Infrasound?

[_Agu_]

This might seem really pointless and too deep idea, but I'm still gonna post it.

Okay, so people seem to prefer mixing down kick to hit somewhere between 60-120Hz and sub between 30-80Hz etc. For example a tune written in F could have kick at 80-90 Hz (F2=87Hz) and sub an octave below that (44Hz or something like that). Humans can't really hear sounds below 20Hz and even 30-40Hz (where most of the club sound systems roll off) is mostly felt rather than heard. BUT there are some subwoofers that go as low as 15Hz

According to Wikipedia, some guys from UK did a test where they played pieces of music to 700 people, some normally, and some with low level 17Hz sine wave layered with the song. People weren't told what tracks included the 17Hz sound. These were the results were this:

"The presence of the tone resulted in a significant number (22%) of respondents reporting anxiety, uneasiness, extreme sorrow, nervous feelings of revulsion or fear, chills down the spine, and feelings of pressure on the chest."

^ IF this stuff is real, it sounds pretty sick to me

There have also been other cases where people have had strange symptoms which have most likely been caused by infrasound (stuff below 20Hz).

Since this is dubstepforum and dubstep is all about the bass, along with percussion and atmosphere (let's not involve commercial side of the genre to this), my real question is that would it be possible to mix even lower sub bass underneath the basic sine wave sub. Of course this eats some of your headroom and take away some loudness, but who gives a shit because there wouldn't be any point playing this kind of track in a club with basic soundsystem or from headphones sticked to your iPod.

Any thoughts about this idea?

[SunkLo]

Why would you want to make your audience feel sick and stressed though? I think it would only serve to negatively impact the enjoyment of the music. It would definitely eat a very large portion of your headroom as well.

[test_recordings]

Why would you want to make your audience feel sick and stressed though?

Exactly

[AxeD]

Most of my kicks stay well clear of <100hz. Maybe even 200.

[Brothulhu]

AxeD, what kind of kicks do you use? All the kicks I like sound pretty shit when I cut (normally around 70-100Hz)

[alphacat]

Since this is dubstepforum and dubstep is all about the bass, along with percussion and atmosphere (let's not involve commercial side of the genre to this), my real question is that would it be possible to mix even lower sub bass underneath the basic sine wave sub. Of course this eats some of your headroom and take away some loudness, but who gives a shit because there wouldn't be any point playing this kind of track in a club with basic soundsystem or from headphones sticked to your iPod.

Any thoughts about this idea?

From http://www.dubstepforum.com/forum/viewt ... =8&t=62858

You would literally need a speaker that's several feet across in order to generate a pure 20Hz wave - this website says 56 feet wide, in fact, but I'm not sure about that...

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-wavelength.htm

Every frequency has a wavelength; if the speaker isn't at least as big as this wavelength, it physically cannot produce it.

That being said...

You can also generate this frequency through phase cancellation, where you position two sound sources to intersect at a 45* angle or so; one plays a frequency of (just for an example) 400 Hz, the other plays, say, 380 Hz. Where the two sounds intersect they cancel out everything but the difference, i.e. 400 minus 380 = 20.

the coolest frequencies are from 1 Hz -30 Hz when played between ears.. out of phase sign waves on each ear causing euphoria, deep thought, relaxation, excitement etc depending on the frequency

This is known as binaural signal generation - a variant on the phase cancellation described above, where one wave acts as carrier and is modulated by another wave frequency to produce a third perceived frequency, except that the phasic offset doesn't occur acoustically - it occurs in your brain.

Now, as for the infamous Brown Note: it's not a myth, but it's very difficult to produce correctly, and even more difficult to control. Not something your average garage tinkerer will likely be able to do easily. The specific frequency is around 7 Hz, some say 6.71 or 7.8 something. Look up Schumann Resonance: this is the electromagnetic resonant frequency of the earth and our ionosphere itself...

There's an old story that I've never corroborated about the Germans in WWII developing a sound cannon that could kill men at 70+ meters and even disable aircraft, but the energy required to produce a single blast was so ridiculous it was scrapped.

I could blather on and on about this. It's something I used to read a lot about. Do a google search for "Infrasound" to learn more.

[_Agu_]

Why would you want to make your audience feel sick and stressed though? I think it would only serve to negatively impact the enjoyment of the music. It would definitely eat a very large portion of your headroom as well.

