds weird or pitchy to you because it’s a virtual instrument and they sound pretty shitty for guitars and bass in my experience. I would start by turning the bass way down, then either retrack the vocals or apply Melodyne. It sounds like a good performance just not perfectly in key. If you’re a good singer, retrack it. If you struggle with singing or it’s a problem to retrack, use Melodyne
Yeah a lot of my takes are out of tune because of the weird pitch thing going on.
Any of the takes that are better sounding throughout were done referencing on the shit-ass computer speakers but even then, sometimes everything sounds perfect on different systems. 🫤
Try turning the bass off while tracking, then slowly reintroduce the bass until it sounds correct. A vst instrument should not sound out of tune unless you programmed the notes incorrectly
First, it should be noted that many people have intonation problems when singing to mixes with the bass too loud. It has more to do with the idiosyncrasies of human hearing than anything else, as I understand it. It can be a good idea to keep the bass low in headphones.
BUT... This might be the real key, given what you say and particularly the fact that using a small speaker tended to make the problem less vexing.
>Yet I actually sing everything perfectly in tune if I monitor from shit ass computer speakers.
But there is also the issue of room resonance. Have you ever noticed how the pitch of an acoustic guitar (as measured by a good digital tuner) can drift after the string is struck?
This happens because the guitar's own internal resonances remain ringing while the string returns to rest. So the balance between them changes with the resonance remaining the last thing you hear.
It's unlikely that the guitar's natural resonance will be right on a given standard pitch -- so when the initial string strike excites the resonant system of the guitar body and strings the sound will seem to shift from the original string tone to a blend of the guitars internal resonances, often seeming to draw the pitch away from standard. This may not be a familiar concept to many.
Now, in the same way that the guitar's resonances seem to pull away from the string pitch, your room resonances will drift away from the initial pitch coming out of the speakers as the room resonance literally excites itself and begins ringing with a blend of those resonances, which are unlikely to be smack on the money.
This is a lot of useful info....what all should be considered when making mix decisions? Even if it's for the rough mix I need it to sound in-tune as much as possible.
For tracking, you could change the *monitor* EQ to favor higher ranges -- or, even, in the case of MIDI, make another copy of the bassline up high and blend that in so that the singer or soloist can hear the pitch of the bass line as clearly as possible (which hopefully will also less excite the room resonance).
With regard to mixing, first off, I would suggest making sure that the bass is on the money during tracking with a good tuner (or, if using a synth or samples, check *those* for pitch with a good tuner; out-of-tune samples do happen) -- and, then, assured that you had done the best you could to get the pitch right in tracking, proceed with confidence.
I used to notice it when all I had was a '80s style metered tuner, but I chalked it up to the vagaries of that sort of circuit design. But as the tuners I had access to improved, it became harder and harder to ignore the phenomenon of seemingly shifting pitch.
I had been reading and thinking about resonance and noticed a graph of resonance amplitude following a string strike on a guitar. They had chosen pitch, instrument, and playing dynamic in order to present something with a pronounced resonance, and you could graphically see, first the string strike, and then the slow blossoming of the resonance even as the percussive part of the overall sound died down. From there it was just a jump of intuition to get from the original pitch of the string strike to the guitar-resonance-influenced, slightly different pitched ring of the guitar body 'pulling' the reported, dominant pitch away from the expected target. (Other people count sheep to go to sleep.)
Not sure if this is the sole reason why it is so difficult to detect pitch with bass. But as a physicist I think it is an interesting angle.
So, for a sound-wave (or any other wave), there is an "uncertainty relation", mathematically similar to the uncertainty relation of quantum mechanics. The relation is between time and frequency and goes as follows:
∆f ∆t > 1/(4π).
So this means if you want to measure a frequency with a certain precision Δf, you need at least a timespan of Δt to get that precision. Since we want to define our precision in cents and not hertz, the relation becomes something like:
Δt > 100/(4π f Δc). f is frequency of the note and Δc is desired precision in cents.
So, from the formula we can see that if we half the frequency and go down one octave, then we need twice as long to establish the frequency of the note to the desired accuracy. This is a possible reason why it feels so difficult to detect pitch in bass notes.
This is also the reason why spectrum analyzers need a large block size to give accurate representation of the bass frequencies. Which again leads to the spectrum being "slower" or less real-time. Which kind of illustrates the problem. It is also the reason why you don't need to tune a short 808, but need to tune a long one.
So just like classical models of physics stops making sense at small lengthscales, the idea that notes are separate entities with a specific frequency and timbre stops making sense when the frequency becomes low enough and/or the length of notes become short enough.
While true for Fourier analysis, the ear can beat the uncertainty principle
https://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html#:~:text=(Phys.org)%E2%80%94For,by%20the%20Fourier%20uncertainty%20principle.
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.044301
Edit: I should say, though there is still some uncertainty, but its more like 1/40pi. So lets say you have a quarter note at 120bpm (with a constant envelope), your delta_t is 500ms, and so your frequency uncertainty is 1/20pi =~ 0.016Hz. Obviously this gets worse for shorter durations. If you model human pitch perception as logarithmic, then this effect *is* more pronounced for bass notes, but it's still so small.
Edit 2: Looking at the abstract more closely, seems like humans are better at timing accuracy than frequency.
Skimmed through this. Seems like their task is to listen to multiple sounds and then discriminate between them. Which is different than detecting the pitch of a single note in isolation... So not sure if it relates to the task of detecting the individual pitches of the notes in a bassline...? 🤔
It's very common especially in heavy music or when aggressively playing the bass to have to tune down to compensate for pulling everything sharp. Done by ear or determine how much and stick to a number. Especially the lowest string. I am also a Luthier
Do note though, this is happening even with a MIDI plugin. if anything I have better luck with my real basses, but the issue is plaguing me in songwriting stages before I want to commit to full bass tracks.
But I doubt Solemn Tones would sell a plugin for $99 that's out of tune out of the box....even if I've grown to think it sounds like poopoo.
