Bass perception

A

airbag76

New member
Hi

A silly question maybe.

I am listening to a track for example Aaron Dilloway / Jason Lescalleet - Grapes And Snakes LP (PAN30) Promotional Video on Vimeo and through a spectrograph I can see a very rich low frequency sound even below 25 - 30 hz. At the same time my speakers work as usual on intense pulsation if you know what I mean, no danger to broke.

now

I am working on a similar track a synth drone intro that lacks of freqs bellow 40 Hz and tried to reinforce it using a 30 Hz sinewave using reaper's tone generator. I saw the speakers (the same) going back and forth and I lowered the level to avoid braking them.

How those guys achieve so rich low end results thats so easily reproduced by the speakers, headphones etc...?

thats all I guess, maybe the answer is "go to school" but I wonder if someone could help

thanks
 
airbag76 said:
Hi

A silly question maybe.

I am listening to a track for example Aaron Dilloway / Jason Lescalleet - Grapes And Snakes LP (PAN30) Promotional Video on Vimeo and through a spectrograph I can see a very rich low frequency sound even below 25 - 30 hz. At the same time my speakers work as usual on intense pulsation if you know what I mean, no danger to broke.

now

I am working on a similar track a synth drone intro that lacks of freqs bellow 40 Hz and tried to reinforce it using a 30 Hz sinewave using reaper's tone generator. I saw the speakers (the same) going back and forth and I lowered the level to avoid braking them.

How those guys achieve so rich low end results thats so easily reproduced by the speakers, headphones etc...?

thats all I guess, maybe the answer is "go to school" but I wonder if someone could help

thanks
Click to expand...

To judge the sub bass accurately, the best thing would be to have speakers that produce frequencies down to 20Hz. Not many do and they are expensive. It's not only having the speakers but also a tuned room and whole chain (DA, Controller, Amp, Speaker and Listening position) that give you an honest sense of what's going on in the lows. Using a sub can help, but you still need a good sized tuned room, with the other caveat being that the low end that you are describing could have been aided in mastering.

I wouldn't worry so much about what a analyzer is showing as it doesn't give a complete picture and can be a bit deceiving.

Basically, if the system that you are using can't produce the frequencies accurately, then it would be difficult to judge them accurately and you're left to checking on multiple systems to see if you got it right and even then it can be a crap shoot.

I've also seen smaller rooms and speakers that on first look you wouldn't think would work well, but for some reason do, you can get lucky .. and even learn a work around for a room or system that wouldn't seem great, but being able to not second guess what you hear can present a lot less hassles. gl
 
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Hi thanks for your reply and I agree totally but the issue here is that I am comparing 2 tracks (mine and the one mentioned) played back in a given room and speakers and I wonder why the pro one is really low boosted without watching my speakers go back and forth and mine make them suffer.

thanks
 
airbag76 said:
Hi thanks for your reply and I agree totally but the issue here is that I am comparing 2 tracks (mine and the one mentioned) played back in a given room and speakers and I wonder why the pro one is really low boosted without watching my speakers go back and forth and mine make them suffer.
Click to expand...
The reason your speakers are reacting differently, as I mentioned, it most likely do to frequency balance and that you are most likely comparing a song that has been professionally mastered (Grapes And Snakes LP Mastered By – Rashad Becker) against a song that has not, so the use of compression and filtering, the sounds chosen and even the key of the song will impact how your speakers react as the sub low information in each song is different. (even though they can look similar)

The clip is hard to tell from, because it is not the best quality but this could have been mastered for vinyl which would have required even more filtering than a digital release, because excessive sub lows on vinyl can cause a needle to jump out of the groove (skip)
 
The other thing to keep in mind concerning mastering for vinyl is that a lot of times an elliptical filter is used that cuts the subs out of the side channel and leaves it in the mid channel, so sub lows in your side channel could be one or another reason that your speaker are oscillating like they are when compared to the other cut. DC off set, could be another reason, but that is rare and usually happens in converters that are not that good.
 
One thing that got me thinking, was that they've maybe evened out the very lowend of the professional track a lot (i.e. compressed the peaks), which maybe makes the track a lot more efficient on the speakers.
If you need a visual check - just add a multiband compressor, set the right frequency response, solo the lowband, and check the dynamics on the output level, and compare.

Or the professional track can simply be in another key - a key that just happens to responds different to your sub compared to your track.
 
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