RBass is a simplified version of MaxxBass, which itself is Meir Shashoua's implementation of an enhancer for the Missing Fundamental Effect. The concept is that psychoacoustically, the ear can make out the fundamental of low pitches even if they've vanished (say, due to a small speaker) provided that harmonics (both odd and even) of the fundamental are still audible. The original intent was to make cheap small speakers sound closer to large ones, which is an honest effect even if it is, essentially, an illusion caused by the way our brain interprets sound.

If you made this a series, where you "investigate" different plugins (Waves or otherwise), I would be HOOKED.

As far as I understand, Waves RBass is essentially a "easy" version of Waves MaxxBass, which offers more granular and specific control over the algorithm. Sound on Sound has a good article on that, dating back to 1998: As far as I can tell, it's running a lowpass into distortion into compressor and a highpass to remove the fundamental from this parallel bus, lowpassing the distorted signal to remove highs, and then mixing with the original, with the original signal optionally attenuated by some amount. It was originally designed to make bass sound good on less-than-full-range speakers.

this reminds me of how i once tried to put reverb on a subbass, just because people claimed that is a thing one shouldn't do. so i did that and also put some distortion on it and it creates lots of cool harmonics, which i then highpassed so i could have the original bass in the lowend and badabim, badaboom, i had a sub-bass reverb that actually sounded good

Came in to learn what R Bass does, learned a really interesting bass mixing technique instead. Thanks Dan as always for your informative videos.

-----> Important to know: The harmonics are in mono, even if you feed it a stereo signal. It will shrink the perceived width. That may or may not be what you want.

I have to say: you’re probably the only one who is actually taking the time to look at Waves’s plugins objectively. I get tired of either the demonstrations that are interpreted as subtle shills or the accusations that Waves are just siphoning customers of money. Admittedly, I “grew up” with Waves. But at the same time, I like to know what these tools can and/or can’t do, especially in light of other ones that are used as often or even more than Waves. Nice job as always and looking forward to more.

One tip I have for Rbass is to use it to free up a little headroom while retaining the "feel" of the low bass. Put the fundamental frequency somewhere low and appropriate for the song, then take the original sub OUT, which high passes at that frequency, then turn intensity up until the perception of fullness is close. Finally, level match it using the output so you're comparing apples to apples. I find that if I have a low tuned kick with lots of sub, and a low tuned bass or bass synth, I'll use it on one or the other and it can help relieve your system some by not having all the sub frequencies compounding and eating up all your mix headroom. I tend to use it as a tool more than an effect, personally, but to each their own. Hope that helps.

First time viewer, at two minutes in- I perceive overwhelming amounts of passion. I’m super psyched to have discovered you.

Always amazed how effortlessly Dan delivers tips I've never thought of... Reacomp as a distortion tool...🤔

I'm curious on what RVox actually does. There's a lot of talk of it doing more than just compression - some say there's an exciter under the hood. Would love to hear your thoughts on the discussion!

Thank you! Thank you!!! Youre simply a genius, and it's a blessing having your channel for free on YT alongside with a lot of misinformation goin on other channels. I may not use all of your techniques, but all of them are strong weapons to have in a mixing arsenal. Apologies for the grammar, not native english

The quality of your videos is insane! Production, presentation and information!

Can you please make a video breaking down how to recreate RVox? The community needs it!

Unfiltered Audio's Bass-Mint plugin gives you similar results with a bit more control over how the bass sound is manipulated. I get some pretty fat results with just a few tweaks. That said, I kind of prefer R Bass in that it's really simple and so am I.

I'm learning how to code plugins and these videos are being so helpful! Thanks Dan

this is what I come to this channel for. You're the best, Dan!

Oh my god... I have never noticed that original bass in and out on the side and I have been using this plugin for nearly 10 years. THANK YOU

Fun fact, if you ever used to use spectrasonics old trilogy plug-in but always found it hard to fit the bass into your mix, it was because they processed the acoustic bass with r bass but forgot to turn it off when exporting the synth samples!

Very Nice. Thank you Dan for the insights. 👍🏻

Another nice lesson. Thanks!

