Noisia - Tutorial: Bass Harmonics | VISION Patreon

[@visionrecordings]

Taken from a 60 minute tutorial from 2020. The full video + loads more can be found by joining the Producer tier on our Patreon 🎛

[@lk0707]

How to check full content on Patreon ? Are you doing more videos about mixing ?

[@GravytyMusic]

Do you work in A440 12-TET? Or is there something better for our purposes, given the fact that we don't really need to worry about other people tuning their orchestral instruments to play our tracks, I have to assume something else has harmonic advantages we can leverage freely. I just don't know what... Please help

[@djkrptdnb]

Nik designing the loudest tea slurp ever 🔊🔊🔊

[@made.online2149]

I have misophonia for eating noises, that swallow was more aggressive & painful than any bass they've ever made

[@thomasserafino7663]

For those willing to dig the subject : the "fire synapse at the same rate" phenomenon is called phase-locking (of nerve firings), and is the pillar of the temporal theory of pitch perception. It is the main thing that helps us to accurately identify pitch. Phase locking works until past 4-5 kHz, where we lose pitch accuracy. The missing fundamental phenomenon can be explained by the temporal theory as said in the video, because the auditory nerve phase locks to the fundamental anyway. Our auditory nerve is really good at doing maths ;)

[@alwaystired1]

would that mean much of the info above 4 kHz isn't needed at all for our brains to do it accurately, or does that mean in general our brains can't extract any information above 4 kHz?

[@vecvan]

​@@alwaystired1that's how telephone speakers work, cut-off at 4kHz or lower if they are bad.

[@tilliinfinity]

funny if u think about ppl synthmodules which like the doepfer one.

[@thomasserafino7663]

​@@alwaystired1 Hi ! Well, it means that we can't extract accurate pitch information when the fundamental of the signal is above 4 kHz. This concerns only pitch information. Basically no instrument is pitched that high, so that's a non issue for music. The capacity of accurately tell the pitch of something is called pitch discrimination. In practice, and to give an example, it means you're more likely to tell the difference between two notes separated by a semitone whose fundamentals are below 4 kHz, compared to 2 notes separated by a semitone whose fundamentals are above 4 kHz. Please note that the 4 kHz barrier is not strict, we lose pitch discrimination quite gradually around 4 kHz. It's not like past 4000,1 Hz we're completely lost, nor before 3999,9 Hz we're gods at pitch discrimination. Also, pitch discrimination depends on a whole lot of other parameters I'm not qualified at all to talk about, so I won't elaborate further on it !

[@alwaystired1]

@@thomasserafino7663 whoa that's really fascinating though. Esp considering how we use most of the frequency spectrum in music, it's very curious that a lot of the "legibility" is a more condensed range than I expected. Thanks for the reply!

[@projectnitefall8058]

when noisia talks production, its probably wise to listen. absolute legends

[@Replatforming]

Bass tutorials are usually some dude fiddling with Serum knobs to show what you should do to make a bass sound "fat". Here's Nik talking for 10 minutes over an EQ screenshot about how your brain processes bass sounds and how scientists found out that the brains of owls can synthesize fundamentals by listening to harmonics. Absolute legend.

[@urigeheadmot1196]

Yet you still don‘t know how to make a sick bass

[@Sqlut]

@@urigeheadmot1196 because the sick bass was inside you all that time

[@RAYSHIO]

He might learn using patreon subscription

[@phaedruslykos3249]

actual king of electronic music. This man is the brains.

[@innavision1920]

@@phaedruslykos3249no lie bro arguably the best sound design to this date

[@fern586]

Welcome back to science with Nik

[@KBAMusic]

Thanks

[@grafzhl]

Today: Psychoacoustics.

[@Buunshin_]

Maybe this explains why we can remember melodies so well

[@Sqlut]

And why melodies are deeply bound to emotions. Find some interesting emotion successions patterns and tell an emotional story, without using lyrics. That's pretty much what everyone does without necessarily understanding how it works, while overusing violins and pianos.