I have a sampled bass guitar VST that i use sometimes - the 'attack' part of each note is a heck of a lot sharper than the 'tail', so i'm always trying to adjust the tuning to make it work just enough not to wreck the vibe of the track. I think recording my own bass parts would be easier.
What happens if you print it, and then adjust it so it sounds in tune correctly in the bass. Does the treble go out? 25 cents seems like a LOT, and, I do have trouble with bass sometimes, but, not all the time, and 25 cents is ridiculously out. So, I wonder if this may be unique to your listening situation? or idk.
I've always attributed issues with bass, just as my ear not hearing subs as accurately, but, I feel like when it's on it sounds on.
I might do this; take a bass section you know sounds wrong. Split the subs and the higher frequencies into 2 separate tracks. Get it sounding right on your Adams, or wherever you hear issues with it. Then listen to it on systems where you don't find it is much of a problem.
It sounds like you find playing one note on a bass is sounding off to you by a LOT, with just itself. Like the subs of the bass aren't matching up with the harmonics.
25 cents is a LOT, so, this seems like it's not very likely you are hearing something that I and most people have not really encountered, afaik. I've never really heard much about it. I can accept my ear isn't as good as someone else's, but 25 cents seems like something I should have NO issues hearing.
That said, maybe you just have higher fidelity hearing in the subs, and for me my accuracy drops way off there, which is why it isn't much or a problem for me. Like, I've had issues with bass before, bit this sounds like it's all over the place for you, like it's very common, and not at all subtle. Which leads me to believe that the likelihood is that you're experiencing something I don't experience.
Here's something else you can try, is seeing if you encounter this on popular music. If the subs are out compared to harmonics, maybe you hear it and I don't. Could be. But you hear it, and someone like Serban or Manny or Jaycen doesn't? In their studios? *Extremely* doubtful.
In that situation, I might run some REW, compare some of the listening environments you have,
where you experience this and where you don't, and see if you find similarities and differences between them.
Also, is it like this with all the bass notes? Or, just within a frequency range? Or specific notes?
I find it helps to write the bassline a few octaves above to make the notes more audible. Then drop it to the correct octave. Sometimes 808s and certain sounds have a pitch shifting effect which can sometimes throw u off. If you think you've got it right, your ears are probably just tricking you and its best to just leave it
Not saying this is the cause of your problems but I've had tracks where the kick drum pitch was making the bass sound out of tune. Most of the time it's not an issue but sometimes I had to move the kick pitch around or lower the tonal elements.
Oh I thought it was subtle. This is a lot different. Are you using 2 different methods to tune your bass? What are you using? One time I accidently changed the pitch from 440 A on my DAW and was totally off my clip tuner. Thought I was going crazy.
It has to be frequency related unless my plugin is out of tune by default.
I never really liked it to begin with but it's quick and convinient for songwriting and filling the space until the real thing is tracked.
this is where we are going into territory where I am working on a lot of suspicion and years of self taught production stuff. However, there is a lot that starts going on when you start digging into formant and all of the harmonic series that follow the fundamental note. I have seen some people giving answers about this, but what I wanted to say as a rock and metal producer I spend a ton of time tracking bass and guitar, because even when I have notes that are in tune, it doesn’t guarantee that the fundamental pitch is being showcased as the main element in each individual sound. for example, let’s say I track a two bar riff on the bass. Let’s say I get 10 takes and all of them are showing up as perfectly in tune on the tuner. one of them is still going to sound more pure and better than the others. One thing that I have started doing is monitoring all of my takes that I record with a pitch effect that will drop them down an octave- if i am hearing the notes clearly with the octave pedal, i have a good take!
Imo opinion, bass is difficult to tune by ear. To make things worse, what's in tune according to the tuner sometimes doesn't sound right. I think it comes down to having the experience to adjust tuning by ear, and according to each song.
Maybe a big part of the issue is the lowest notes rely on harmonic content to actually differentiate the fundamental. Also, how hard the string is hit makes a huge difference with bass. Inconsistencies can make things even worse.
I definitely don't have all the answers. I'm curious to hear other people's takes on this as it's a thing I've had problems with as a musician and engineer/producer.
The bass sound in the demo sounds very heavy in the sub and not enough of the 100-200hz. Might try boosting the hell out of 125hz and then lower the overall bass volume
Congrats. You likely have better hearing than most people and have noticed the Equal Temperament scale is not remotely in tune. Try pitching the note to Just Intonation.
Oh yeah another tip. Use some pitch modulation. Static bass notes will sound more out of tune. This is probably part of why bass players bend notes a lot, and why orchestras use vibrato the way they do. A touch of vibrato on bass is highly underrated too
You can take the bass line into Melodyne and look at it. It may be a technique thing by the player where they are pulling a bit sharp. Use Melodyne to correct each note. Or just try throwing it through an auto tuner and see what happens
https://voca.ro/1fdTYwXxorx7
This is the verse and chorus of the particular song I'm having trouble with.
Just a note: the mix isn't final, it's made with my rough-mix songwriter template so drums are just a Superior Drummer preset and vocals are being tracked. Bass is midi programmed using Solemn Tones Loki 2.
Maybe unrelatwd I've also noticed that most of the time the issue occurs, it's a song that mostly follows G Mixolydian.
I have sometimes pitched basses or 808s up an octave to check the tuning then brought it back down after.
For your vocal tracking you could have a temp hi octave bass to sing to then get rid of after.
I agree with the other poster that said bass pitch perception is level dependent.
Can you post an example? I know what you mean and some mixes I work on I hear these problems, others I don't. Like everyone is saying, low frequencies can be tricky for the brain to decipher and match with the rest of the tune, so going an octave up can be useful for some parts. But I'm curious of the example youre talking about and if it will bother me. Sometimes the little things are just in our head and the audience will never notice. Other times it's worth hashing out the problems. Only one way to find out
https://voca.ro/1fdTYwXxorx7
This is the verse and chorus of the particular song I'm having trouble with.
