Note to Hz

A sub that is 20 cents out, a kick whose tail rings a semitone off the root, an 808 slide that lands on the wrong harmonic: all of these show up as "the low end feels wrong" long before anyone hears a wrong note. This page is the lookup you need to make the low end a musical decision. It uses Live's note naming, in which MIDI 60 = C3 (one octave lower than scientific pitch notation, where MIDI 60 = C4), with the MIDI number and the SPN name alongside so nothing is ambiguous. A4 = 440 Hz unless you have changed the set's tuning (Live 12: tuning system in the set, see tuning & scales). Each semitone multiplies frequency by 2^1/12 ≈ 1.05946; each octave doubles it.

Where the octaves land

Full table: MIDI 0–127

Left half MIDI 0–63 (C-2 to D#3), right half 64–127 (E3 to G8). Highlighted rows are C (octave roots). Values rounded to 0.01 Hz below 100 Hz, 0.1 Hz below 1 kHz, whole Hz above.

Sub-bass focus: C-1 to C3 (16–131 Hz)

The 49 notes that matter for subs, kicks and 808s, with period and wavelength. Wavelength is at 343 m/s (20 °C air). The half-wavelength column is the room dimension that produces a standing wave at that note: if your room is 4.2 m long, 41 Hz (E0) will boom or vanish depending on where you sit — one reason to check the sub with Spectrum and headphones, not just monitors.

Suggested sub notes per key

For each root, the sub octave (Live octave 0: 32.7–61.7 Hz) is the safe home: audible on a decent club system, felt on a big one, mono by nature. The octave above (65–123 Hz) is where the kick fundamental or a mid-bass doubling layer goes. The fifth is listed because basslines that drop to the fifth below the root often land in the infra zone — check the Hz before you write that note.

Harmonic series of common sub roots

Saturator, Roar, Drum Buss and Operator feedback all add integer harmonics. Knowing where they land tells you where to EQ, and which harmonics clash with the key (the 5th harmonic is a major third above two octaves; the 7th is a flat seventh — both fight a minor chord).

Tuning kicks and subs to the key

What "in tune" means for a kick

A kick has a pitch envelope: it starts high (the click, 200 Hz–2 kHz) and lands on a resting pitch within 30–80 ms. The resting pitch is what the ear integrates as the "note" of the kick, and it is the part that beats against the sub if they are off. The kick does not need to be on the root; it needs to be on a consonant note of the key and in an octave that does not collide with the sub's fundamental.

1. Put Tuner after the kick (or after the Drum Rack). Loop a single hit at 1/4 notes and read the pitch of the tail (Classic view shows the glide; the number settles in the last part of the decay).
2. Decide the target: usually the root or fifth of the key, one octave above the sub (kick at C1 65 Hz when the sub is C0 32.7 Hz; or kick at G1 98 Hz for a 49 Hz G0 sub). In dubstep/140 where the sub is F#0 (46 Hz), a kick at F#1 (92 Hz) or C#1 (69 Hz, the fifth) is the classic choice.
3. Transpose: in Drum Sampler or Simpler use Transpose (semitones) and Detune (cents); in a Drum Rack pad with Simpler the same. For synthesized kicks (Operator / Analog / Drift) set the pitch envelope's end level so the tail lands on the note, then the Coarse/Transpose for the octave.
4. Check against the sub: solo kick + sub and listen for beating (a slow wobble in level at the difference frequency). 2 Hz of beating between a 65 Hz kick tail and a 65.41 Hz sub is audible as a pulse; 0 beating = tuned.
5. Re-check with Spectrum at 8192 block: the kick's tail peak and the sub's peak should be an octave apart (a clean 2:1 line), not a messy cluster.

What to tune the 808 to

An 808 is both the kick and the sub, so its resting pitch is the bass note. In Live 12, the fastest path is a Drum Sampler or Simpler in a Drum Rack or on a MIDI track with Transpose set so that the sample's resting pitch plays as the root; then write the bassline. Three rules:

• Find the sample's native pitch first (Tuner, or Live 12's clip-level pitch detection when converting audio to MIDI). Long 808 samples drift flat as they decay; tune the first 200 ms.
• Keep the fundamental between 35 and 65 Hz. If the bassline goes below E-1 (20.6 Hz), the note is gone; above about B0 (62 Hz) the 808 stops being a sub and becomes a bass. Transpose the sample, not the MIDI, when the whole pattern is in the wrong octave.
• Slides (glide in Simpler, Legato + Glide in Drift/Operator) pass through every frequency in between: a C0 → G0 slide crosses 32.7 → 49 Hz. Plan slides so they end on a note from the key table above.

Synth subs and detune

Never detune a sub. Two sines at 40 and 40.5 Hz beat at 0.5 Hz (one wobble every 2 s): the sub pulses in level across the bar and the kick/sub balance changes per bar. In Operator, use a single sine oscillator; in Drift set Voice mode to Mono with Drift amount at 0 for the sub patch; in Wavetable, Unison off. If you want movement, modulate the harmonics (FM depth, filter cutoff), not the pitch.

Cents, semitones and ratios

1 semitone = 100 cents. A 10-cent error at 50 Hz is 0.29 Hz: it beats once every 3.4 s against a tuned sub — fine on a short note, obvious on a held one. Tune 808 samples to within ±5 cents.

Operator ratios and fixed frequencies

Operator's Coarse is a multiplier of the played note (0.5, 1, 2, 3 … 48), Fine adds hundredths of the ratio, and Fixed mode locks an oscillator to a Hz value (Freq × Multi) regardless of key. Relevant combos for sub design:

Related

• Frequency chart — what to do with the Hz once you know the note.
• BPM to ms — how many cycles of sub fit in a step.
• Sub bass, 808, Kick.
• Operator — ratios, fixed mode, feedback.
• Tuning, scales & MPE — Live 12 tuning systems and non-440 references.