[@grimage1731]

So instead of recording my instruments DI, I record them TO (Through Owl) nowadays, and oh boy, it gives such a nice and warm hoot to your lowend!

[@eldflaug]

hahahahaha🤣

[@djviper79]

Never before has patreon been so tempting 😂

[@drghawke4282]

I reckon bro!!

[@neonblack211]

Lol true

[@searchiemusic]

nik is a brilliant explainer and doesn't talk down at all, he just gives the best words he has to describe what he knows, which of course is a lot, it's always cool hearing him talk about what he knows

[@ForbiddenSocietyRecs]

Nik is the best producer on Earth (for me) 🙌🙌

[@FloJiCc]

💪😄

[@Sqlut]

Some music theory from what you said about harmonics and owls : Let say your brain predicts what's gonna happen next when it listens to music. If the predictions match the heard tune, it means you are spotting and learning music's structure and patterns. Now let say the producer first adds the repetitive patterns so you get the structure and then the brain starts to have more and more accurate predictions, but then the producers slighly twists something in the patterns (like removing the 45hz bass) so there's a distortion between what you hear and what you synthetized - if your brain likes surprizes, we should be able to record dopamine flux variations in the basal glands. If such a study ever exists, we might actually understand the mechanisms of why we love music. We could also understand why some people love some kind of music or sounds, etc.

[@ahoi370]

Just fyi, dopamine is not actually a reward molecule, its more of an anticipation signaler.

[@WillyJunior]

It's cool idea but from the research I've done, these techniques never really do much to people because the brain isn't easily tricked.

[@PauLtus_B]

I don't think you should underestimate to what extend this is already being done. In practice having that fundamental 45 Hz bass or not is similar to just not having a sub-bass or not. When you don't have the fundamental, it's not like you're actually unable to distinguish whether that's sine wave is actually there or not. It's more that our brain is really good at figuring out what the fundamental frequency is, regardless of whether we can actually hear it. The way our brain interprets a sound is much more build on hearing a root note, getting a sense of the harmonic spectrum, and the "fullness" of that spectrum (like whether it's only the odd harmonics or both even and odd). It's not like you can't use this for some interesting trickery though. It's the why when you slightly detune two saw-waves, it sounds like a saw wave that seems to move up and down an octave without ever pitching. The reason that happens is because when the saw-waves are 180 degrees out of phase, all the odd harmonics cancel each other out leaving only the even harmonics, which will be the same as just a saw-wave one octave higher.

[@Sqlut]

@@PauLtus_B almost like tricking the automatic sorting algorithm in the brain that a soundwave looks like soundparticles lol. It reminds me of that culprate track that uses granular synthesis to play with the pitch of another pitch from variating the repeat frequency of a sample. Also this kind of accurate stuff only seems possible with recent music production technology.

[@iamMarsPluto]

Meyers theory of expectation

[@OMA_Music_Official]

NOSIA VISION is the real deal, glad to see yet again great production minds sharing their knowledge 🕉

[@dandeeteeyem2170]

This was mind blowing. And what a great guy for sharing the fundamentals, and the nuance he's learnt over the years. He clearly understands the importance of sharing your knowledge with anyone who wants it. It pushes the genre, building it's popularity and reach. Whatever secret sauce he loses is irrelevant. A self centred artist would hoard the knowledge to keep an edge over others - to remain popular. There's no ego in him - he truly loves the music and the d&b scene and is giving away an ocean of knowledge to ensure we all get to hear what becomes a reality as others add to the ultimate toolkit.. We all win. Listen to the best jungle from back in the day and imagine taking what's possible now, back in time, and playing it next to those old tunes... You would literally melt people's brains if you could show them where we are at today 😂 New tracks have such a profound effect on me these days that many epic D&B drops bring literal tears to my eyes when they first drop. What other style or genre gives you goosebumps so consistently. All because some dudes in the UK accidentally put their breaks records on at the wrong RPM and thought, "hang on, I like the sound of that" 😅

[@dirg3music]

Hearing is such an incredible thing, that we've all evolved over millenia to be able to distinguish sounds as a survival mechanism, and that instinct trancends species. Definitely going to be checking out this book, thanks for the tip!