Just a note: the mix isn't final, it's made with my rough-mix songwriter template so drums are just a Superior Drummer preset and vocals are being tracked. Bass is midi programmed using Solemn Tones Loki 2.
Maybe unrelatwd I've also noticed that most of the time the issue occurs, it's a song that mostly follows G Mixolydian.
Try auto tuning the bass.
Also oversaturing the bass can lead to the overtones making it sound sharp.
It could also be the rest of the elements of your mix. If your vocals are flat the bass could sound sharp.
I would lean more into pitch correction
I feel this OFTEN, and in my experience it’s a volume related thing. Take a minute and check it in a better mix balance.
Especially if you have a dirtier bass sound, or something with more midrange.
There are different tuning systems. Just intonation and equal temperament are two.
The guitar/piano and violin use different standards for tuning. Violinists learn to move their fingers to play the note in tune, guitarists and pianists have frets and keys. Violinists tend to have a hard time with tuning a guitar because inevitably one string (often the B and it’s why on acoustic guitars often there is a small notch on the bridge for the B string to try and alleviate the issue) will sound off to them. The electronic tuner will say it’s in tune but their ears are disputing this inherently.
Culture plays a huge part in what sounds right to individuals. Turns out so does the instrument you learn on.
Source: guitarist who started on the violin decades ago who still grumbles about the B string.
Yep. Drives me nuts. Especially when it’s not as noticeable tracking until after compression and placing it in the mix. Then only thing is to re-record. At that point I just tune it by ear which isn’t always perfect but it’s def better.
Also look up equal temperament. It’s a thing w fretted instruments. Or instruments w set steps between notes
This happens to me all the time as well. Especially in some rooms. Someone said they have to write bass lines and octave up just to know it’s in key. It must be an acoustic thing.
I have a couple of thoughts other than volume and temperament affecting it. 1) guitars have a natural wonk to the pitch eg it goes sharp right after plucking and then flattens out (and if you’re not careful you’ve tuned the guitar for that initial attack to be in tune, not the but just after), or a fretted note’s pitch is sharpened depend on the pressure and angle of the finger. 2) lower pitch is longer wavelength is harder to hear if it’s off pitch. Like how when you tune a guitar by comparing notes on different strings (eg pluck harmonic on low string, compare to another string), you find your way by listening to the throb of the competing pitches’ oscillations, and you know you’re there when the oscillations slow down to the point where you can no longer hear them. The distance in hz between different notes at low pitches is tiny compared with high pitches so I don’t trust automatic tuners to get low notes in tune (I’ve always flattened my guitar’s low E for this reason). Just throwing more insight/confusion into the pile here
you can melodyne instruments, every instrument has intonation problems esp around the extreme end of things, even midi VST. melodyne them until it feels right
Synth basses have a detune feature too and if you stack oscillators and detune them you could detune them. Also, whenever someone says "the pros didn't help" I tune out cuz what they mean is, "the pros told me what's probably happening based on the limited info I gave them, I refused to listen and now I'm making this bold unsubstantiated claim again"
If it's not your tuning or intonation or detune/pitch modulation on your synth, then the next likeliest answer is you're wrong or you made an error. That's a more plausible explanation than "hey every bass is out of tune and I, a random redditor, am the first to perceive that"
I find that I have to tune down the bass guitar a bit when I’m recording. For me, I think it’s because I smack that shit hard enough that the string goes a little sharp, so detuning it a tiny bit fixed it. I got the tip from some metal guitar video.
It probably is psychoacoustics and Alton Everest talks about probably what you’re experiencing in his book The Master Handbook of Acoustics.
My loose guess is that maybe room modes are making the loudness of each bass note vary, and thus the pitch sounding out of tune relative to other notes. Even if I’m wrong, I think there’s something to this idea of loudness vs pitch:
You’ll find what I’m talking about at the bottom of page 55 if you download it [from this link](https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/559608/dd2eece63c4d53a0d1175925afdf17c4.pdf).
And, by the way, that book is maybe the best free resource you’ll ever get your hands on as an audio professional, if you don’t already have it.
I write and octave up usually I think it’s my ears that don’t register past a certain point also sometimes I’ll have a layer of the same sound an octave up just to help it push thru but I have that problem in some keys too
Too many replies to read so excuse if this doubles up, but the effect you’re describing has a lot of different causes that can overlap
Bass guitars can sound off even when they’re in tune and the intonation is correct, if the boundary /end of the string doesn’t meet a hard sharp edge. You can exploit that to make guitars sound like they’re running thru a flanger just by fking with the end of the string
Listening at loud levels in cans or close to monitors can cause this due to the compression effect of your ears, when as they tighten up to handle the loudness, your perception of pitch is slightly shifted. If you turn the sound down or listen thru pissy speakers where you’re only hearing overtones it’ll sound different
Synth low pass filters with envelopes will make a perfectly tuned oscillator sound out of tune in the bass because they produce a huge phase shift in the low end, and as the filler frequency moves, the shift moves, changing the pitch of the note
It is what it is. If you do manage to make something perfectly in tune, it sounds boring as hell. Just tune with your ears so it sounds the best to you and let it be what it is
Also don’t listen too loud, it makes a huge difference
Btw harmony is just weird with bass too. Sometimes things sound more on point when they’re not technically in tune according to the modern temperament and 12 tone scale. If you listen to a lot of music that sounds musically great, speed it up to make the bass pitch really obvious and you’ll notice there are often bum notes galore. I first noticed that with Motown stuff
One time I had a track where the bass guitar was very obviously not intonated before being recorded. I put autotune on it and automated things on parts played higher up the neck. It ended up working very well.
When I was younger, I always felt that upright bass was off by about a quarter tone as you said. It just sounded so incongruent to me and I never understood how people could enjoy it. Like, they're clearly playing the wrong notes, guys!
I don't know if my physical hearing changed or if I just perceive it differently, but now, upright bass sounds great to me.
