There was an interesting post on the Digidesign User Conference recently about plug-ins that wok like the DBX 128 box. ‘Acacia’ asked…

Anyone know of a way to create a subharmonic synthesizer for a bass vocal support like with a DBX 128? I’m working with a producer and a take6 type vocal group and the producer just brought this up. I’ve never done what he’s talking about ITB. Any suggestions or plugs out that do this? LoAir? any others?

‘Delta Music Belgium’ responded..

Aphex Big Bottom Pro
BBE Sonic Suite

Or you could duplicate the track, use a pitch plug-in, pitch the sound 1 octave (-1200 cents) down and mix it with the original track (that’s basically what the DBX 128 did, pitch down 1 octave)

‘Rich Breen’ added…

LoAir is good. Also Lowender from Refuse software.

‘JFreak’ agreed…

LoAir is good. +1
Much better than Aphex 204 emulation…

‘GeneOuse’ suggested…

Waves MaxxBass and RBass is doing the same thing and is very useful on a lot of material.

‘Rich Breen’ replied…

Totally different processes and goals – MaxxBass attempts to enhance low end perception on a wide array of playback systems by generating upper harmonics (in addition to some dynamics processing, etc…). LoAir, Lowender, DBX120x, etc… all generate subharmonics – usually (though not always) intended for extended low frequency playback systems. Both are useful effects, but they are very different sounding.

‘acacia’ who orginally asked thequestion came back and said…

You guys are amazing! Thanks! I’m favoring Lo Air. I have the Aphex and Waves stuff. I’m not seeing a way to blend / mix the Lo Air unless I double the track and remove the direct. Any other ways you’ve worked it?

‘Rich Breen’ responded…

usually done as a send to an aux return with subharmonic generator instantiated on the aux, all direct muted.

‘blairl’ added…

Recti-Fi is part of a free plug-in suite from Digidesign called D-Fi and has a subharmonic generator.

‘acacia’ replied…

Thanks Rich! I didn’t realize that about recti-fi. I’ll mess with it. Thanks all!

‘JMDNYC’ suggested..

If you’re on PT 8 then you have the AIR Enhancer. Preset 04 is called “Bass Boost.” That’s what I’m currently using on an LFE aux.

‘scottgreiner’ chipped in with…

Lowender was great. Seems that Pluggo doesn’t work for me anymore, so no more Lowender. Hope Leigh gets the RTAS version done soon…

‘digidesigner’ added…

still at least RenBass generates an octave below original too… I can hear it and see it on my RTA

‘scottgreiner’ misses his hardware box…

Had one, sold it. Missed it, and bought a Furman Punch-10. Sold it after using Lowender for a while. Now Lowender isn’t working… Ah good ol’ hardware – why did I sell ye…

An interesting debate with quite a few plug-ins to try and I would agree about wanting to get LowEnder back now Pluggo has gone away.

Comments (2):

1. 

   Leigh Marble said:
   October 22, 2010 at 6:40 pm

   Just stumbled across this post. It’s amazing the amount of confusion and misinformation out there about bass enhancers. Bottom line: *not all bass enhancers are subharmonic synthesizers*, which is what the original poster in that DUC thread was asking about.

   For example, look at the Aphex Big Bottom Pro. If you read the Aphex 204 manual (available here: http://www.aphex.com/204.htm), you’ll see that they take great pains to point out that Big Bottom is *not* a subharmonic synthesizer.

   Likewise with the BBE Harmonic Maximizer (part of the BBE Sonic Suite mentioned above) – it’s doing some bass enhancement, but not generating subharmonics. Their documentation was not clear on this point, but I did some tests and posted the frequency graph here in this thread on Gearslutz: http://bit.ly/bdHuRt

   Waves MaxxBass is another one that’s often confused as being a subharmonic processor – but it is definitely not! That confusion has come up often enough that I wrote a FAQ on our site about it: http://www.refusesoftware.com/faq/11

   Anyways, I know your post is 6 months old at this point, but with the recent release of Lowender RTAS native, I’ve been trying to clarify what it is that the Lowender does differently than many of the other bass enhancer plug-ins out there.

   Cheers and thanks for the support!
   Leigh
2. 

   admin said:
   October 25, 2010 at 6:01 pm

   Hi Leigh,

   Thanks for the explanation, much appreciated. I am always up for supporting the little guy.

   Mike.