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.
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 ;)
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?
@@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 !
@@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!
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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
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.
I struggle to listen to a person, who I don't discuss as a professional sound designer, who swallows every two seconds, who drinks in every video he makes, making us listen to the sucking noise, not caring who is listening. Maybe it's because I suffer from misophonia, but I find this aspect unprofessional and I can't follow these videos.
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" 😅
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
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
*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 😂
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.
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 😊
Taken from a 60 minute tutorial from 2020. The full video + loads more can be found by joining the Producer tier on our Patreon
🎛
How to check full content on Patreon ? Are you doing more videos about mixing ?
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.
Yet you still don‘t know how to make a sick bass
@@urigeheadmot1196 because the sick bass was inside you all that time
He might learn using patreon subscription
actual king of electronic music. This man is the brains.
@@phaedruslykos3249no lie bro arguably the best sound design to this date
Nik designing the loudest tea slurp ever 🔊🔊🔊
I have misophonia for eating noises, that swallow was more aggressive & painful than any bass they've ever made
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 ;)
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?
@@alwaystired1that's how telephone speakers work, cut-off at 4kHz or lower if they are bad.
funny if u think about ppl synthmodules which like the doepfer one.
@@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 !
@@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!
Welcome back to science with Nik
Thanks
Today: Psychoacoustics.
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!
hahahahaha🤣
Maybe this explains why we can remember melodies so well
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.
when noisia talks production, its probably wise to listen. absolute legends
Never before has patreon been so tempting 😂
I reckon bro!!
Lol true
Nik is the best producer on Earth (for me) 🙌🙌
💪😄
Owl pass filter! 😂
Imagine still using a white background in 2023. My eyes, my eyes....
@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.
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.
Just fyi, dopamine is not actually a reward molecule, its more of an anticipation signaler.
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.
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.
@@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.
Meyers theory of expectation
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.
I need the natural analog owl resynthesis plugin for my projects lol
"Bass" is just a description/label of a frequency band. What you are describing is the limitless capabilities of the electronic musician's arsenal.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. If he said "bass guitar" or "bass synth" then I think his analysis would be more accurate.
@@beatnicksbeats bro, its noisia, everybody knows that he means by "bass"
the fact they tested it on owls is absolutely occultish LOL
That glass is comically huge
NOSIA VISION is the real deal, glad to see yet again great production minds sharing their knowledge 🕉
Because of this video, I’m 100% subscribing to the patreon. This is invaluable!
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!
где басс то ьля
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!
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.
Great tutorial. Is he dutch?😉
Poll. High pass your sub bass at 20-30 hz ish, or no high pass?
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!
that's me going around listening some shit on my broken only-right-side-earpiece-left-headphones constructing what is left
I need to see the owls with headphones on.
I. HAVE. TO. SEE. THE. OWLS.
Great video, unfortunately, and regrettably, I had to dislike the video because that is a 'Glass of Tea', not a 'Cup of Tea'. 😂🇬🇧
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.
This explains why music is floaty "almost" on L.s.D, super weird. I Think my brain confused this information and the input was really weird
but how do we tune the out-of-key harmonics when going across different notes with the bassline?
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!
I'm going to finish this video then I'm going to search the experiment where I can see owls with headphones on 🙂
As a simple creative exercise, try creating a synth voice that sounds like a bear or lion roaring, then go from there.
Wanted to subscribe to Patreon to see the rest of this tutorial but... $25/month? What are you guys smoking?
so little views for people that have such deep and icredible knowledge. I will use these tools and become better.
ze hebben die uil wel een fatsoenlijke hoofdtelefoon opgezet, toch?
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.
Did he say he was experimenting on owls? O_o I think it was more interesting than the topic itself
A cup!! Of tea
damn dude forget the harmonics let's talk about that pint of tea hahaha
The only question i have is : „wHY BaSs??“
What a shame you want us to pay for this information. Now I have to go find a leaked copy.
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
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.
So you're basically saying that you are not highpassing your subs even though the listeners would hear that sub either way?
that example with owls is animal torture..
bro y mysenphonia goes through the fkn roof when you drink next to the mic, great video but theres a hole in my screen now.
The latest trend in sound design: owl-based synthesis xD
I had no idea Hbomberguy was in Noisia
I hope one day you guys show us how you made that Dead Limit Reece
what i was so into this i didnt relize this was on patreon
Is that a jar of pasta sauce in the diffuser on the wall up there?
Strange Owl Experiment ???
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
The knowledge from the don itself.
Patrion here I come I guess.
Bro Owl Brain Oscillator when
This is better than OnlyFans
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.
wow, this is classified stuff!
Makes sense because humans are animals
I got slurp. Sample jajajajajaja
I struggle to listen to a person, who I don't discuss as a professional sound designer, who swallows every two seconds, who drinks in every video he makes, making us listen to the sucking noise, not caring who is listening. Maybe it's because I suffer from misophonia, but I find this aspect unprofessional and I can't follow these videos.
The giant sip took me by surprise too lol. But the info was pretty good
Techno slurp , jjajajajajajaja
Wow, thata intresting!
I’m going to patron
Great video!
Owl OP
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" 😅
The sips of coffee 💀
huge
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
Promo>SM
I'm ecstatic that hes wearing Tsuruda - FUBAR merch. Super cool stuff in that EP
Slurp
Misophonia...
I haven't clicked a thumbnail as fast as today. as fast as my brain and brawn could allow me. Broke my fingwer
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
ugh, so good
*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 😂
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.
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.
thx
LOL
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!
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 😊
🫨
As a non-music producer, I'm gonna get the patreon
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
Producers assemble!! Nik is back 🤫🤫🤫
harmonics are amazing and thats the bottom line, just amazing...
again
its amazing.
!!!
this lesson is great and Noisia is great and all, but the sound of someone drinking into a mic sends me into a homicidal rage...
Totally with you, Nik. As a matter if fact, i think I'll re-sub to NOISiA Patron to finish this lesson.
Next bass I make I want it synthesised by an owls brain
rocking the fubar shirt too, very nice
beautiful video. thank youfor sharing!