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[Alan Star]

So ... from what I understand ... for live sound there is really no need to go below 35 hz right ? It's just not necessary, but what about if you are playing back very well produced dance music ... obviously, a lot of bottom to it, is it likely that some of this music will go lower than 35hz ... I think so ? If so ... obviously there is a problem because there will be some of that really low end missing ?

[Ivan Beaver]

As in all things, it depends, and in this case it depends on the type music you are doing.  Some people say it doesn't matter, but they only do one type of music, so it doesn't matter to them.  To others it does.

[drewgandy]

Ivan Beaver wrote on Mon, 25 December 2006 12:09

As in all things, it depends, and in this case it depends on the type music you are doing.  Some people say it doesn't matter, but they only do one type of music, so it doesn't matter to them.  To others it does.

Ivan, I've been wondering if this may have something to do with the variations in opinion. http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t4 0690.html

Any thoughts?

[Elliot Thompson]

Alan Star wrote on Mon, 25 December 2006 15:55

So ... from what I understand ... for live sound there is really no need to go below 35 hz right ? It's just not necessary, but what about if you are playing back very well produced dance music ... obviously, a lot of bottom to it, is it likely that some of this music will go lower than 35hz ... I think so ? If so ... obviously there is a problem because there will be some of that really low end missing ?

I've mentioned this on other forums, and I suggest you do the same.

Use SMAART's Spectrum Analyzer and play a few CDs directly into your computer using a stand-alone player (Flat no EQ). This will tell you the real response of whatever program you are using.

Dance music generally never goes lower than 45 Hertz. And even at 45 Hertz it's a rarity to find it happening on a long-term basis. Without boosting the 40, 31.5 25 & 20 Hz severely on your 1/3 octave, you'll find 30 Hertz is ruffly 10 to 12 dBs lower than 60 Hertz.

Do yourself a favor and download SMAART's 30-Day Demo and try it yourself. There are a lot of people who claim dance music goes extremely low, but when you see the length of the horns they use, it contradicts their claims.

The Lab Sub offers one of the longest horns in the Pro Audio market. The majority of the Sound Men that play Dance music,use horns half the length of Lab Sub.

The Longer the Horn the lower the notes.

The Shorter the Horn the higher (With an elevated SPL) the notes.


Best Regards,

[Mike {AB} Butler]

OK, since you are still asking the question..
How low in frequency one wants to be able to reproduce their music is entirely a function of the size of venue, SPL desired, and availability of power amps and cabs that will reproduce as desired.
For live audio, most folks tend to compromise on their low end cutoff, because as one lowers the desired corner frequency, the amount of power required goes up.. sometimes a lot. Next, most cabinets have a point where the woofer in them will start to "unload".. where the cabinet no longer retains control of the proper excursions of the woofer. Given a very high available amount of power, the woofer will start to tear itself apart. Last, most lows below 40 hz are felt.. but if distortion gets high enough, their ordered harmonics become very audible in the sound. Add to this that one wants to get maximum possible SPL from their boxes.. and still have them be portable, cost effective, and such..
So, given all this, it isn't that we don't like to reproduce low end on stuff.. it's about retaining proper CONTROL over the sound quality and maintaining system longevity. After you see enough guys destroy woofers trying to get the "magical" low end.. you begin to realize what is possible in a small living room isn't possible in a venue that seats 200+ - on a low budget..  

[Kevin McDonough]

In addition to the suggestion of using Smaart to view what frequencies are actually present in the songs your playing, you can also do it using PC based sound editing programs like Wavelab/Cool Edit/Sound Forge etc.

you can get some pretty detailed graphs and waterfall charts and see exactly whats going on!

We had a thread on speakerplans about it not so long ago

http://www.speakerplans.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7341&a mp;KW=


k

[Antone Atmarama Bajor]

    Cool Edit is now Adobe Audition.  It has a very nice little fft Spectral Analysis of the wave files but only during playback.  No RTA feature.

    Spectra Lab is cool to.

    One Pop star I found had some juicy low end in some of her recordings (I was doing a wedding and I used my BS-212's) is Christina Agulara.  I was surprised it was there unfortunately I didn't get the name of the Track.

    I think that Us in the Lab Sub Forum should post a list of commercially available tracks that contain non-accidental (no unfiltered rumble) Sub 40Hz information.

    I couple I can think of off hand are.

Red Handed (Mission impossible soundtrack) Danny Elfman
Get Low (Lil' John and the east side boys)
Dream Sequence (Amon Tobin: Bricolage)
PIMP (50 Cent)

The Fireworks track from the Danley sound labs site is fun.

    Kick can have a lot of Really low Transient sub bass.  It fun when you can slam the crowd with High SPL bursts of Sub bass.  Except the faint of heart.

Antone-

[Michael 'Bink' Knowles]

Bennett Prescott wrote on Sat, 23 December 2006 07:39

With subs, it's pretty much: * Loud * Low * Small * Cheap Pick any two.

What about "Clean" as in very low distortion?

"Pick any two" (or three or four) is simplistic--a little too black and white. I see it as a continuum with shades of gray.

The continuum way of looking at it yields a five dimension space within which to position your product. No wonder so many products exist!

At the extremes, you can only pick one of these if you max that aspect. The loudest sub in the world can never be the cheapest or smallest.

-Bink (random thoughts on the last day of the year)

[Michael 'Bink' Knowles]

Antone Atmarama Bajor wrote on Tue, 26 December 2006 15:12

...One Pop star I found had some juicy low end in some of her recordings... is Christina Agulara.

Christina Aguilera's Can't Hold Us Down has some 32.8 Hz synth bass action that extends slightly in time past the 65.6 Hz harmonic above it.

The bass in this song serves as the kick drum line as well--makes me think of 808 drum machine... The majority of the song has bass notes that are mostly four 52.1 Hz (probably A^b₁) beats followed by a line of 32.8  Hz (probably C₁) beats. Some of these are double hits.

Analyzed using Smaartlive aimed to look at the laptop's internal stereo playback bus. Smaartlive frequency range narrowed down to 16-100Hz, sampling rate 44.1k, FFT 32k, resolution 1.3Hz.



-Bink