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I made a tune on headphones last night, and put a very deep sub line in it. could hear it fine on the headphones and it sounded sick, today though i played it back though speakers and i could hardly hear it, the meter said it was at -6db, but i couldent hear it. it had gone below the lowest frequency of my Aleses M1 520 monitors. its peaking between 35 and 40 hz

Is this too low? would it sound ok on a system?

Thanks

anything lower than 50Hz seems to drop off on most subs ive tried. 60Hz is the fattest point imo. Old skool jungle tends to have a sine sweeping from 60-70Hz in like 0.5 seconds. (But that stuff was more made for personal enjoyment than just rave PA systems)

room acoustics will also make a massive difference.

Sub 30-80Hz
Kick 80-120Hz

is what most soundsystems apparantly knock out down the bottom.

It can take an exponential amount of amps and drivers and horn length to get much lower than that to the point of failing any reasonable efficiency of being realistic.

But yeah, most proper soundsystems worth their salt would run down to 30/40Hz before severely eqing out anything further down. You stop being able to hear it so much down there though, more a feeling/awareness of something other going on (vibrating testes, malfunctioning diaphragm, tingling spinal column, massive dopamine release)

big systems can pick up 25hz i think

Right cool. thanks for all the replies, cleared a lot up.

so should i just leave it where it is? mabye add some harmonics so you can actually hear the bass if your not listening on a system.

cheers

LewisR wrote:Right cool. thanks for all the replies, cleared a lot up.

so should i just leave it where it is? mabye add some harmonics so you can actually hear the bass if your not listening on a system.

cheers

I say bump it up to 45 - 50Hz, and if it sounds muddy high pass the kicks at 80Hz and make sure no other elements are active in the sub range.

Thanks, Bump it my moving it up an octive yeah?

LewisR wrote:Thanks, Bump it my moving it up an octive yeah?

yeah, if you have a synth line repeating the same chords as the sub. Although it would probably end up being 55-60 when bumped up an octave from 35-40. imo this should be fine on a home HiFi or car soundsystem, but when played in a club you could keep the original 35-40 sub with the 55-60 subline but 12dB lower to avoid the sub peaking too much.

i say go no lower than 30hz

Rendr wrote:

LewisR wrote:Thanks, Bump it my moving it up an octive yeah?

yeah, if you have a synth line repeating the same chords as the sub. Although it would probably end up being 55-60 when bumped up an octave from 35-40. imo this should be fine on a home HiFi or car soundsystem, but when played in a club you could keep the original 35-40 sub with the 55-60 subline but 12dB lower to avoid the sub peaking too much.

An octave is a doubling of frequency. Ie an octave above 55Hz is 110hz etc

Better spend some of that cash on an education Rendr

(just joking - but that IS basic stuff!)

i always have my sub around 40 - 50hz

i can hear it fine on my sub and my headphones

i test in my car.

if the bass is good on my civic's factory speakers, then we're good to go in a club

*edit* i usually low pass at 90

just double w/ something that's got energy an octave or 2 up (and not too much below), and keep it low in the mix to add an 'edge' on the sub.

i always like fm basses for this; fuzzy and plonky (shponky? bonky?) without too much heft.

spectral analyzer and sub together are your friend. BHecause listening to low end in an uncalibrated room is VERY deceiving

reference reference reference

then match up


Also alot of monitors won't properly respond below 60hz (even tho they go down to 45-50).. I noticed this on my dynaudio bm5a's