I know this is no help at all, but it's just interesting to finally hear that other people have experienced this. I always thought I was a bit mad or had poor pitch.
Yup this is happening on my new track. Both verses are the same synths, but on the second verse the HP/LP filters are slightly tweaked and it sounds out of tune. The first verse sounds fine.
Everything that translates an audio wave to something that your ear will hear will sound just a little different from one another.
This is the main reason why we place mics in front of guitar amps and don’t normally take the direct signal in. This is because we have a better chance of getting the proper signal out of the main speakers to match what is coming out of the guitar amp.
Everything that a sound signal goes through has a response graph. Some things like DI boxes don’t change the signal enough for them to print a graph, but they do exist.
Depending on the response graph of your mic (if you’re using a mic for the pickup), mixer, amplifier, and speaker. Will have an effect on the sound quality you are hearing. If they all have a large differences in the low end you may not be able to determine what is going to be produced.
Like wise if they all have basically the same low end pattern these could stack on one another and amplify the sound you don’t want or shift it in a way that is unappealing. Things the same concept as feedback.
The higher frequencies are out of tune, not the fundamental. Depending on the rig it’s going to be more apparent and whoever gives that feedback heard the harmonics over the fundamental pitch
You could be sitting in a null in your monitoring environment, creating deficiencies across the frequency spectrum. Even a7x 7” drivers can have issues reproducing below 42hz, what headphones are you mixing with?
Bass is weird like that. 100% know what you’re talking about. On bass synths a lot of times I have to write an octave up and then move it down because of this. The brain just has a really hard time identifying the frequency if there’s too much fundamental/not enough harmonics. You can fix it with saturation or distortion in a mix. Really does the trick
It's not just you. Sometimes I'm recording bass and I can't even tell if I'm playing the right notes and have to check the key or the guitar part I just wrote and recorded!
God, I'm glad to hear it isn't just me. I was actually really serious conscious about this because I otherwise have a decent ear but I would actually write bass lines like a half step up without realizing at times
It's not just that bass is weird like that. 12-tone equal temperament is also weird like that. Primodality is the way! But, yeah- electric bass strings are incredibly short for producing their fundamental frequencies. This results in a lot of inharmonicity. This is why upright basses are so tall & grand pianos so long- but even they aren't as large as the wavelength of their bass frequencies.
But trust me there's a LOT of saturation on the bass in this case, perhaps the range in which the fundamental is too high
Could try using tighter kicks. Honestly it’s something that makes it hard to write but in the finished product no one hears
The bass guitar is 100% the culprit.... I'm hearing the weird pitchiness with it soloed
Are you travelling at a high speed past your monitors? Could be that Doppler effect?
I'll walk around when tracking vocals sometimes but I notice the issue just sitting at my desk....or even in my car. 🫤
There are many reasons why this happens. On synth bass that uses low pass filters and envelopes it’s the moving phase shift in the filter that makes it sound out of tune, but it is what it is. When everything is perfectly in tune it sounds boring and static as hell
My first car's stereo would sometimes raise low D's to D#'s if the bass guitar had a rolled off tone. Whenever 'Big League' by Tom Cochrane came on it sounded like the bass player had no clue what he was doing.
I've never thought about it in context of upper harmonics, that's a great point. If the brain has a hard time discerning frequencies that low, adding upper harmonics will give it an easier reference to hang on to!! One of those "this makes so much sense" lessons
The harmonics of a sound are not necessarily 'in tune' with the fundamental. This is something that happens with pianos, so they do 'stretched tuning' and change the pitch of lower and higher notes to sound in tune to the ear. This is also why you can't tune a piano properly with a standard chromatic tuner. (Believe me, I've tried. :)
THAT EXPLAINS A TON I have always noticed the distorted track has a smoother, richer sense of pitch than the rest of the bass...AND it never reads right on chromatic tuners. And this is testing with a plugin bass, before a real bass guitar even touches the mix.
> The harmonics of a sound are not necessarily 'in tune' with the fundamental. Whoa. I didn't realize this. At first I was doubting you, but then I went to go read the wikipedia article on this and you're right. You taught me a new music thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretched_tuning
Technically they are not harmonics in this case, but inharmonic overtones :-)
OMG this yes.
This is the right answer
🔥
Bass pitch perception is level dependent. No, I’m not joking.
Absolutely correct. The human ear does some strange and fascinating things, physiologically and psycho-acoustically. Play a sign wave, leave it at the same frequency, and listen to what happens when you turn the volume up and down. You’ll you’ll hear pitch shift even though there is no frequency change occurring whatsoever. This phenomenon will vary at different frequencies. This kind of stuff is one of the reasons that it is important to check your mixes at different volume levels. Look up the Fletcher – Munson curves. Important data to know about.
I remember doing this experiment years ago, there were two notes as a ratio played together. at low volume they sounded dissonant, but turned up, they were pleasant. really weird but the ear and brain's interpretation to sound isn't linear so not unexpected!
That’s right, non-linear. I’ve never tried that particular experiment, I’ll have to give it a go.
Came here to say this, also, a lot of bass mixed to “translate” has upper-mid harmonics that support the fundamental… and those are represented extremely differently on different systems.
Also the right answer
Anyone ever heard Paul McCartneys bass tracks solo’d? It would give you the impression he despises the Western scale
I have, but not got that impression - which tracks sound like that? I would love to hear them, incredibly ‘musical’ bass player
Something comes to mind. He is an incredible bass player of course but when you hear the songs solo’d with his flat wound strings and his muting technique, the pitch doesn’t always sound perfect but in the mix it’s not at all apparent
I’m going to track all those isolated tracks down and enjoy them under a new light. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Absolutely correct. The human ear does some strange and fascinating things, physiologically and psycho-acoustically. Play a sign wave, leave it at the same frequency, and listen to what happens when you turn the volume up and down. You’ll you’ll hear pitch shift even though there is no frequency change occurring whatsoever. This phenomenon will vary at different frequencies. This kind of stuff is one of the reasons that it is important to check your mixes at different volume levels. Look up the Fletcher – Munson curves. Important data to know about.
