Philip
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100 Hz
TBH: For years 100Hz has been very difficult for me ... and I hope some of you will chime on how you deal with 100Hz:
1) 100Hz is where many (car) speakers stop, for the low end.
2) Your/my challenge is, doubtless, to get the bottom end full and big, without resorting to a sub-woofer. I'm not demeaning the subs ... I'm just stating they invariably seem almost alien from the main song and vibe.
3) Seems my factory Prius speakers go down to about 80Hz, so replacing with 100Hz woofers for my front sides ... makes things worse. In fact, my 80Hz Prius woofers do faithfully vibrate the car-sides and car-mirror with a well-written bottom end mix.
4) You boost your kick EQ at 87Hz +/- ... but you don't hear the results without a sub, so that is not an option.
5) You invariably challenge yourself and others to make a bottom-end mix, where kicks and bass rule the day (without a sub-woofer): What now my friends?
I'll validate my strategies with you as you share yours. One thing thats helped me is to use beatz samplers from programs like beatscape, NI, EWQL SD, etc. and allowed the bass-guitar (harmonics) to be raised at 250Hz. But there must be better strategies.
I'll research a bit as well.
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Danny Danzi
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This is a tough question to answer...or maybe I don't quite understand the question may be the better answer. LOL! I have 3 subs in my studio. Without them, it's impossible for me to judge low end correctly. They have changed my world for the better. In my vehicles, I've always purchased the best stereo I could get when I bought them. If I had to upgrade to something else, I always went nuts with something that would compliment the vehicle/package tray etc. Customizing a stereo in your car should be something you talk to a professional about because they will examine your car as well as get statistic data on what would further enhance your vehicle. The place I used to go to would punch in the make and model of a vehicle and see all the systems that would be the best for that particular vehicle. Also, I'd not hold too much stock in a car stereo unless it's something that truly sounds fantastic. Sometimes you get lucky with a stock system, but most times it's just a noise maker and shouldn't be trusted...especially if you're an engineer. I don't think a sub is a necessity in a vehicle but it depends on the build as well as how the package tray resonates. Some vehicles, like your room in your studio, need correction or the speakers will fall short. For example, my Vette doesn't have a sub but man does it throw out bass. To be honest, that Bose that's in there is one of the deadliest systems I've ever had in a vehicle...hands down. I can't even make it distort and it can go so loud and clear, it can make it difficult to think. In my luxury vehicle, I have the best system you can get for it per the dealer. It's absolutely beautiful....6 speakers, no sub. I can't even recall the name of it to be honest....that's how little I drive the thing. But it's just incredible and everything sounds brilliant in it. Add in the fact that the car itself rides so smooth with no wind or road noise....and you could circumsize a baby while in it, and it makes the stereo sound even more intense. In my other "for fun" vehicle, I have a KILLER Alpine system that I copped from a Lamborghini. A bud of mine works for a Lambo dealer and brought one around. Of course I loved the car, but that stereo was off the hook so I got the part numbers from him and installed it into my vehicle. Again, no sub but exceptional bass all across the board. Now we had to make a few modifications to the package tray on this one, but there is so much bass available, it's strange this vehicle doesn't have a sub. So it is possible with the right speakers and system as well as doing a bit of research as to what would best work for your particular vehicle. 1) 100Hz is where many (car) speakers stop, for the low end.
Yep and because of this, quite a bit of the new music you hear today may sound thin to you because the new thing is to push 40-55Hz. 2) Your/my challenge is, doubtless, to get the bottom end full and big, without resorting to a sub-woofer. I'm not demeaning the subs ... I'm just stating they invariably seem almost alien from the main song and vibe.