So many people I know put the thumbs down on RBass. It doesn't always work for me, but when it does, nothing else is quite like it. Especially useful for the small speaker bass trick: Run it on a parallel copy and mix it in. Works well.

Great video as always. I tend to gravitate towards Ableton's native overdrive, setting the dynamics to 0% to avoid artifacts. Great results for bass sounds if you use it parallelly (or set the dry/wet incredibly low).

I've been watching your videos for a while and man oh man, you and Michael White (Mixing with Mike) contributed so much to how i approach mixing now! Thank you so much! Would love to see your take on Tone Projects Basslane Pro! Feels like to get the most out of this plugin requires an experienced guy to run his tests on it.

I used RBass on a few broadcasts in mastering. Now I insert it on my drum n bass stem. It took me some time to realize it’s not a full time thing. It’s so stunning you don’t want to hear it too much. This and RVox are just astoundingly easy to use. Waves was on a huge roll then. I recall that I analyzed Max Bass endlessly in the beginning, trying to understand what it might be doing to my mixes. Once I figured out it was a ‘second speakers’ thing, it became much easier to use. In my main monitors, its effect was not so desirable but after tweaking with constant speaker switching it made perfect sense and my clients were happy without a clue, which is the ideal.

As always nice work Very Nice Work.

This is ace! Would love to see a similar vid on analogue obsession's lovend, another bass harmonic enhancement plugin that sounds great but is difficult to use subtly. as the lowest setting is still doing something.

Greetings from Brum, UK. Good stuff as always.

I kind of feared this. Rbass is a well designed plugin, with novel processing.

Your videos are so cinematographic!

Thanks, Dan! There're also interesting plugin for lows called FathomFive by AirWindows. I think that it works very differently, but good thing is that it acts well in parallel.

Very useful video, thanks!

For someone who spends an awful lot of time informing us about aliasing problems, your font rendering settings are surprising... 😂 Thanks as always for the videos!

Exactly what i was looking for

Thanks for analyzing this plugin!! Can definitely considering what's already going on, and not repeat the effect!!

wtf - this is so huge. thank you for spreading this knowledge and information :)

Great stuff👍 Love the beat also.

I've not watched the video yet but I am so happy you covered this plugin 😆

Dan, you’re spoiling us. 2 videos in one week, it’s Christmas

Dan keeps dropping the good stuff on us

Thanks for all your videos! Please do a video on RVox!

Works great for laptop, or small bluetooth speakers. And the same mix plays great on high end systems.

Thank you Dan..

Cool. I would love to see your analysis on Rvox. I keep ending up using it on vocals and it just sounds good. I never seem to be able to get the same sound with other compressors. Cheers

Great plugin, useful for some spice on bass DI. The whole Renaissance plugin range are still the workhorses today that they always were. Super manuals too! Remember them?! Ren EQ reads like a novel, a real page-turner..

Thanks for (yet) another enlightening video 🙏 Just wanted to suggest another Waves plugin that is very poorly documented and understood: Waves IM (Infected Mushroom) Pusher. I think every junior producer who has seen or bought Pusher would benefit from some of your enlightenment on the plugin!

Aagh, the polarity switch! I’ll keep that in mind, I think I could have used that a few times in the past. Thanks, Dan.

Of all the waves stuff. The few things I’d actually consider buying are their R series (Renaissance) X-crackle, sibilance, H-delay and Api 2500. That’s it.

PLEASE DO ONE ON ROOT ONE. I’m starting to think that leapwing are mostly hype. Have some high quality filters but that seems to be about it.

Amazing!

you have to release this track Dan! sounds really good!

RBass is one of my absolute essential plugins. I don’t know scientifically how it works but I hear it as “inventing” bass underneath the material around the frequency you specify. Anything that I feel doesn’t have the low end present to boost with a normal EQ I just create it with RBass - thin vocal, 808s, bass synths/guitars. Great video.

I'd absolutely love to see the plug ins that come with Mic Modeling systems analyzed. Something like the Antelope Edge system and Slate ML1. I've always been curious what's truly under the hood.

i did this a few years back, made an Ableton rack. Always thought it was just harmonics but was surprised to find how much volume it was cheating in general.