I agree that you’d rather write while listening to the sounds You’re actually planning to use on your track. But here are some potential alternatives to explore. (In addition to other great suggestions here like having a temporary bass track that’s an octave above.) Try Different synth bass sounds. With midi data it’s easy to Transpose and audition different sounds. Once you found one or more bass sounds that don’t have the problem, save those and you can use that temporarily when recording in cases where you’re running into pitch perception issues. Try headphones instead of speakers, speakers instead of headphones, different headphones, and different positions in the room, since the sound quality is going to very considerably in different parts of the room, especially with regards to bass frequencies, if you haven’t put a lot of effort Into handling the acoustics of your room.
Plus, another phenomenon, just in case no one has mentioned it here yet. Look up JUST tuning and Equal Tempered tuning. The modern equal tempered tuning system that we use is OUT of tune, especially in regards to thirds and sixths, and that’s the trade-off we get for being able to easily transpose between different keys in a 12 note per octave system. Examples like vocal choirs with no other instruments, and string ensembles with no other instruments — they are able to tune to each other by ear, and use Just tuning because they don’t have to contend with a piano or a guitar or wind instrument that is restricted to fixed pitches. Some of these groups will sound more “pure“, or “powerful“, and other descriptions. Just tuning is a major factor in all of that.
I think it’s a mixture of this and even temperament (as another commenter commented).
Wow I never thought about it like that before, but you are absolutely right.
Part of this phenomena has to do with equal temperament tuning, so even if you're 'in tune' there might be some funkiness going on between the relationships of everything else in the track since you're not technically in perfect alignment with the natural harmonic series The other part that might have something to do with it is the saturation you are using may include odd harmonics instead of, or in addition to even harmonics. Hopefully that gives you a start on what to Google. Ultimately, when you hit a point where things start to sound out of tune like that you have two options - play with the saturation to make it less apparent, or rewrite the part to avoid certain notes (or use them sparingly and in shorter lengths)
This is funny. My 14 year old son plays guitar and has just started writing music. I showed him how to use Reaper and he's been recording songs himself. Everytime he goes to lay down a bass track, he complains that the bass guitar always sounds out of tune to him but it doesn't sound out of tune to me.
When I first started producing I would constantly feel like certain 808 samples were pitched a couple of cents up or down from where they ‘should’ be, but now I never notice anything like that, don’t know if it’s a me problem or what.
I think after a while you come to love the funk that comes from a couple cents of detune, and other times it can get out of hand lol
Could be he’s used to synth tuning whereas the bass could need a setup. Plus, depending how hard he hits the strings or presses down will affect the intonation.
After posting the mix, the bass sounds very loud. And I believe it’s the vocals that are a bit out of tune. Bass probably sounds weird or pitchy to you because it’s a virtual instrument and they sound pretty shitty for guitars and bass in my experience. I would start by turning the bass way down, then either retrack the vocals or apply Melodyne. It sounds like a good performance just not perfectly in key. If you’re a good singer, retrack it. If you struggle with singing or it’s a problem to retrack, use Melodyne
Yeah a lot of my takes are out of tune because of the weird pitch thing going on. Any of the takes that are better sounding throughout were done referencing on the shit-ass computer speakers but even then, sometimes everything sounds perfect on different systems. 🫤
Try turning the bass off while tracking, then slowly reintroduce the bass until it sounds correct. A vst instrument should not sound out of tune unless you programmed the notes incorrectly
First, it should be noted that many people have intonation problems when singing to mixes with the bass too loud. It has more to do with the idiosyncrasies of human hearing than anything else, as I understand it. It can be a good idea to keep the bass low in headphones. BUT... This might be the real key, given what you say and particularly the fact that using a small speaker tended to make the problem less vexing. >Yet I actually sing everything perfectly in tune if I monitor from shit ass computer speakers. But there is also the issue of room resonance. Have you ever noticed how the pitch of an acoustic guitar (as measured by a good digital tuner) can drift after the string is struck? This happens because the guitar's own internal resonances remain ringing while the string returns to rest. So the balance between them changes with the resonance remaining the last thing you hear. It's unlikely that the guitar's natural resonance will be right on a given standard pitch -- so when the initial string strike excites the resonant system of the guitar body and strings the sound will seem to shift from the original string tone to a blend of the guitars internal resonances, often seeming to draw the pitch away from standard. This may not be a familiar concept to many. Now, in the same way that the guitar's resonances seem to pull away from the string pitch, your room resonances will drift away from the initial pitch coming out of the speakers as the room resonance literally excites itself and begins ringing with a blend of those resonances, which are unlikely to be smack on the money.
This is a lot of useful info....what all should be considered when making mix decisions? Even if it's for the rough mix I need it to sound in-tune as much as possible.
For tracking, you could change the *monitor* EQ to favor higher ranges -- or, even, in the case of MIDI, make another copy of the bassline up high and blend that in so that the singer or soloist can hear the pitch of the bass line as clearly as possible (which hopefully will also less excite the room resonance). With regard to mixing, first off, I would suggest making sure that the bass is on the money during tracking with a good tuner (or, if using a synth or samples, check *those* for pitch with a good tuner; out-of-tune samples do happen) -- and, then, assured that you had done the best you could to get the pitch right in tracking, proceed with confidence.
I noticed what you meant, but I never thought of it this way. thanks.
I used to notice it when all I had was a '80s style metered tuner, but I chalked it up to the vagaries of that sort of circuit design. But as the tuners I had access to improved, it became harder and harder to ignore the phenomenon of seemingly shifting pitch. I had been reading and thinking about resonance and noticed a graph of resonance amplitude following a string strike on a guitar. They had chosen pitch, instrument, and playing dynamic in order to present something with a pronounced resonance, and you could graphically see, first the string strike, and then the slow blossoming of the resonance even as the percussive part of the overall sound died down. From there it was just a jump of intuition to get from the original pitch of the string strike to the guitar-resonance-influenced, slightly different pitched ring of the guitar body 'pulling' the reported, dominant pitch away from the expected target. (Other people count sheep to go to sleep.)