Wouldn't that depend on the music though, Philip? If we take "our song" as an example, you'd want to mix and master using a sub because it will show you what those frequencies are going to sound like. From there you mute the sub to see how it will sound in an environment that may not have a sub...and we compensate. But the sub used in THIS scenario, tells us where the "no fly zones" are. When you have all the right areas of bass in line, the song is going to sound good everywhere unless your speakers are so lame they just fall short on low end due to how they are made. However, I still would not judge or place my eggs in the "Car speaker basket". Even when you have a great system, it doesn't mean a thing really. That's just THAT car and THAT system. I remember I had an old Camaro IROC Z28. I got one of the first ones released in 1985. It had a decent system in it, but I put in something else...I can't recall whatw e put in that. But anyway, just about nothing sounded good in that car with the stock system and even with the new system. When something DID sound great in there, it sounded great everywhere. I had to jump on the eq for everything just about. No matter what I played, there was no way to leave the eq flat and just enjoy...until Living Color "Cult of Personality" came out. To this day, in my opinion, that is one of the greatest mixes of all time. You can play that thing anywhere and it sounds exactly the same. Heck, play it in mono and it still kills. LOL! 3) Seems my factory Prius speakers go down to about 80Hz, so replacing with 100Hz woofers for my front sides ... makes things worse. In fact, my 80Hz Prius woofers do faithfully vibrate the car-sides and car-mirror with a well-written bottom end mix.
This particular vehicle may call for a sub in the rear. I'd never put woofers in the sides...that sub needs to be in the back so it resonates through the entire vehicle the right way and adds to the over-all enhancement. You don't need anything huge or spectacular, just a little something that gives you bass control as well as those lower frequencies you're missing. At 80Hz though Philip, you're accentuating primarily bass guitar. Anywhere from 75-90 is where most of the meat from bass guitars come in. You're missing the punch of the kick drum if you stop at 80Hz because most of the kick meat is from (depending on what style of music) 40Hz to about 70Hz for that hard THUD sound. 4) You boost your kick EQ at 87Hz +/- ... but you don't hear the results without a sub, so that is not an option.
It's rare for me to boost a kick at near 90Hz because it just doesn't thump in that area. I have boosted there before for certain kick drums, but it just doesn't hit hard enough. It's a less apparent "thump". So if you listened to something I did with those speakers, you won't feel it at all nor will you hear it if it caps at 80Hz. However, there are ways around this that I will show you when we get to this point. I'd share them but...well, those harmonic balancing tricks are what makes mastering what it is. :) 5) You invariably challenge yourself and others to make a bottom-end mix, where kicks and bass rule the day (without a sub-woofer): What now my friends?
Your best bet is to let your ME do this. Sure it can be done by you, but you have to know how to go about it. If you are about to have something mastered by someone, you put out the best, most balanced mix you can and allow the ME to enhance that low end. If you do it and you do it wrong, you'll need to remix it. Go for balance my friend...this leaves plenty of room for the ME to do his thing without fighting things he shouldn't be fighting with as well as compensating. For example, if you have ever heard a major label pre-master, the first thing you will ask yourself is "where's all the low end...where's the cripsy highs?" That's right...they rarely go nuts on that stuff like some of the people do mixes on this forum. Most of the mixces mastering engineers deal with that come from bedroom engineers and some really skilled recording studios, are way too colored. Just about every major label pre-master I have ever heard, was thin on everything allowing the ME to color the album. Sure you want to get your vision across and do the best you can to make sure the song sounds the way you hear it in your head, but if you are contemplating something...chances are you shouldn't do it. Things to remember.... 