The readon why you don’t see is because they use their own custom sound systems because no pa can deliver the (sub)bass they need. I was on a dub festival (Irie Vibes in Kortemark, Belgium) last weekend and al dj’s played on custom build soundsystems that at least go till the low 30’s and are build and owned by the dj’s themselves... For other bass heavy music that is often the same. Only mainstream events don't often want those soundsystem so the dj's have to compromise (but the public does not like that). The systems used on that Irie Vibes festival were owned by the soundsystem crews (dj crews) of Channel One (UK), Chalice Sound (Fr), Kiraden (Fr), Dub Up Hifi (BE) and Ionyouth (BE). You can easely find their systems in pictures online if you want to see them.
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😀
Actually I wasn't thinking of the classical case of a stage performance using synthesizer ala Styx etc but rather the aforementioned computer generated sounds that just go direct to recording were no stage equipment could produce it.
Thanks for asking.
17 foot pipe sub 12-230 Hz ±5dB
I think the body of thought and practice arising from Thiele and sims like Hornresp have led builders astray. The basic issue with dipole drivers (AKA anything with a cone and all the others too) is sequestering the rear wave in some way that is as helpful as possible. That is the prime question. My pipe sequesters the rear wave with a long path and lots of stuffing. It certainly obeys the Laws of Physics (don't we all) and the Sub-Laws of Organ Pipes.
Long pipe to sequester rear wave
B.
There's a bunch of tunes off of the first The Glitch Mob album that I believe have that content. Try that. Friend of mine in San Diego that has a modified van with a ton of linearly driven subs said that he thought it was pushing 14hz. Bassnectar's Here We Go is another candidate.
Artists like that do all sorts of sound design on computers using Ableton plugins etc. I regularly use that to test out our old Meyer PA rig with 8 double 18" drivers just to see what the pattern is and how it matches up with our tops regarding sound pattern and coverage.
There's a physical size aspect of this that can't be worked around. You have to have wide stacks to be able to control the directionality of the sub pattern but that's another topic 🙂
Thanks, but I wasn't looking for it in the PA, I looked in in the recordings themselves.
Trying not to confuse amplitude with frequency, which seems to be the case in many of these discussions. In other words, what is typically the lowest note, not the loudest note.
EDIT: Cross posted. Will look up the tracks you mention, thanks!
Trying not to confuse amplitude with frequency, which seems to be the case in many of these discussions. In other words, what is typically the lowest note, not the loudest note.
EDIT: Cross posted. Will look up the tracks you mention, thanks!
Those kind of frequencies have limited musical use but they're a powerful effect on kicks/bass lines to emphasize something thing in the song, percussion generally. They're not regularly used as most in-house PA system can't handle it or is ok to ignore if the system can't reproduce it. It's why artists in that genre often bring their own gear to enhance or replace house systems
Yes, makes sense. Even if it's 40Hz, not all PAs can do that at extreme volumes.
FYI, I just analyzed the 3 most popluar tracks from the Glitch Mob's 1st album Drink the Sea. Mostly they like a low C (33Hz) or D#, but one tack did use a low G (25Hz) some, though higher notes were often stronger.
That is about what I found analyzing dozens of other EDM tracks, tho the 25 Hz was a good one. From what I can find, if you can do 32 Hz with massive levels, you can do EDM Dubstep. My 21" open baffle speakers will play that low and lower, but they won't shake the room like a stack of pro 18" woofers with kilowatts behind them. 🙂
FYI, I just analyzed the 3 most popluar tracks from the Glitch Mob's 1st album Drink the Sea. Mostly they like a low C (33Hz) or D#, but one tack did use a low G (25Hz) some, though higher notes were often stronger.
That is about what I found analyzing dozens of other EDM tracks, tho the 25 Hz was a good one. From what I can find, if you can do 32 Hz with massive levels, you can do EDM Dubstep. My 21" open baffle speakers will play that low and lower, but they won't shake the room like a stack of pro 18" woofers with kilowatts behind them. 🙂
I have a significant car audio system for this kind of listening. Sub at those frequencies, 60hz and below are mostly about personal preference or subjective unlike material that demands to be accurate like massive pipe organ sounds.
I had a 12" driver and it was at the upper limit of what it can do at those frequencies. I eventually went with dual 5" kevlar (Focal K2) subs in a PVC tube corner loaded in the back of the car because of the lesser weight of those speakers.
If I had to do it again, it would be dual 10" or something like that with more area, but my car has to function as a car first and I spend a lot of time driving in it on California roads
Some days I have the sub level down fairly low as that can be fatiguing and annoying to a point after a lot of constant listening on long drives.
I had a 12" driver and it was at the upper limit of what it can do at those frequencies. I eventually went with dual 5" kevlar (Focal K2) subs in a PVC tube corner loaded in the back of the car because of the lesser weight of those speakers.
If I had to do it again, it would be dual 10" or something like that with more area, but my car has to function as a car first and I spend a lot of time driving in it on California roads
Some days I have the sub level down fairly low as that can be fatiguing and annoying to a point after a lot of constant listening on long drives.
Thank you Bentoronto. That looks very nice. I have been itching to play with very low tuned pipes/TLs.
Apropos this thread, being able to generate low frequencies and that are also clean might be illuminating.
I might add, if you look at Fletcher-Munson curves and you look at the awful distortion of many subs, you realize that many who talk about low freq notes at home and even more so at concerts, are really talking about experiencing partials, not the fundamentals they think they are hearing.