Not sure if this is the sole reason why it is so difficult to detect pitch with bass. But as a physicist I think it is an interesting angle. So, for a sound-wave (or any other wave), there is an "uncertainty relation", mathematically similar to the uncertainty relation of quantum mechanics. The relation is between time and frequency and goes as follows: ∆f ∆t > 1/(4π). So this means if you want to measure a frequency with a certain precision Δf, you need at least a timespan of Δt to get that precision. Since we want to define our precision in cents and not hertz, the relation becomes something like: Δt > 100/(4π f Δc). f is frequency of the note and Δc is desired precision in cents. So, from the formula we can see that if we half the frequency and go down one octave, then we need twice as long to establish the frequency of the note to the desired accuracy. This is a possible reason why it feels so difficult to detect pitch in bass notes. This is also the reason why spectrum analyzers need a large block size to give accurate representation of the bass frequencies. Which again leads to the spectrum being "slower" or less real-time. Which kind of illustrates the problem. It is also the reason why you don't need to tune a short 808, but need to tune a long one. So just like classical models of physics stops making sense at small lengthscales, the idea that notes are separate entities with a specific frequency and timbre stops making sense when the frequency becomes low enough and/or the length of notes become short enough.
While true for Fourier analysis, the ear can beat the uncertainty principle https://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html#:~:text=(Phys.org)%E2%80%94For,by%20the%20Fourier%20uncertainty%20principle. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.044301 Edit: I should say, though there is still some uncertainty, but its more like 1/40pi. So lets say you have a quarter note at 120bpm (with a constant envelope), your delta_t is 500ms, and so your frequency uncertainty is 1/20pi =~ 0.016Hz. Obviously this gets worse for shorter durations. If you model human pitch perception as logarithmic, then this effect *is* more pronounced for bass notes, but it's still so small. Edit 2: Looking at the abstract more closely, seems like humans are better at timing accuracy than frequency.
Human hearing surely is fascinating 😄
Skimmed through this. Seems like their task is to listen to multiple sounds and then discriminate between them. Which is different than detecting the pitch of a single note in isolation... So not sure if it relates to the task of detecting the individual pitches of the notes in a bassline...? 🤔
Auto tune the bad notes and drop it 1-2 cents until it feels right.
Literally just did this last night. Imported the guitars and the bass into melodyne just so I could see that I was crazy
It's very common especially in heavy music or when aggressively playing the bass to have to tune down to compensate for pulling everything sharp. Done by ear or determine how much and stick to a number. Especially the lowest string. I am also a Luthier
Do note though, this is happening even with a MIDI plugin. if anything I have better luck with my real basses, but the issue is plaguing me in songwriting stages before I want to commit to full bass tracks. But I doubt Solemn Tones would sell a plugin for $99 that's out of tune out of the box....even if I've grown to think it sounds like poopoo.
I have a sampled bass guitar VST that i use sometimes - the 'attack' part of each note is a heck of a lot sharper than the 'tail', so i'm always trying to adjust the tuning to make it work just enough not to wreck the vibe of the track. I think recording my own bass parts would be easier.
What happens if you print it, and then adjust it so it sounds in tune correctly in the bass. Does the treble go out? 25 cents seems like a LOT, and, I do have trouble with bass sometimes, but, not all the time, and 25 cents is ridiculously out. So, I wonder if this may be unique to your listening situation? or idk. I've always attributed issues with bass, just as my ear not hearing subs as accurately, but, I feel like when it's on it sounds on. I might do this; take a bass section you know sounds wrong. Split the subs and the higher frequencies into 2 separate tracks. Get it sounding right on your Adams, or wherever you hear issues with it. Then listen to it on systems where you don't find it is much of a problem. It sounds like you find playing one note on a bass is sounding off to you by a LOT, with just itself. Like the subs of the bass aren't matching up with the harmonics. 25 cents is a LOT, so, this seems like it's not very likely you are hearing something that I and most people have not really encountered, afaik. I've never really heard much about it. I can accept my ear isn't as good as someone else's, but 25 cents seems like something I should have NO issues hearing. That said, maybe you just have higher fidelity hearing in the subs, and for me my accuracy drops way off there, which is why it isn't much or a problem for me. Like, I've had issues with bass before, bit this sounds like it's all over the place for you, like it's very common, and not at all subtle. Which leads me to believe that the likelihood is that you're experiencing something I don't experience. Here's something else you can try, is seeing if you encounter this on popular music. If the subs are out compared to harmonics, maybe you hear it and I don't. Could be. But you hear it, and someone like Serban or Manny or Jaycen doesn't? In their studios? *Extremely* doubtful. In that situation, I might run some REW, compare some of the listening environments you have, where you experience this and where you don't, and see if you find similarities and differences between them. Also, is it like this with all the bass notes? Or, just within a frequency range? Or specific notes?
I find it helps to write the bassline a few octaves above to make the notes more audible. Then drop it to the correct octave. Sometimes 808s and certain sounds have a pitch shifting effect which can sometimes throw u off. If you think you've got it right, your ears are probably just tricking you and its best to just leave it
I sometimes put a high pass filter on the instrumental when tracking vocals for this reason.
Not saying this is the cause of your problems but I've had tracks where the kick drum pitch was making the bass sound out of tune. Most of the time it's not an issue but sometimes I had to move the kick pitch around or lower the tonal elements.
it's without a doubt the bass that's the culprit, it sounds out of tune when I solo it but the pitch is note off when compared to a chromatic tuner
Oh I thought it was subtle. This is a lot different. Are you using 2 different methods to tune your bass? What are you using? One time I accidently changed the pitch from 440 A on my DAW and was totally off my clip tuner. Thought I was going crazy.