1. Too much sub low in the bass, can stop your kick drum from being as forceful as it should/could be. The fix: Find a happy medium to where you can hear the bass, yet feel it slightly. Allow the ME to handle how much more it should be felt. 2. Too much sub low in the kick drum, can stop your bass from being heard. Give the kick the thump it needs, don't go nuts on subs...make sure it is balanced with the bass guitar. Having one more powerful than the other can make the whole low end spectrum fall short. The fix: The same as the above fix, only we're dealing with a kick drum here. :) We want to hear the thump of the kick, but we don't want so much sub low that it rumbles or walks on anything. Let the ME handle this. 3. Too much warmth: People have this problem with digital thinking it's too abrasive and lacks warmth. Extra extra....read all about it....welcome to what you truthfully sound like! Digital records what you put into it. Adding warmth or too much mid results in a boxey load of mid-range congestion from 200Hz up to about 860Hz. The fix: Learn to eq properly pre-print and learn how to choose better sounds. What you put in is what you get. 4. I like it crispy: Yeah, so do most people....but what most people don't know, is how to make "crispy" healthy. The crispy they add is the Colonel's Fried Chicken recipe. It's too harsh, loaded with sibilence and just sounds bad. Healthy and crispy is handled by the ME. He takes away the unhealthy and adds the healthy the way it should be while eliminating upper hiss frequencies that shouldn't be there anyway. So keep all this in mind because it's VERY important. And, even though you keep it in mind...send it to a guy like me to do it right so you don't have to. LOL! :) Humor aside, I hope this helps. :) -Danny
post edited by Danny Danzi - 2011/08/24 00:07:02
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The Maillard Reaction
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Philip,
It may be helpful to consider that when someone says a speaker goes down to 100Hz that they mean the overall response stays *flat* down to 100Hz.
A speaker's response extends further down but at a reduced SPL that is beyond the specification's definition of *flat*.
Most people find that their ear becomes accustomed to their systems response and so they hear and sense the bass even though it is presented at a lower level.
The best you can do is listen to examples of what you want your music to sound similar to and mix your stuff to get similar results.
If you want the sound of pumping bass on rigs that don't pump bass... you gotta pump up the bass.
best regards,
mike
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batsbrew
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my low end modus operendi (this is only a generalization):
i boost kick at 60hz and 3khz, narrow Q. big big big dip at 450hz, wide Q
i dip bass guitar at 100hz, Q=4, and makeup for it slightly on either side.
i HPF bass at 25hz, Q=1.7
i also sometimes cut at 140 hz, narrow Q.
i will do gentle rolloffs on most everything else, at anywhere from 60hz up to 150hz, depending on the source sound, to prevent buildup in the low end.
it is very easy to get into a 'masking' war with the low end.
at the same time, you want punch in the low end.
i use compressors and limiters to help augment the EQ, sometimes i use these stricly as EQ.
rarely use MBC on individual tracks, but i have a really tricky track (typically bass, kick or keys) i'll use specific bands on a MBC to tame specific freqs.
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Guitarhacker
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The answer resides in #3..... a Prius?  Seriously.... Danny provided an in depth response.... I'll be shorter. With bass and low end, to hear it accurately, simply put, you must move air...and lots of it. That requires larger speaker cones with enough power to move the cones. Many of the factory car stereo systems in the lower price cars do not have that. For my mixes.... I will push the freqs around 40hz with compression and EQ to put some more low end punch in my mix. For the kick & punch, you want to move the air much lower than 100hz. The thing you want is the "thud or thump" which resides around 40hz. To give you an idea what "lives" at 100hz... many of the drums, plus many orchestral instruments, and the lower end of the male human voice is there, and the low E guitar string is actually below 100hz.... maybe that helps to give some perspective just how "high" 100hz is. I have printed this chart and it's hanging at my mixing desk for easy reference. http://www.independentrec...chart/main_display.htm To get the sound you want, it really helps to have speakers that can reproduce the freqs and yeah... it might require a sub. I added a sub to my studio and have never regretted it.
My website & music: www.herbhartley.com MC4/5/6/X1e.c, on a Custom DAW Focusrite Firewire Saffire Interface BMI/NSAI "Just as the blade chooses the warrior, so too, the song chooses the writer "
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kc2ine 
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 I don't have problems with 100Hz...
V-Studio 100, Sony VAIO i7 2.93GHz/ 8GB RAM, Pianoteq, Sonar X1 Studio, ezDrummer, Macbook Pro, Roland RD700GX stage piano, Yamaha Motif XS6 workstation, Rode NT-1A, AKG Perception 220
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Philip
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All: Please consider the roller skaters of the world, who must somehow benefit from your/my beatz.