[@pranavmarla]

This is super informative! My production will never be the same after watched this. And it's coming from the legend himself! Thanks a lot for this!

[@fellekmalstrm1276]

in the very well understandable book by Robert Jourdain "the well-tempered brain" we read that the physically resonating part of the inner ear responsible for these calculations, called residuum or residual hearing is built like an inverted concert grand piano - for the shape and proportions of these tiny ciliated hairs, whose distances to each other, but also length growth rates are staggered in such a way that they lie significantly in the golden ratio. If we think about this as a musical concept, our brain can't help but fall in love with all sorts of mixolydian scales. The sound researcher and multi-instrumentalist Joachim Ernst Berendt (1922-2000) reports in his book "Nada Brahma - Die Welt ist Klang" about an experimental arrangement in which the modulations of the earth's magnetic field, caused by the impinging solar storms, were recorded over a longer period of time on different points around the globe. The later resynthesized sound, transposed into the audible range, was in no way inferior to an 8-voice fugue by Bach in terms of counterpoint, harmony and quasi-periodicity - translinking on this very point the owls with headphones and the planet as an instrument, played by the sun.

[@RANVAC]

Because of this video, I’m 100% subscribing to the patreon. This is invaluable!

[@davidoffofficial]

never knew how to explain but that's exactly what i like about bass. thr correlation between feeling the sub and hearing the bass not just adding one on another.

[@stuartjohnstone2756]

@adamneely - Nik is one of the most prolific drum and bass producers around doing an analysis into bass. Would love to hear your take on all of this.

[@jamesconnor601]

i have This Is Your Brain On Music sitting next to me .. never heard of anyone as fascinated by it as me. plus i love your music - you the man!

[@jameswyatt6076]

I've waited my entire life for this video. I've had to do so much fuckery with the bass to untrick my brain from hearing the sub from the harmonics that I no longer no what is real. This Is Your Brain On Music is my favorite book. I've read it so many times since highschool. Greatly Recommend!

[@evgenijzvukogenij8701]

The knowledge from the don itself.

[@DNBCYPHER]

Producers assemble!! Nik is back 🤫🤫🤫

[@krnflks]

"Bass" is just a description/label of a frequency band. What you are describing is the limitless capabilities of the electronic musician's arsenal.

[@beatnicksbeats]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. If he said "bass guitar" or "bass synth" then I think his analysis would be more accurate.

[@alphaoscillator]

@@beatnicksbeats bro, its noisia, everybody knows that he means by "bass"

[@wes_the_scifi_guy]

This is why my production name is science the sound it’s this stuff that gets me inspired

[@sparkplugrecs.official]

I need the natural analog owl resynthesis plugin for my projects lol

[@jbird976]

Why do I feel like there is someone just off camera with a gun trained on my man nik? Great video, great information, much love

[@OfficialSikkton]

I haven't clicked a thumbnail as fast as today. as fast as my brain and brawn could allow me. Broke my fingwer

[@thespacekyd]

That shit about the animals being able to recreate the fundamental frequencies just like humans is mind blowing. Honestly what's even more mind blowing is the fact that scientist were able to recreate what the owls brain was hearing compared to what was actually being played... like wtf.

[@StevenJamesBurks]

Totally with you, Nik. As a matter if fact, i think I'll re-sub to NOISiA Patron to finish this lesson.

[@kasper-jw2441]

harmonics are amazing and thats the bottom line, just amazing... again its amazing.

[@callanotherbarry5023]

I'm ecstatic that hes wearing Tsuruda - FUBAR merch. Super cool stuff in that EP

[@baronnashor158]

Yo we need more of those type of video

[@gulagwarlord]

I want one of these owl sub bass resynthesis engines now... an owl with headphones is going to take up a lot of rack space though.

[@balintbarcsak4732]

rocking the fubar shirt too, very nice

[@ThePodunkSkunk]

The owl bit is great. Sound is just energy and passes through all things.