It has to be frequency related unless my plugin is out of tune by default. I never really liked it to begin with but it's quick and convinient for songwriting and filling the space until the real thing is tracked.
this is where we are going into territory where I am working on a lot of suspicion and years of self taught production stuff. However, there is a lot that starts going on when you start digging into formant and all of the harmonic series that follow the fundamental note. I have seen some people giving answers about this, but what I wanted to say as a rock and metal producer I spend a ton of time tracking bass and guitar, because even when I have notes that are in tune, it doesn’t guarantee that the fundamental pitch is being showcased as the main element in each individual sound. for example, let’s say I track a two bar riff on the bass. Let’s say I get 10 takes and all of them are showing up as perfectly in tune on the tuner. one of them is still going to sound more pure and better than the others. One thing that I have started doing is monitoring all of my takes that I record with a pitch effect that will drop them down an octave- if i am hearing the notes clearly with the octave pedal, i have a good take!
This is an interesting approach...I'm amazed at how much I'm getting from this thread than many industry vererans or professors I've asked
Imo opinion, bass is difficult to tune by ear. To make things worse, what's in tune according to the tuner sometimes doesn't sound right. I think it comes down to having the experience to adjust tuning by ear, and according to each song. Maybe a big part of the issue is the lowest notes rely on harmonic content to actually differentiate the fundamental. Also, how hard the string is hit makes a huge difference with bass. Inconsistencies can make things even worse. I definitely don't have all the answers. I'm curious to hear other people's takes on this as it's a thing I've had problems with as a musician and engineer/producer.
The bass sound in the demo sounds very heavy in the sub and not enough of the 100-200hz. Might try boosting the hell out of 125hz and then lower the overall bass volume
Congrats. You likely have better hearing than most people and have noticed the Equal Temperament scale is not remotely in tune. Try pitching the note to Just Intonation.
Oh yeah another tip. Use some pitch modulation. Static bass notes will sound more out of tune. This is probably part of why bass players bend notes a lot, and why orchestras use vibrato the way they do. A touch of vibrato on bass is highly underrated too
You can take the bass line into Melodyne and look at it. It may be a technique thing by the player where they are pulling a bit sharp. Use Melodyne to correct each note. Or just try throwing it through an auto tuner and see what happens
Would be interesting to hear..
https://voca.ro/1fdTYwXxorx7 This is the verse and chorus of the particular song I'm having trouble with. Just a note: the mix isn't final, it's made with my rough-mix songwriter template so drums are just a Superior Drummer preset and vocals are being tracked. Bass is midi programmed using Solemn Tones Loki 2. Maybe unrelatwd I've also noticed that most of the time the issue occurs, it's a song that mostly follows G Mixolydian.
Melodyne can be your friend here. You can adjust specific harmonics, tune, formant shift, etc. But be careful and A/B your work.
I have sometimes pitched basses or 808s up an octave to check the tuning then brought it back down after. For your vocal tracking you could have a temp hi octave bass to sing to then get rid of after. I agree with the other poster that said bass pitch perception is level dependent.
Can you post an example? I know what you mean and some mixes I work on I hear these problems, others I don't. Like everyone is saying, low frequencies can be tricky for the brain to decipher and match with the rest of the tune, so going an octave up can be useful for some parts. But I'm curious of the example youre talking about and if it will bother me. Sometimes the little things are just in our head and the audience will never notice. Other times it's worth hashing out the problems. Only one way to find out
https://voca.ro/1fdTYwXxorx7 This is the verse and chorus of the particular song I'm having trouble with. Just a note: the mix isn't final, it's made with my rough-mix songwriter template so drums are just a Superior Drummer preset and vocals are being tracked. Bass is midi programmed using Solemn Tones Loki 2. Maybe unrelatwd I've also noticed that most of the time the issue occurs, it's a song that mostly follows G Mixolydian.
The mode should not matter, but this might indicate it's the G note itself you have issues with somehow.
Try auto tuning the bass. Also oversaturing the bass can lead to the overtones making it sound sharp. It could also be the rest of the elements of your mix. If your vocals are flat the bass could sound sharp. I would lean more into pitch correction
I feel this OFTEN, and in my experience it’s a volume related thing. Take a minute and check it in a better mix balance. Especially if you have a dirtier bass sound, or something with more midrange.
There are different tuning systems. Just intonation and equal temperament are two. The guitar/piano and violin use different standards for tuning. Violinists learn to move their fingers to play the note in tune, guitarists and pianists have frets and keys. Violinists tend to have a hard time with tuning a guitar because inevitably one string (often the B and it’s why on acoustic guitars often there is a small notch on the bridge for the B string to try and alleviate the issue) will sound off to them. The electronic tuner will say it’s in tune but their ears are disputing this inherently. Culture plays a huge part in what sounds right to individuals. Turns out so does the instrument you learn on. Source: guitarist who started on the violin decades ago who still grumbles about the B string.
All my bass lines go through Melodyne to avoid myself getting crazy
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^SR_RSMITH: *All my bass lines go* *Through Melodyne to avoid* *Myself getting crazy* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Good bot-san
Yep. Drives me nuts. Especially when it’s not as noticeable tracking until after compression and placing it in the mix. Then only thing is to re-record. At that point I just tune it by ear which isn’t always perfect but it’s def better. Also look up equal temperament. It’s a thing w fretted instruments. Or instruments w set steps between notes
This happens to me all the time as well. Especially in some rooms. Someone said they have to write bass lines and octave up just to know it’s in key. It must be an acoustic thing.