G-Hacker: I have that excellent chart and I can always count on you to chime. Thank you! Of course I have to squint to see that the kick begins at 50Hz and the bass at 30/40 Hz.
Sorry to disagree on your air-movement science; it sometimes applies, but that seems over-generalized in car-world, IMHO, JMO, I-May-be-dead-wrong, etc.. See "Mike", below.
OTOH:
There are timbers, off-beats, EQs, filters, humanizations, and other creative solutions.
For example: Did you know that many engineers 'duck' kick into bass-guitars ... without using a side-chain compressor?
They copy and paste envelopes at predictable or unpredictable measure points on their bass guitars (not too time consuming).
Furthermore, their ducking envelopes may be Filters, EQ notches, etc. and neither volume nor gain reductions.
All this may occur above 100Hz.
IOWS, the whole bass-kick art is getting pretty serious these days.
Again, your thoughts are most excellent, Herb, thank you!
Mike: The 2 top notch car woofer-mid combos I 'tried' (an oblong and a round one) both acted dead below 100Hz. iows, these 'possums' are perfectly tinny creatures.
Regardless of the woofer-mid mean-flat-responses,
... my 2 subwoofers that I've experimented with ... they don't *redeem* much around 100Hz, despite their HPF, gain, & LPF adjustments. My son, Caleb, another audiophile, has validated the issue (unless my pig-headedness is contagious)
Furthermore, at 30 MPH+, my subwoofer's sound like jelly farts anyway -- lol ... as they rumble with the traffic. I doubt the sub-lows are important at >30 MPH:
1) Flexor-Munson effects +
2) Road rumble
= bad subs for my ears
Danzy III: TBH, 'our song' seems perfect in the low end (thanks to your *pristine* bass guitar); I've left off tweaking your bass (save allowing a little extra at 150-250 Hz and HPF at about 79Hz; the kick's HPF is about 40Hz (Qs = 1+/-)
I've returned 100Hz speakers (in my car) and kept the factory (Prius) ones.
IIRC your explanation of the ME, Mastering Engineer, may violate the 'Bob Katz Principle'; namely that a perfect mix doesn't necessarily need an ME (page 109, of Mastering Audio).
But, I agree that the 'Bob Katz Principle' is invalid anyway, even by his own admission that mastering itself is an art and science (cover page, Mastering Audio). IOWs, a good mix begs a good ME (the Philip Principle I suppose).
You can be reasonably sure that after an ME gets done with a mix, the host-producer may attempt to try similar experiments with Ozone4 or the LL Maximizer to learn from that ME ... especially if the bass-line suddenly rules with great vengence. :)
Now, the WWW is full of techniques to balance kick and bass (which I scourged last night) ... and is worthy of past and future threads ... as the bass-kick art continues to rule our world. (IMHO, JMO)
Bat: Thank you! You've always been extremely thoughtful toward everyone ... and toward my freaky invocations and provocations, lol.
I'll take your artful suggestions and science to heart, especially narrowing my reduction and filter Q's. I've been afraid of MBC's but will consider them per you.
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bitflipper
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Think about where most factory-installed car woofers are situated: in door cavities or in the dashboard. Now picture the volume of air available behind the speaker. If you know anything about speaker enclosure design you'll see why low frequencies are impossible to reproduce in most cars without throwing a sub into the trunk. Imagine a bass player showing up at a gig with a 4"-deep bass cabinet!
Manufacturers try to compensate for this by incorporating a bass boost into the amplifier, the frequency of which is matched to the lower limits of the speakers. That usually ends up being right around 100-120Hz. Consequently, you get exaggerated levels at that frequency. This is intended to give the illusion of good bass response even though there's absolutely nothing happening below ~80Hz.