Hi Dan, could you make a Maxx Bass video? You have a great understanding of audio and I would love to have your take on it.

Thanks dan

Hello Dan, can you analyse and review the waves nx series🙏 Would love to hear your thoughts on speaker/room emulation software

insufficiently caffeinated 😄 best excuse I have heard for a long time, I'll put that one in the bank for later, and thanks for another great video!

I have a similar story to yours except I bought Waves Maxxbass and have yet to use it on any project for not really knowing when, why or how to really utilize it best.

I am using it since always, but learned to set it very low as it can feel great at first but usually ruin everything later. 😀

I recall there used to be a patent for small-speaker bass optimisation back all the way in the 90s, it should be well and truly lapsed by now, it was issued to Philips or one of their connected companies, i think. It went like this, isolate sub-bass, then run a trickle integrator, resetting it on every zero-crossing of the isolated signal, resulting in a sort of wonky sawtooth with the waveform rising from each zero crossing. Then gently highpass the input to attenuate the most offensive sub-bass, lowpass the synthesized sawtooth, and mix. I don't think the technique as described is complete, since if you had little bass, it will still synthesize a lot and overwhelm it, there has to be some sort of gain or filter control there as well for the synthesized portion. The technique is intended to run completely mixed music through it, as a reproduction device feature that salvages some perceived quality out of limited hardware.

Dan, have you tested the Tone Projects Basslane Pro? And btw, thanks a lot for your videos. Cheers

reFuse Lowender - Found by recommendation of Andrew Scheps. Awesome bass enhancer & you won't have to deal with Waves B.S. 😉

In this particular case, it make sense using lin eq on parallel tracks, imho. Reafir, for example.

Ok and do you got a video for how to load a plugin in to the software ?

Airwindows Floor isn't RBass but it does a similar job.

Hi! Have you analyzed Izotope Trash 2? I'm interested in your opinion on that plugin. Trash has EQ before and after 2 stages of distortion, so that parallel processing technique can be done with one, instead of three plugins. Also, convolve with some bass amp impulse response, after all processing, could get you closer to R bass, maybe. Peace :)

Thanks Dan. Was thinking about this plug in from the last video. What's the difference between R Bass and Maxx Bass? Any ideas?

It's a cleaver and useful plugin, when used moderately

This guy is like a National Geographic narrator but for audio lol.

Need to try loading vst 2 version in plugin doctor. Waves and softube plugins crash on new plugin doctor 2 for me.

I'll break the flow of supportive comments for a moment with a complaint about a high-pitched noise which correlates with signal on that distorted bass channel. I'd maybe think it's my smartphone speakers acting up but they don't do it normally, plus I can see the noise on the spectrogram in the video. (I know I shouldn't be listening to this with smartphone speakers but nevertheless) Otherwise a great video, as always.

Good stuff. Kinda already knew it all, but your approach gives me some fresh ideas. Thanks.

Have you tried Wavesfactory Spectre? It's like EQ boosts with harmonics. Maybe something like that can come closer.

I think you might have more luck tackling MaxxBass which is like the utility version of RBass that their algorithm was based off. I use it a lot, but only for a little amount of actual delta change. It's one waves plugin in my workflow I wish I knew how to replace but have no idea

You might gain more insight into R-Bass by looking at MaxxBass, which is the more elaborate version of the same idea. As I understand it, it is indeed low-passing the original signal at the crossover frequency you specify, and the "original bass" toggle switches that in and out. The rest of the signal is synthesized and controlled by the intensity, I assume. You can also look up US patent #US5930373A, "Method and system for enhancing quality of sound signal" which is Waves' patent for the process. I have never found anything to truly replace MaxxBass, personally.

Since I'm this early: Dropping a huge THANK YOU for your amazing content Dan, please keep it coming!

Another classic. I actually preferred the native plugins.