IMO the meaning of music is to give a some kind of feeling to listener. Many dark tracks already sound like they could fit into an agonizing horror movie and so on

Here's some examples:







If you want audience to smile out of pure happiness I don't think this is the kind of music to make...

[alphacat]

OP, here's a test:

Go to your DAW, generate ANY tone under 20 Hz, amplify it any way you like, and then tell me what you hear in your monitors/headphones.

[SunkLo]

Yeah but there's still some enjoyment coming out of resonance with the mood of the track. It's not like people are deliberately listening to music they don't like to make themselves feel sad. It's like if you go see a horror movie you wanna be freaked out but you don't actually want to get clubbed with a dull hatchet. There needs to still be a degree of separation.

[alphacat]

Yeah but there's still some enjoyment coming out of resonance with the mood of the track. It's not like people are deliberately listening to music they don't like to make themselves feel sad. It's like if you go see a horror movie you wanna be freaked out but you don't actually want to get clubbed with a dull hatchet. There needs to still be a degree of separation.

To be fair, you're mostly right: but there still has to be room for genuine musical masochism. How else to explain all of the harsh noise/power electronics acts?

But synchronistically, in the course of researching other musical stuff I came across this just now:

http://en.wikipedia.org/http://en.wikip ... nger_music

Danger music is an experimental form of avant-garde 20th and 21st century music. It is based on the concept that some pieces of music can or will harm either the listener or the performer. Since the performances must nearly always be canceled before they can be performed, danger music can also be thought of more as a form of noise music. For example Takehisa Kosugi’s composition Music for a Revolution[1] directs the performer to gouge out one of his or her eyes five years from now. Works such as this are also sometimes referred to as anti-music because they seem to rebel against the concept of music itself. Danger music is often closely associated with the Fluxus school of composition, especially the work of Dick Higgins who composed a series of works entitled Danger Music.[1][/url]


Danger music in performance
As with many forms of concept music and performance art, the lines between "music", "art", "theater", and "social protest" are not always clear or apparent. Danger Music consequently has some things in common with the performance art of artists such as Mark Pauline and Chris Burden. For instance, some extreme examples of danger music direct performers to use sounds so loud that they will deafen the participants, or ask performers to throw antipersonnel bombs into the audience. Japanese noise band Hanatarash were notable for their dangerous live shows, the most famous instance being when vocalist Yamantaka Eye drove a bulldozer through the venue at the back of the stage. (Alphacat's note: HOLY FUCK! ) There were also reports of audience members being required to fill out waivers before shows to prevent the band or the venue being sued in case of any potential danger caused to them. Other pieces involve more symbolic forms of "danger", such as Nam June Paik's "Danger Music for Dick Higgins," which directs the performer to "creep into the vagina of a living whale."Or a piece may direct that the volume of the music steadily increases causing the audience to fear that it will make them defecate (see Brown note), although it might never reach that point.

[test_recordings]

Fluxus is nuts, went to an exhibition of their stuff not so long ago

[_Agu_]

"For example Takehisa Kosugi’s composition Music for a Revolution[1] directs the performer to gouge out one of his or her eyes five years from now."

"the most famous instance being when vocalist Yamantaka Eye drove a bulldozer through the venue at the back of the stage."

Other pieces involve more symbolic forms of "danger", such as Nam June Paik's "Danger Music for Dick Higgins," which directs the performer to "creep into the vagina of a living whale."

[wolf89]

Lustmord use really low frequencies often. Their music is really dark so the feeling of unease is desireable. They have also said in interviews that while they will put segments where there are 20hz tones on their cds they don't do it too frequently in a track or rely on it too heavily as most listeners will miss it due to what they're listening on though.

[sine143]

You would literally need a speaker that's several feet across in order to generate a pure 20Hz wave - this website says 56 feet wide, in fact, but I'm not sure about that...

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-wavelength.htm

Every frequency has a wavelength; if the speaker isn't at least as big as this wavelength, it physically cannot produce it.

That being said...