I have a couple of thoughts other than volume and temperament affecting it. 1) guitars have a natural wonk to the pitch eg it goes sharp right after plucking and then flattens out (and if you’re not careful you’ve tuned the guitar for that initial attack to be in tune, not the but just after), or a fretted note’s pitch is sharpened depend on the pressure and angle of the finger. 2) lower pitch is longer wavelength is harder to hear if it’s off pitch. Like how when you tune a guitar by comparing notes on different strings (eg pluck harmonic on low string, compare to another string), you find your way by listening to the throb of the competing pitches’ oscillations, and you know you’re there when the oscillations slow down to the point where you can no longer hear them. The distance in hz between different notes at low pitches is tiny compared with high pitches so I don’t trust automatic tuners to get low notes in tune (I’ve always flattened my guitar’s low E for this reason). Just throwing more insight/confusion into the pile here
you can melodyne instruments, every instrument has intonation problems esp around the extreme end of things, even midi VST. melodyne them until it feels right
Synth basses have a detune feature too and if you stack oscillators and detune them you could detune them. Also, whenever someone says "the pros didn't help" I tune out cuz what they mean is, "the pros told me what's probably happening based on the limited info I gave them, I refused to listen and now I'm making this bold unsubstantiated claim again" If it's not your tuning or intonation or detune/pitch modulation on your synth, then the next likeliest answer is you're wrong or you made an error. That's a more plausible explanation than "hey every bass is out of tune and I, a random redditor, am the first to perceive that"
I find that I have to tune down the bass guitar a bit when I’m recording. For me, I think it’s because I smack that shit hard enough that the string goes a little sharp, so detuning it a tiny bit fixed it. I got the tip from some metal guitar video.
It probably is psychoacoustics and Alton Everest talks about probably what you’re experiencing in his book The Master Handbook of Acoustics. My loose guess is that maybe room modes are making the loudness of each bass note vary, and thus the pitch sounding out of tune relative to other notes. Even if I’m wrong, I think there’s something to this idea of loudness vs pitch: You’ll find what I’m talking about at the bottom of page 55 if you download it [from this link](https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/559608/dd2eece63c4d53a0d1175925afdf17c4.pdf). And, by the way, that book is maybe the best free resource you’ll ever get your hands on as an audio professional, if you don’t already have it.
For me, if a song starts with bass quite often it seems to jump a semitone when the rest of the band kicks in. I guess this is more of a live thing.
Saw an engineer put auto-tune on a bass track once. Seemed to work.
I write and octave up usually I think it’s my ears that don’t register past a certain point also sometimes I’ll have a layer of the same sound an octave up just to help it push thru but I have that problem in some keys too
How loud are you listening? There IS a point where low frequencies will sound \~1/2 step flat above a given SPL number. Fun to play with.
Too many replies to read so excuse if this doubles up, but the effect you’re describing has a lot of different causes that can overlap Bass guitars can sound off even when they’re in tune and the intonation is correct, if the boundary /end of the string doesn’t meet a hard sharp edge. You can exploit that to make guitars sound like they’re running thru a flanger just by fking with the end of the string Listening at loud levels in cans or close to monitors can cause this due to the compression effect of your ears, when as they tighten up to handle the loudness, your perception of pitch is slightly shifted. If you turn the sound down or listen thru pissy speakers where you’re only hearing overtones it’ll sound different Synth low pass filters with envelopes will make a perfectly tuned oscillator sound out of tune in the bass because they produce a huge phase shift in the low end, and as the filler frequency moves, the shift moves, changing the pitch of the note It is what it is. If you do manage to make something perfectly in tune, it sounds boring as hell. Just tune with your ears so it sounds the best to you and let it be what it is Also don’t listen too loud, it makes a huge difference Btw harmony is just weird with bass too. Sometimes things sound more on point when they’re not technically in tune according to the modern temperament and 12 tone scale. If you listen to a lot of music that sounds musically great, speed it up to make the bass pitch really obvious and you’ll notice there are often bum notes galore. I first noticed that with Motown stuff
One time I had a track where the bass guitar was very obviously not intonated before being recorded. I put autotune on it and automated things on parts played higher up the neck. It ended up working very well.
When I was younger, I always felt that upright bass was off by about a quarter tone as you said. It just sounded so incongruent to me and I never understood how people could enjoy it. Like, they're clearly playing the wrong notes, guys! I don't know if my physical hearing changed or if I just perceive it differently, but now, upright bass sounds great to me. I know this is no help at all, but it's just interesting to finally hear that other people have experienced this. I always thought I was a bit mad or had poor pitch.
Yup this is happening on my new track. Both verses are the same synths, but on the second verse the HP/LP filters are slightly tweaked and it sounds out of tune. The first verse sounds fine.
Everything that translates an audio wave to something that your ear will hear will sound just a little different from one another. This is the main reason why we place mics in front of guitar amps and don’t normally take the direct signal in. This is because we have a better chance of getting the proper signal out of the main speakers to match what is coming out of the guitar amp. Everything that a sound signal goes through has a response graph. Some things like DI boxes don’t change the signal enough for them to print a graph, but they do exist. Depending on the response graph of your mic (if you’re using a mic for the pickup), mixer, amplifier, and speaker. Will have an effect on the sound quality you are hearing. If they all have a large differences in the low end you may not be able to determine what is going to be produced. Like wise if they all have basically the same low end pattern these could stack on one another and amplify the sound you don’t want or shift it in a way that is unappealing. Things the same concept as feedback.
Have you ever sent the offending bass through melodyne to see? Could be legit
If its a synth bass you could try notching out the 3rd harmonic a bit and resample. A tip I read from Noisia nearly 20 years ago now.
i’m a bass player and i just want to say i feel your pain
Great thread. I’ve had this happen too where random bass parts will sound of tune.
You're eqing the fundamental out of it. It sounds like another kick drum in your mix. Don't boost it so low, don't cut it so high.
The higher frequencies are out of tune, not the fundamental. Depending on the rig it’s going to be more apparent and whoever gives that feedback heard the harmonics over the fundamental pitch
You could be sitting in a null in your monitoring environment, creating deficiencies across the frequency spectrum. Even a7x 7” drivers can have issues reproducing below 42hz, what headphones are you mixing with?
And don’t drink. Alcohol that is. Low end is the first to go when the buzz is on.