Hi, and welcome back.
R Bass is one of those classic Waves plugins that feels like it's been around forever.
It's had a makeover since it's first inception, but it still does the same job it always did:
it adds harmonics to a bass part, which can help to make it sound fatter, or keep it more
audible on smaller speakers, or both.
I've had this for a long time actually, but haven't used it much because I didn't really
understand it.
When you load it up for example, the default intensity setting is zero, suggesting that
nothing should be happening yet.
But it very obviously and audibly is.
So, I pull the intensity down… but even at its lowest setting, it's still colouring
the sound.
This puzzled me somewhat when I first tried it, many years ago, and I've subsequently
kind of forgotten I had it.
Fortunately I've figured out how to load Waves plugins into Plugin Doctor again: I have to
load the vst2 waveshell dll directly.
That didn't work with the vst3 format I use in Reaper.
I'm going to conclude therefore that Waves probably didn't block Plugin Doctor deliberately,
and my apologies to the good people at Waves for suggesting they would do something so
sneaky.
Plugin Doctor defaults to the linear analysis tab.
However one thing I'm pretty sure of is that this is a non linear plugin: its adding harmonics,
probably using some kind of distortion with filtering.
So we can't test it with the 'linear analysis' test, and it's not safe to draw any conclusions
from what it shows us.
If I switch to the Harmonic Analysis tab instead…
I can verify that: yes indeed it's adding harmonics, and it can't therefore be linear.
Let's try the Hammerstein analysis: the fundamental frequency at the top shows us the basic frequency
response, which looks relatively flat with the Intensity turned all the way down like
this.
But even at this minimum setting there's a load of extra harmonic content being added
in the lower frequencies.
Strangely, I didn't remember the 'original bass' button from my original test.
Perhaps I just forgot, or maybe I was insufficiently caffeinated at the time and missed it.
With this turned off… the basic frequency response starts to resemble a high pass filter.
But the added harmonics don't change.
The original bass button suggests that perhaps this thing uses parallel processing internally,
and when you turn up the Intensity you're just adding more of the processed signal.
Perhaps I've been doing it wrong all along and I should have been running this as a send,
with original bass turned off?
But this hypothesis collapses quite quickly: if the original bass option is just the dry
signal, then turning it off should also affect mid and high frequencies.
If it is the dry signal, it would seem to be only for the lowest frequencies.
Plus, turning up the Intensity appears to do a lot more than simply increase the level
of the added harmonics… in fact we get a big bump appearing around the frequency the
plug-in is tuned to, as if that high pass filter now has a ton of resonance.
Alright, enough of the Plugin Doctor foolery: let's have a listen to it, on a deep 808ish
kind of bass part…
here's the minimum Intensity setting… and if I toggle bypass you'll hear what I mean
about this still significantly changing the sound…
I'm ok with it in this case, in fact I'm happy
to have more of it… at perhaps a slightly higher frequency…
Ok, so what happens if I run similar settings but as a send effect instead, with Original
Bass turned off?
Well, it sucks, that's what.
At least, its wildly different to the inserted sound, and its not doing it for me.
I guess I was right not to try this in parallel, even if only by accident.
Now, having looked at it in the Doctor, I'm not going to bother trying to reverse engineer
the R Bass effect: I think if I got anywhere close my setup would be quite complex and
convoluted and not at all practical.
So instead I'm going to start from first principles, and also tie it into my recent parallel filter
discussions, by thinking about ways we can synthesize extra harmonic content in that
important bass region.
Let's start with a parallel channel and a lowpass filter, and as we're looking to generate
harmonics I don't see why I shouldn't use a colourful one in Volcano 3.
I've tuned this down low, around 40Hz or so, given it a touch of resonance, and a healthy
amount of drive.
Ok next up, Saturn 2 running the Warm Tube style; its a favourite of mine, but more importantly
it adds lots of second harmonic, which I saw a lot of in the R Bass analysis.
And I'll give that plenty of welly.
And finally, another Volcano 3 with a colourful high pass filter, this one tuned to about
the same frequency that R Bass was reporting, with a touch of resonance again, and some
drive.
What happens if I mix this in parallel with the dry signal?
Listen to that fat growly bass I can add!
But if you don't need R Bass, well you don't need FabFilter either: let's try using stock
plugins, and take a slightly different approach.
I'll go with a bandpass filter first… then ReaComp, set up as a hard distortion with
zero attack, release and RMS settings… then another bandpass filter tuned to about 90Hz.
That sounds fat too.
I might even prefer it to the FabFilter chain I had.
So let's do a comparison: here's the R Bass setting I liked before…
Here's the FabFilter parallel chain…
And here's the Reaper stock chain…
No, neither of them sound quite like R Bass.
If you want that sound specifically I suggest you buy the Waves plugin, and I'll help you
out with an affiliate link down below.
But if you just want fat bass, go ahead and try some of your existing filters and distortion
plugins in parallel like this: isolate the sub bass frequencies first, with any kind
of filter you feel like trying… then add harmonics to those sub frequencies, with whatever
distortion plugin you feel like trying… then isolate those harmonics with some more
filtering… then blend in the result, and don't forget to try a polarity flip if its
not doing what you expected.
Ok that's all for now, thanks for watching.