Hi Dan, have you heard of "The God Particle"? It's a plug-in designed by Crave and Jaycen Joshua, generally a mix bus plugin I would say. It seems to be popular with pros who often say it replaces many or all of their usual mixbus plug-ins. It would be good to hear your opinion on it after an analysis.

Will there be more Waves related videos? I'd love if you would look at the Waves MV2. A bonus for us Reaper users might be how to DIY its effect in Reaper.

Parallels band pass is fucking brilliant in theory and in practice. So bad ass. Thanks King

....yeah....after listening to what you said to do instead of RBass...I think I'm just gonna keep on using RBASS. PS...I think RBASS example could of sounded better if you cranked it up just a little more! I have never used it at the -24db distortion mark! I usually go into the positive range unless its already distorted...almost never into the negative -10 range!

I’ve tried every sub bass plugin and I’ve found nothing that sounds the same a an actual DBX unit any chance of an analysis of some of the DBX subsynths? I have a couple and the older one is particularly good :-) would love to know what it’s doing compared to a plug-in maybe to understand why the plugins don’t “do it “for me :-) Ps I add saturation and harmonics to the bass guitar and kick etc to help them sit in the mix thru smaller speakers, after it’s been DBX’d I high pass the lowest frequencies away a little as the subsynths add actual lower frequencies and can be a little too much :-)

RBass is legendary. On rap mixes use it on 808s, coincidentally along with saturn2 but the former is to add sub and latter to add harmonics to help it cut

Masterclass

I like it even in the master bus

What about Maxxbass from Waves Dan ? I've never been able to make that click in a mix tbh.

I had a question about midi controllers. Do you use physical midi faders/knobs/buttons often when you're mixing in the box? Is this preferable to using your mouse all the time, or do you find it's a hassle to set up? All the best!

That’s probably the same thing the do with Rvox. 🤔 now I get to go play around with this technique and try it on different sounds in different ways.

E bass relies on psychoacoustic effect of the low frequencies, I believe they have a pattent for this tech. regardless, I'd rather distort the frequency above 600 hz and keep the low end clean. because the overtones start very close to the original frequency it makes it more audible on phones but at the same time fattens it too much...

I just started paying more attention to this channel and also purchased R Bass almost exactly 24 hours ago. For 2 seconds, I thought, "what is going on here" as if something magical happened.... or it did, I'm not sure.

Sick kick and 808,what samples do you use? How you mix the kick and 808? Please throw me a bone!!!

The only Waves plugin I can't replace is Maxxbass (precursor to RBass)!

Are the sample softs there when you open the software or do you have to download them from sowhere

Hey buddy, let me tell you what RBass does actually. It's much easier than you think, and you can definitely figure out how to copy it 1:1. So first of all it gets the input, they call it the "original signal". Then what it does is it puts a steep resonant low pass filter on that. The result is called the "original bass". Then, they do non-bass = original - original bass. That is the "high passed version" that you've seen. And when you turn up the slider for "original bass", that re-adds that low pass filtered signal. Now for the bass processing. They take the "original bass" signal and put it through a shaper, which timbre-wise is something that's kind of like a diode shaper. However, they probably use a polynomial shaper that exactly adds the 2nd and 3rd harmonic. Let's call that "the harmonics". So what you can get out of RBass is "the harmonics" + "high passed version" + "original bass" * A where A is some number between 0 and, what, 1? Does it go above unity gain? If you want to analyze what is REALLY happening in RBass, you have to feed it a sinewave at a bass frequency, and look at the sonogram. That will tell you everything that's happening in the curve shaping stage. Enjoy!

Been working soft for a few years now... using it on Mac now and it crashes a lot Nice tutorialndering my progress on the tracks im working on ... I'm

Thank you master for our daily bread.

Now do this for CLA Vocals so I can finally get rid of the hum! I went down the rabbit hole of trying this one time, and with plugin doctor I discovered that the chain 100% includes the eq of waves original ssl channel and the blue cla 1176 comp but beyond that I couldn't figure out the rest of the non-wet chain

track is cool!

I've got 3 Waves bass 'enhancers' - R, Maxx and LoAir. R sounds the most different from the other two. Perhaps that's the High Pass filtering component ?