I think of my big folded pipe as a filtered dipole (since my ESLs are dipoles and I kind of believe it works best in real rooms) rather than a tuned organ pipe TL. The exit port passes largely the fundamental (as my plots show) and it is about 7 feet from the driver. which leads to a very heterogeneous interaction.
B.
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Fletcher-Munson curves helped telephone industry to save lotsa money.
When I am playing with HPF, I can feel soft bass (fundamental presents), or hard bass (harmonics). It feels by the whole body. Try Gary Karr, Adagio d'Albinoni. It was recorded by Sony in a church with a real organ and an ancient contrabass.
When I am playing with HPF, I can feel soft bass (fundamental presents), or hard bass (harmonics). It feels by the whole body. Try Gary Karr, Adagio d'Albinoni. It was recorded by Sony in a church with a real organ and an ancient contrabass.
Can you please explain your F-M idea?
If you had a sub with a "flat" FR down below 20 Hz, but if it has 10% THD (which would be unusually good at 20 Hz, not kidding), then F-M says you are hearing the distortion partials not the fundamental.
And the louder you play, the more distortion in the sub, even if F-M gets more favourable.
B.
The idea was, to save power when transmitting signals on long distances. The bandwidth got limited by 300Hz-3.4 KHz. It saved costs on microphones and headphones, transformers, and later was used in multi-channel transmission with many SSB transmissions over the single line.
You are right, if I had. But fortunately I have a pair of 12" woofers in my HT in concrete boxes, under line arrays in walls. And that woofers work from 40 Hz to 120 Hz, while a sub (works under 40 Hz) is a short concrete horn under the floor, and when I feed 11 Hz, I feel how the floor resonates, I feel it by mo body, and I hear all sounds modulated by amplitide. Why 11 Hz? Because I found it is a resonance frequency of the floor in my living room.
About PA and sub not only younger bands use extreme low in their shows.
I know Kraftwerk were probably the first ( like for almost anything regarding electronic music) to run their own custom system with extreme low bass capability since the 70's.
In the series of live acts they performed in Paris at Fondation Cartier some years ago they had sub which were able to produce frequency in the single digit area with insane levels.
At home this is difficult to do the same: usually the whole structural foundation of the house built is at risk when you do so.
I ve heard a system like that once: it was a whole high quality custom PA system able to reproduce down to 5hz located in a 50m2 room.
It was frightning literaly, when playing sine so low. And you don t hear anyhing at this frequency, your skull resonate and your stomach just give you the feeling it will crack and open itself really. I won t say about the feeling i had when i realized the walls (wood structure) moved some 5mm amplitude too!
Pano comment about 'mainstream' edm live act and the crazy demand on sub is true. This come from the fact the target curve for such instalation is tweaked (by ear to please the contractor) to have a loudness kind of response but at level of 100db spl RMS (and up) at the most distant listening place targeted... and the systems have to run for 48hours continously.
I have seen comments from one of Dsl people about having the habit to have more than 30db more output capability for subs (relative to mains top) for such kind of events.
I know Kraftwerk were probably the first ( like for almost anything regarding electronic music) to run their own custom system with extreme low bass capability since the 70's.
In the series of live acts they performed in Paris at Fondation Cartier some years ago they had sub which were able to produce frequency in the single digit area with insane levels.
At home this is difficult to do the same: usually the whole structural foundation of the house built is at risk when you do so.
I ve heard a system like that once: it was a whole high quality custom PA system able to reproduce down to 5hz located in a 50m2 room.
It was frightning literaly, when playing sine so low. And you don t hear anyhing at this frequency, your skull resonate and your stomach just give you the feeling it will crack and open itself really. I won t say about the feeling i had when i realized the walls (wood structure) moved some 5mm amplitude too!
Pano comment about 'mainstream' edm live act and the crazy demand on sub is true. This come from the fact the target curve for such instalation is tweaked (by ear to please the contractor) to have a loudness kind of response but at level of 100db spl RMS (and up) at the most distant listening place targeted... and the systems have to run for 48hours continously.
I have seen comments from one of Dsl people about having the habit to have more than 30db more output capability for subs (relative to mains top) for such kind of events.
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30dB seems a lot, but I can understand the goal. Most PAs I see have a bass boost of 12-18dB above the mains. People who pay for the tickets want to feel the thump. 🙂
We've moved this discussion over to live and dance club systems, but look back at the original question:
If you are building a subwoofer for home playback of recorded music, what's a reasonable cutoff? From what we've seen so far, mid 30s is plenty. Even with EDM, a solid 40Hz would be OK. Work on getting a clean, solid 33-35 Hz and you've got it covered. Chasing lower notes may be a waste of resources. Boost the bass level if you want that club sound.
We've moved this discussion over to live and dance club systems, but look back at the original question:
If you are building a subwoofer for home playback of recorded music, what's a reasonable cutoff? From what we've seen so far, mid 30s is plenty. Even with EDM, a solid 40Hz would be OK. Work on getting a clean, solid 33-35 Hz and you've got it covered. Chasing lower notes may be a waste of resources. Boost the bass level if you want that club sound.
well for good modern classical recordings if you want to get the sense of space you might want to consider lower. attached is an analysis of a recentish Chandos release on 5.1 so without the normal LF roll off that red book releases seem have. There is significant energy down to 11Hz and possibly more.
How much this affects the feeling of space I don't know as I can't currently drive that low, although the Koss headphones claim 10Hz capability..
What, wanting low bass with real music? Burninate him 🙂
How much this affects the feeling of space I don't know as I can't currently drive that low, although the Koss headphones claim 10Hz capability..
What, wanting low bass with real music? Burninate him 🙂
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