We all take measurements of our studios so as to help distinguish between weaknesses in the mix versus weaknesses in the playback system and room. So it only makes sense that if you're going to use your car stereo as a reference (and don't we all?) you'll need to measure it, too.
I managed this by driving my car over the lawn and parking it next to my studio window so I could run a mic cable out the window to a boom poking in through the nearly rolled-up driver's side window. I had burned pink noise and Ethan Winer's stepped sine test onto a CD so I could play it back in the car and record it. (Of course, a Zoom H4 would have been handier and would have avoided having to drive over the lawn, but I don't own a portable recorder.)
More than just confirming what you already know - that cars don't make for reliable reference listening - it will tell you specifically where it's lying to you.
 All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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Danny Danzi
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Philip
Danzi III: TBH, 'our song' seems perfect in the low end (thanks to your *pristine* bass guitar); I've left off tweaking your bass (save allowing a little extra at 150-250 Hz and HPF at about 79Hz; the kick's HPF is about 40Hz (Qs = 1+/-)
I've returned 100Hz speakers (in my car) and kept the factory (Prius) ones.
IIRC your explanation of the ME, Mastering Engineer, may violate the 'Bob Katz Principle'; namely that a perfect mix doesn't necessarily need an ME (page 109, of Mastering Audio).
But, I agree that the 'Bob Katz Principle' is invalid anyway, even by his own admission that mastering itself is an art and science (cover page, Mastering Audio). IOWs, a good mix begs a good ME (the Philip Principle I suppose).
You can be reasonably sure that after an ME gets done with a mix, the host-producer may attempt to try similar experiments with Ozone4 or the LL Maximizer to learn from that ME ... especially if the bass-line suddenly rules with great vengence. :)
Now, the WWW is full of techniques to balance kick and bass (which I scourged last night) ... and is worthy of past and future threads ... as the bass-kick art continues to rule our world. (IMHO, JMO)
A few things to remember....part of my existence is to violate the principals of others in order to prove a few things. 1. Don't always buy into the hype you read or are sold regardless of who the person is until you have tried it and experienced it for yourself a few times. 2. What works for one man on his gear in his environment may not, and most times will not, work for you. 3. I love Bob Katz and have learned lots of stuff from him. However, the science, math and some of the aesthetics offered haven't shown me a thing nor have they become common practice in my world that has made a difference I can see or hear. 4. One man's cut, boost and Q setting may not work for you on YOUR particular instrumentation. I can't even tell you the number of mixes I've done in my time, but there is just about nothing I can do exactly the same from mix to mix unless they were recorded at the same time using the same instrumentation. When I read someone saying "I usually cut here and boost here with a Q of..." I just shake my head and smile. This only works when you use similar instrumentation, a house drum kit, your same old amp and guitar, the same guitar sim sounds, the same bass with the same front end, the same piano patch, the same voice through the same mic....and even there, you are going to make changes based on the key of the song as well as how the instrumentation was delivered. How on earth could I tell you to push 50Hz on a kick drum sound that may not need 50Hz on that particular kick? How can I tell you where to high pass a guitar that may need to be high passed at 150Hz where some guitars need to be high passed at 80Hz with a smaller Q? How can I tell you how to process a vocal when I have never heard the voice or how it was delivered or executed? How can I tell you to boost 2.5k for some bass clack on a bass guitar when it may have it already....or cut or boost 100Hz when the easy fix may be to high pass at 80Hz with a Q of 1.3? How can I tell you to use a mulitband limiter if the sounds you are working with don't need one? Do you see the method to the madness here? It's all moot, Philip. Every instrument and new mix brings on an entirely new set of things to work with. Just because a kick drum thuds doesn't mean you'd adjust the same frequency for it each time. You have to sweep through and find out where the best thud accentuation for that kick drum is. It may end up in a weird place. You may decide you WANT it in a weird place. A note on MBC's: (in my opinion only) I try not to use them unless I need to. I already have compression on just about every instrument. The