[@MissionFitnessCTC]

Great video!

[@made.online2149]

Next level harmonic layering: tuning with Just Intonation! Pretty much all music we listen to nowadays is (deliberately) slightly out of tune, as a compromise. Imagine instead that if you made this powerful, harmonically rich bass, every other sound you then layered over top of it also aligned with its harmonics! My fav JI teacher has been Zhea Erose, check her out. I'd love to hear the members of Noisia explore alternate tuning systems in their individual music going forward.

[@baronnashor158]

are you talking about 432 vs 440?

[@tilliinfinity]

always great videos! thanks for all the info

[@ItisJev]

Such a good piece of info!

[@williamfields]

Owl pass filter! 😂

[@lofi-dave]

Very interesting, thank you for sharing!

[@BlackAera]

That glass is comically huge

[@davmysak]

One of the best music theory videos I've ever seen :) I've had the biggest problem with bass my whole life. What kind of as low budget headphones with true bass, suitable for development would you recommend? Thanks!

[@OperculumAudio]

The 2nd slide with the brain at the top and the harmonic tier almost reminds me of the cerebral spinal system.

[@143685753ton22y]

beautiful video. thank youfor sharing!

[@LawrenceAaronLuther]

9:35 I think that's quite interesting too. After the first 4 octaves in the harmonic series, things get almost all mathematical, yet even though many harmonics don't land on "notes," the brain still hears the music. When studying "Deep Down," I noticed the first two notes of the three note main sequence were both F0, but the first F0 started on the 6th harmonic (C) and the second F0 on the 4th harmonic (F). This was the start of a month-long+ fascination with creating different chords and melodies uisng the harmonics of a fundamental without neccessarilly including the fundamental and is still something I push the boundaries of often. Many thanks to you guys for not only the video lessons but the lessons in your music.

[@SLAYFIT-ju9qq]

very interesting and this must prove how our minds can be hi jacked by advertising campaigns and negative things we see and hear on radio, social media and news channels to make us do things that we might not other wise do, or think.

[@hugoacpin]

'The brain does it for you!' Funny how Nik talks about 'brain' and 'you' as if they're separate entities lol

[@starphaserdisco]

i mean, you're not living life going "wow, my eyes are perceiving these wonderful things that i, the brain, and processing." you're thinking "haha that's a funny lookin dog"

[@trashbenny]

As a non-music producer, I'm gonna get the patreon

[@John_ly]

Amazing video

[@baronnashor158]

So in theory if you stack chords oover and over eventually become its own extra tone , like a bass here? that is how frequencies work. the visual equivalent to portray this phenomena as i understand it would be a Fractal, sort of. where small part create bigger parts infinetly bigger /higher and infinetely smaller/lower. Any frequency /harmonics/sound is composed of smaller frequencies/harmonics

[@Gnurklesquimp2]

My ears have been getting more and more sensitive to harmonics, especially that 5th harmonic on a fat bass, but any overtone up to absurd freqs may apply, it's a weird blurry line. It can be a huge issue when a fat bass starts to dictate the harmony that can be played on top, or at least how that ends up sounding. Would you consider doing a video on this? I've yet to have found much input from anyone, we seem to just wing it by ear. Can sound super cool to tune certain harmonics or replace them with sines btw.! Harmor is cool for this, with it's harmonic prism. Any sample synth can just be fed a huge organ-like collection of sines that mimic the structure of the harmonic series! Can keep some perfect ratios.

[@ChibiLongy]

I hope one day you guys show us how you made that Dead Limit Reece

[@8azulak670]

but how do we tune the out-of-key harmonics when going across different notes with the bassline?

[@nannue]

Been getting lots of guided meditation background where they artfully place some low binaural beat within the actually composition where the science also suggested the same line of thought with this one. Might need to subscribe and watch the whole thing. Thank you for the teaser.

