Do you actually DO live sound? It's way more keeping the show going as everyone is liking.
The main signals at very low frequencies are: Rumble from stage vibrations, vibrations and bleed on drum mics, bleed from other instruments and PA, touching noises for voice mics. Poping voice mics, body noises from acoustic guitars, unusable frequency content from instruments (e.g. Cajon - there are no "musical" very low frequencies, it's noise you want to avoid down there). What do you think happens when a mic is dropped on a stage?
As long as you don't do the big gigs in good halls and outdoors you have significant more important issues as reproducing very low frequencies. (I had 2 big/high quality bands I mixed. With these you would sometimes have a chance to use an extra low sub. There is actually ONE location in Austria I remembered to have a really well working lower frequency sub on an AUX channel ... all the others ... including opera houses and big halls)
"muddy bass" is maybe not the right term - resonant bass would be better. Often you get way to much LF from an electrical bass, it masks everything else (cause it's a slow and steady signal compared to a kick) and activates room resonances. So you turn it down and even reduce it's frequencies to keep a tight and musical mix. That's one of the big mistakes I often hear with live music - too loud bass which masks everything else. The most important range for bass in the mix is the midrange, 1-2kHz area. Tha P-bass sound ... get that right and you will always hear and understand the bass lines. Then make it as "fat" as the music and room allows.
Tuning ported subs low is of course nice sounding! But you need to bring double the subs. Double the volume, more amp power. And you need to charge it and someone has to pay for it.
Older big PA systems often had subs tuned to 50-60Hz to achieve the needed SPL. Everything sounds like kick drum over these 🤓 but they are very efficient. I always tuned my woofers lower with a not-peaking response around the resonance so they stay precise when running loud. They are tuned for live sound, it's better to stay precise as going extra low. But they don't get as loud as these high tuned touring woofers.
Now you also have these low tuned woofers for BIG systems. Like Stadions with 3m line arrays + delay line array. Cost for the PA is just a small part for these productions, they just bring a semitrailer woofers, done.
Yes, same driver.
Of course the horn is way bigger and needs to be. You could put 2 of these drivers in the horn volume as portet woofer.
Just for reference - live sound. This is one of the gigs I did with a FABULOUS percussion Orchester - actually in that exact hall where they have a good low sub installed.
Imagine THAT stage without low cuts ... 🤓
p.s.: Sound recording was an afterthought and not planned for this concert. They just took my mixer output and even lost the first few minutes ... it's just for documenting the show, was never planed for release.
Imagine THAT stage without low cuts ... 🤓
p.s.: Sound recording was an afterthought and not planned for this concert. They just took my mixer output and even lost the first few minutes ... it's just for documenting the show, was never planed for release.
There's a Figure of Merit for bass boxes that is sorta FOM = Efficiency/(boxVolume x f3^3) ... IIRC. It was introduced by Alex Garner and Peter Jackson in an AES convention paper while they were still working for Rank HiFi .. so pre 1978
I can't get to grips with the 'new' AES library search engine at all
If anyone digs up the paper, please post the correct link here. I would dearly love a backup copy but da AES Mafia might object as I'm now a REAL beach bum and no longer a member.A 4th order Butterworth ported box has the 'highest' FOM of all 'simple' passive designs. Horns rate very poor on this FOM .. even if you consider corner mounting which raises Efficiency by 8x.
What it means is ... if you have a bass horn with a particular Size, Cutoff f3 & Efficiency, a ported box of the same Size with the same Cutoff will have MUCH greater Efficiency (and Sensitivity) ... but you may have to use several drive units to get the TS parameters you need.