# Quick Tip to Make Timpanis Fatter



## Joël Dollié (Dec 8, 2019)

There you go!


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## Sarah Mancuso (Dec 8, 2019)

That was a very quick tip.


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## Joël Dollié (Dec 8, 2019)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> That was a very quick tip.



Thank you, Sarah!


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## Willowtree (Dec 9, 2019)

A bit too quick for me! But I like it, very useful. Thank you, Joel!


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## Consona (Dec 9, 2019)

Isn't there a bit of a delay in the sound LoAir creates?


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## Joël Dollié (Dec 9, 2019)

Consona said:


> Isn't there a bit of a delay in the sound LoAir creates?



There is, however it is natural, if you pay attention to how the physics of sound apply to drums, the lowest frequencies come last and stay around for longer, so it is actually quite a natural result. Of course you're trading tightness for fatness so I don't like to make the sub too loud. Part of it is also personal preference.


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## KallumS (Dec 9, 2019)

As there is already frequency information in the low end, why not lightly saturate the low end instead? You could use a multiband saturator such as Saturn to apply the saturation to only the lows.


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## Consona (Dec 9, 2019)

KallumS said:


> As there is already frequency information in the low end, why not lightly saturate the low end instead? You could use a multiband saturator such as Saturn to apply the saturation to only the lows.


Normal saturation adds upper harmonics. LoAir creates harmonics _under_ the fundamental tone.


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## KallumS (Dec 9, 2019)

Consona said:


> Normal saturation adds upper harmonics. LoAir creates harmonics _under_ the fundamental tone.



Ah! That would make sense.


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## Living Fossil (Dec 9, 2019)

Consona said:


> Normal saturation adds upper harmonics. LoAir creates harmonics _under_ the fundamental tone.



There are no harmonics under a fundamental tone. You can put an octave below the fundamental, which in return makes the recent fundamental to the new partial Nr. 2. 
Or you can put a double-octave below it which makes it partial Nr. 4.

However, with these artificial subbass processors in combination with tonal material, my advice would always be to duplicate the track in question and use a sine wave an octave lower. It simply gives more control over attack, duration, volume, timing etc. etc. It also leaves you the possiblity to keep that sine subbass in a desired range. This is sometimes specially important when addressing an LFE.
And you don't have to deal with the algorithms limitations that may occur e.g. when there is an overlap between a release tail and a new note.


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## Consona (Dec 9, 2019)

Living Fossil said:


> There are no harmonics under a fundamental tone.


Oh, sry about the wrong terminology.



KallumS said:


> Ah! That would make sense.


Yea. There's also Waves Submarine that uses some "newer technology" than LoAir. And Alan Meyerson uses Lowender.


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## MartinH. (Dec 9, 2019)

If you don't have access to a subharmonic synthesis plugin, would it be a viable choice to just duplicate the kontakt instrument, dial the pitch down 1 octave, route it to a separate bus and put a lowpass on it so that it only lets through the low frequencies?


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## Living Fossil (Dec 9, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> If you don't have access to a subharmonic synthesis plugin, would it be a viable choice to just duplicate the kontakt instrument, dial the pitch down 1 octave, route it to a separate bus and put a lowpass on it so that it only lets through the low frequencies?



See my post (#10) above.


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## Rob Elliott (Dec 9, 2019)

Excellent quick tip. Now experimenting with lo air on low brass. In subtle amounts, also very useful at times. Thanks joel for getting my juices flowing on this production idea.


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## Joël Dollié (Dec 10, 2019)

Rob Elliott said:


> Excellent quick tip. Now experimenting with lo air on low brass. In subtle amounts, also very useful at times. Thanks joel for getting my juices flowing on this production idea.



Happy to help 

To reply to the posts above, for that kind of thing I prefer to either duplicate the signal and pitch one octave below or use a subharmonic synth which is basically the same thing. Pure sine waves sound a little too "stable" and aren't always as convincing imo. It's hard to match the envelope.


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## Rob Elliott (Dec 10, 2019)

Joël Dollié said:


> Happy to help
> 
> To reply to the posts above, for that kind of thing I prefer to either duplicate the signal and pitch one octave below or use a subharmonic synth which is basically the same thing. Pure sine waves sound a little too "stable" and aren't always as convincing imo. It's hard to match the envelope.



Yep - the kontakt instrument FH Signature is quite good as you can model the envelope to taste.


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## Living Fossil (Dec 10, 2019)

Joël Dollié said:


> Pure sine waves sound a little too "stable" and aren't always as convincing imo. It's hard to match the envelope.



In my experience it's pretty easy matching the envelope by ear: 
The attack shouldn't be too fast, but the sine should be there to carry the weight after the impulse.
Sustain at a quite low level; match the decay by ear.
And finally a bit of a release to avoid an abrupt end, when the note is released.

If there should be more weight, it's a good thing to saturate the sine a bit, with a focus on odd harmonics (partial 3 and 5 will be enough).

One should not forget that the spectrum of timpani contains quite a bit of nonharmonic partials, which easily results in a pitch that can't be heard very exactly. (Stravinski uses this fact quite a bit in the Sacre...) Therefore a little helper below can give some clarity.


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## Zero&One (Dec 10, 2019)

I like this tip.

I watched the whole video btw


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## Joël Dollié (Dec 10, 2019)

James H said:


> I like this tip.
> 
> I watched the whole video btw




Thank you!

Oh my, you managed to watch it until the end!! :emoji_anguished:


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## Uiroo (Dec 10, 2019)

You could match the envelope by sending the timpani into a side-chained expander on the sine wave.
Just tried that, seems to work.

ps: Also watched the whole thing


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## kitekrazy (Dec 10, 2019)

Joël Dollié said:


> There you go!




Subscribed! Admire someone who uses FL for orchestra. I'm kind of a FL fanboy but I prefer other DAWs for orchestra.


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## Joël Dollié (Dec 10, 2019)

kitekrazy said:


> Subscribed! Admire someone who uses FL for orchestra. I'm kind of a FL fanboy but I prefer other DAWs for orchestra.



Cheers!

Yeah I'm just used to it and I have specific workflow things that involve FL, like Patcher. It's easy if you build your whole mixing template around it.


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