Baby Audio SubCulture

A new benchmark for bass

SubCulture is a new kind of effect plugin for bass and beyond. It uses advanced pitch-tracking technology to generate subharmonics in perfect tune with any monophonic signal.

Where other bass enhancers offer static frequency boosting or rudimentary pitch shifting, SubCulture is built on a fully adaptive architecture. The entire processing chain aligns to incoming pitch information to create the cleanest, deepest low-end to date.

Mix with incredible low end

SubCulture combines three pitch-adaptive enhancement engines. Each can be dialed in independently, at any octave, tracking along with your bass notes.

• Sub Layer blends in a pitch-perfect, highly tweakable subharmonic layer of the input signal up to two octaves below or above the original.
• Root Boost is a pitch-tracking EQ process that follow the fundamental frequency of the bass to emphasize the key frequency area of each note.
• Resonance is a tuned parallel filter network modeled after a classic analog design to add warmth and harmonics while accentuating the tracked pitch.

Complete processing suite for bass

We designed SubCulture to be the only plugin you'll need to put on a bass. It brings all the necessary processes to create a rich low-end foundation from any input source.

Once the three bass enhancement engines are dialed in, use the analog-modeled saturation and compression effects to add harmonics, punch, and glue.

Lastly, go to the mix section to balance the low-end frequency distribution and apply global high-pass filtering and bass mono conversion.

Click the gear icons on any effect to unlock deep tweaking options.

Add layers to any source

An unexpected outcome during months of beta testing was that users reported great excitement around unexpected use cases, such as:

• Bring a vocal front and center: Dial in a clean sub-octave for thickness, or a 5th for a harmony, while using Root Boost and Resonance to emphasize the melody.
• Produce monstrous synth and guitar leads: Add SubCulture's three pitch-tracking engines at different octaves to dominate the spectrum.
• Bring out the melody in a bass line: Maybe your bass doesn't need more low-end, but more melodic emphasis. Add all engines at the root to emphasize the bass line melody in a crowded mix.
• Self-oscillating effects: Add a 5th or 7th and dial in screaming "top layers" far above the root note for experimental effects that work well on drums and synths.

Quickstart Tips

• Understand all the features: Hit the gear icon in the top left of the interface and turn on tooltips.
• Improve the pitch tracking: Click the tuning fork next to the global gear icon to calibrate the pitch tracking.
• Get deeper control of the effect engines: The gear icons in the top-right of each effect module open deep tweak menus.
• Enjoy bass in every color: Go to the settings menu to dial in your own default color scheme for SubCulture, which can be saved as the default.
• Warning about polyphonic tracks: SubCulture pitch tracks monophonic signals like bass, vocals, drum hits, etc. If you want to use it on a polyphonic track (such as a master), use the MIDI feature to control the pitch via MIDI input.

It's not a synthesizer

Some bass enhancers will add a synthesized sub-layer to your track, which can result in a anything from phase issues to an unnatural sounding low end.

One of SubCulture's novel achievements is that it effortlessly generates deep subharmonic content form any input audio through a chain of proprietary processes.

That means you can use SubCulture on sources like acoustic bass or vocals and get low-end presence the original didn't have while still maintaining its natural timbre.