[@cutoff9152]

used that in one of my tracks to make the fundamental shift over time so the bass is kinda different everytime you hear it while still maintaining a linear phase sub etc (track is called Indifference)

[@hankcum2291]

cmon man how we supposed to find a song with out an artist name

[@ooglyga6100]

so little views for people that have such deep and icredible knowledge. I will use these tools and become better.

[@kidnunmusic]

Sick 🙌🏼

[@handler_music]

that's me going around listening some shit on my broken only-right-side-earpiece-left-headphones constructing what is left

[@hansdampf6777]

Amazing video and really cool stuff, thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed it. If I may make a little suggestion: Please turn your head away from the mic when you drink/slurp/swallow

[@IRWING123ful]

what i was so into this i didnt relize this was on patreon

[@StpSqncr]

I imagine this because people keep saying the Korn bassist sounds so good but I couldn't hear it. Thought I was have def I start to see what they where when I experiment with sytrus n fm8 😊

[@professorpancakes6545]

Noisia tutorial are so fucking cool

[@orpheuscreativeco9236]

That's a great book 👍

[@bobdegraaf]

*Weird knowledge increased* pretty awesome indeed, so this explains why music brings more people together than visual art? Oh I guess I already knew this from DJ JDAs classic if you know what I mean 😂

[@onewerdmusic6344]

Do I need Ableton for this?

[@przemyslawpatro8461]

Wow, thata intresting!

[@vincecrow4512]

Poll. High pass your sub bass at 20-30 hz ish, or no high pass?

[@cook-music]

ugh, so good

[@sinistar3198]

As a simple creative exercise, try creating a synth voice that sounds like a bear or lion roaring, then go from there.

[@screamartsdnb]

great stuff

[@zlepnomusic118]

There's a funny trend with electronic music producers who record tutorials. They sound like they have the driest throat ever and their mics and good acoustics pick up every detail of it lol

[@fuzzjohn]

Is that a jar of pasta sauce in the diffuser on the wall up there?

[@kutsalkaanbilgin]

amazing...thanks!

[@Sqeedledee]

my boy waxed up!

[@danman9156]

COOL! THANK YOU!)

[@Reav.]

bass appreciation video

[@blankspace0000]

The latest trend in sound design: owl-based synthesis xD

[@CharlesFerraro]

The sips of coffee 💀

[@wes_the_scifi_guy]

I’m going to patron

[@brunsomarrr]

Heckin dope

[@mmacult5336]

listening to this guy, makes you more humble

[@freddylem2659]

Awesome! Love this. Can you upload the rest please 🙏

[@No.0.o.0]

patreon ! so many awesome tutorials from the Vision crew! Super worth it!

[@christiantaylor1495]

The "realdubstep" people need to learn this. There are more mid harmonics with witch time sculpt in the mids, when the synth pitch is sub bass, so don't obsess over the low end only.

[@qo0n.]

in an environment a brain needs to map sounds to objects, the ability to identify related harmonic content seems benificial

[@d.m.e]

Please, more

[@diemcarl5546]

Exactly why In Bass We Trust. And love. Bass is the best ❤

[@jl.t.2348]

Did he say he was experimenting on owls? O_o I think it was more interesting than the topic itself

[@nomad1517]

If this guy was a certified Ableton instructor or cubase instructor I'd sell my house. I don't have a house, but I'd still sell it.

[@ProfessorSaibertin]

thx

[@thomaswilliams7601]

A cup!! Of tea damn dude forget the harmonics let's talk about that pint of tea hahaha

[@Livingontheisland]

Great tutorial. Is he dutch?😉

[@secrecysmith5001]

wow, this is classified stuff!

[@GizzyDillespee]

Bass harmonics depend on if it's a smallmouth or largemouth, or maybe a rock bass, or stryper.

[@hydrozyk]

do you have largemouth, to swallow it all?

[@DullBull]

Do an Owl Bass tutorial!

[@talgy2671]

So you're basically saying that you are not highpassing your subs even though the listeners would hear that sub either way?

[@silkworm4400]

I need to see the owls with headphones on. I. HAVE. TO. SEE. THE. OWLS.

[@thisisMRJAMES]

Patrion here I come I guess.