You can also generate this frequency through phase cancellation, where you position two sound sources to intersect at a 45* angle or so; one plays a frequency of (just for an example) 400 Hz, the other plays, say, 380 Hz. Where the two sounds intersect they cancel out everything but the difference, i.e. 400 minus 380 = 20.

the coolest frequencies are from 1 Hz -30 Hz when played between ears.. out of phase sign waves on each ear causing euphoria, deep thought, relaxation, excitement etc depending on the frequency

This is known as binaural signal generation - a variant on the phase cancellation described above, where one wave acts as carrier and is modulated by another wave frequency to produce a third perceived frequency, except that the phasic offset doesn't occur acoustically - it occurs in your brain.

Now, as for the infamous Brown Note: it's not a myth, but it's very difficult to produce correctly, and even more difficult to control. Not something your average garage tinkerer will likely be able to do easily. The specific frequency is around 7 Hz, some say 6.71 or 7.8 something. Look up Schumann Resonance: this is the electromagnetic resonant frequency of the earth and our ionosphere itself...

There's an old story that I've never corroborated about the Germans in WWII developing a sound cannon that could kill men at 70+ meters and even disable aircraft, but the energy required to produce a single blast was so ridiculous it was scrapped.

I could blather on and on about this. It's something I used to read a lot about. Do a google search for "Infrasound" to learn more.

[/quote]


You do realize you are way off the mark dont you? ANY size speaker can produce any frequency, its just a matter of how much spl it will produce. Spend a little time on AVS forum, you will find plenty of people chasing flat response to 5 hz with nothing but stacks of sealed subwoofers. In fact there are many products (Danley DTS10 for instance) that are capable of producing SIGNIFICANT output down to 10/15 hz with nothing but a pair of 12" speakers in a single enclosure. (horns for ya).

Simply put, speaker size has very little to do with the ability of a speaker to produce lower frequencies. A larger speaker displaces more air (if excursion is kept constant while speaker diameter is altered), which aids in the production of more SPL down low, but the same affect can be achieved by adding more excursion to a smaller speaker (assuming Driver fs, aka the frequency at which the suspension of the driver starts to put the brakes on, allows it to).

here's a speaker enclosure that can produce about 117 db at 16 hz (at 1 meter). It uses a single 18 inch sub. (granted it is a 700 dollar driver).

http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=45

There are many well documented HT DIY builds where extreme low frequency response is achieved. I'm talking more than 120db at listening position below 10hz (between 3 and 5 meters from subs, meaning 1 meter measurment can be as high as 140 db at those levels)

Here's another link for your enjoyment (granted its 7200 dollars in drivers)

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1314884/8x-18 ... enclosures

[nameless133]

I tought noise music is fucked up but there is something that stranger.

[fluff]

In fact there are many products (Danley DTS10 for instance) that are capable of producing SIGNIFICANT output down to 10/15 hz with nothing but a pair of 12" speakers in a single enclosure. (horns for ya).

Horns work by improving the efficiency of the transfer of acoustic energy between the speaker driver and the air in the room. The ability to reproduce very low frequencies is still related to the size of the horn enclosure. There is no such thing as a small horn speaker that can reproduce very low frequencies

[sine143]

I never claimed a "small" box, but I also pointed out that you dont need a speaker driver (or enclosure for that matter" that is "56 feet " wide, as claimed by the poster I quoted.

At 23 cubic feet, the DTS10 is not "small", but it is still quite capable for its size.

Even a VERY small sealed enclosure will reproduce very low frequencies (with the correct driver), It just may not be able to reproduce them with very high SPL. Large amounts of sealed enclosures and ample excursion is still at the forefront for reproducing high spl at and below 10 hz (other than rotary subwoofer), however horns will give you large amounts of gain above that

take for instance the gjallerhorn system (http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=45&mset=42) loaded with an lms ultra 5400. at 28 cubic feet, its quite the large box, but when compared to a sealed enclosure (4.2 cubic feet) it displays about 12 db more output between 15 and 30 hz (both due to increased sensitivity and better excursion control above 18hz).

this level can be matched with 4 sealed lms ultra boxes, and only requires 4x as much power, and 4x as much money in drivers, in a smaller package (17 cubic feet).

[Undrig]

Lustmord fucks with infrasound. While infrasound is defined by freqs outside the range of human hearing, he's one of the main people I know who dabbles with it. Dave Q saw him live once. Said it was the most low end he's ever experienced. None of his music really has any drums, so i'm sure that helps keep the spectrum clean for him to do his thing.