The Biggest Misunderstanding About Bass 🤯

Two waves starting from opposite sides have flipped phases. When they approach each other, they cancel out when on top of each other due to opposite directions.

Two sine waves with opposite phase cancel each other when summed into one channel. The signal disappears completely in mono.

Panning each channel left and right allows the signal to be heard again and creates a stereo image.

• Phasing can occur inside a channel or between channels when summing signals • Phasing is especially problematic with signals that have similar frequency response • Any time two signals are summed, phase cancellation is possible

Bass created with unison (multiple loosely layered oscillators) causes volume variations due to phasing in and out of each other.

Making bass mono does not solve the phasing problem—it only makes it invisible. The root cause (oscillators going in and out of phase) remains unfixed.

The source of the problem is oscillators coming in and out of phase, which must be fixed to control volume levels and reduce phasing issues.

• Soft solution: Use limiters or compressors to stabilize signal without changing the original waveform • Hard solution: Target the problem directly by replacing or filtering unstable frequency ranges

Soft solution does not change the original signal but stabilizes it using external processing like limiters or compressors.

• Set threshold levels to control signal dynamics • Use fast attack and release times for quick reaction • Increase ratio to correct the signal more aggressively • Adjust makeup gain to compensate

Stabilizing a signal in stereo does not fix it in mono. When collapsed to mono, the phasing problem returns.

• Move the compressor before applying mono or use base mono on the compressor itself • This ensures signal stability when collapsed to mono • Signal remains stable even with complete bass collapse

Use EQ3 to split the signal at a specific frequency point (e.g., 134 Hz) into separate low and high end tracks.

• Create duplicates of the signal • On first instance, compress only the low end by turning off mid and high frequencies • On second instance, keep only the high end • Apply compression through utility set to mono, then glue compression

Lows become mono and stable while highs maintain stereo feel and dynamics, achieving desired control and imaging.

Use primary compressor to target specific areas, or employ multiband compression depending on mixing needs.

Hard solution makes the low end super tight and stable by replacing or removing the unstable sub-bass entirely.

• Some wavetable synthesizers allow manual removal of the fundamental frequency • Replace it with a simple, stable sine wave from another oscillator like Serum • This maintains stability while preserving the fancy upper harmonics

Use high pass and low pass filters manually to split the signal, keeping the stable parts and replacing unstable frequencies.

• Standard EQ alters the phase of the original signal • Consider using Ozone Imager to split frequencies while maintaining phase correlation • This preserves the original signal's characteristics while achieving stability