MBC is a good tool when something lashes out in a certain frequency range that cannot be controlled. For example, most guys are using those low B 5 string basses. If the bass is not set up properly and the player pulls harder on that low B than all the other strings, you are going to get more in that area. You have choices though. You first have to decide if that bass is throwing out too much low end or is it just too loud when those low B's hit? If you hear it whoofing and taking over, you know the low end is the problem. So you have 2 choices...you automate and eq for those parts, or you use a multi-band compressor to control the frequency of the note that is lashing out. This is also great for high gain guitars that chug on G#, A, Bb and B notes because they are always going to leap out at you. Having the MBC control the amount of "whoomf" you get here is the best method in my opinion as well as controlling the eq a bit. But I'm always careful when using MBC's because they can also affect your mix in a bad way if you're not careful. Can I be honest with you? I'd never say this if I didn't mean it. I think you may be over-obsessing with some of this stuff. I have never heard a mix from you that made me cringe. Your stuff is always spacious, enjoyable, good amount of lows, nice mids that are never too congested, and a good balance of good high end. Sure, there have been a few little subjective things mentioned about your stuff, but I've never sat here and said "this dude just doesn't get it." So maybe take a breath, do what you do best and allow yourself to enjoy it, and then you bounce it off me or a few others to see what they think. But I do not feel you should even be worried about most of the stuff you ask about on the forums here unless you ask only to learn...not because you are having problems or issues with things. The mix we are working on right now....for as busy as it is with stuff all over, is completely audible on all counts. It's a VERY impressive mix and was that way before I got involved with it...remember that. :) -Danny
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The Maillard Reaction
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Maybe one should take some simple sine wave tones out to the car for a test.
I didn't but I just generated tones at 40Hz, 60Hz, 66Hz, and 80Hz and listened on my laptop's 3/4" diameter speakers with the sound card set to *no enhancements* and I could hear all of them... albeit it got quieter as I moved down the spectrum.
I listen to 4" full range Auratones frequently... they teach you to always include overtones on your bass voiced instruments.
I think it's incorrect to summarily indicate that a small car stereo has nothing under 100Hz or 80Hz.
There is something to work with.
best regards,
mike
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Rbh
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The whole of a car enclosure is a speaker cavity, Imagine you're listening from inside a very large EAW enclosure. Yea you might be dealing with some unconventional response nodes in there. You might be pumping 40 hz just fine while your highly resonant at 100 and you'll likely not get a decent balance with out very radical EQ....so be it..... radically EQ it.
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Philip
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RBH, Danz, Mike, and Bit, Thank you, my friends, for validating and cross-validating your meticulous takes on the 100Hz and sub-100Hz art-forms. I realize psycho-acoustics can get pretty elusive down here. 'Seems our conclusions I've frustrated ... and some R&R becomes more appropriate (per Danz). Indeed: Last night I listened to a 'pearl' from one enthused producer who was cleverly ducking his 'kick' (bass-drum) into ... a synth bass that sounded pure as pure flouresent hum (iirc, it sounded like pure pink noise). Pink noise bass-synths seem a curious artform in the hip-hop community, with ducking gaps made for incongruent kicks along with 'nasty' white noise tones for hood appeal, I suppose. It may have something to do with the Halcion (sleep inducer), Atarax (antihistamine-relaxer), and/or hydrocodone that the dentist induced on me (yesterday) ... plus the amoxicillin and my usual caffeine indulgences. ... thus inspiring 'some' of my latest manic incantations that currently vex (hopefully not troll) your way. Yeh, I don't even remember my wife driving me home from the dentist, yesterday (I'm assuming it was her). Unfortunately, again, my neurosis somehow got aggitated in-the-car, where I summarily imagined the highest orders of musical perfection climaxing around the 50-120Hz range, the Colonel's crispier EQs, uncanny bliss, and/or other metaphysical paradoxes. Fortunately: 'Haven't cut off an ear just yet. ... better let the night 'stew its brew' as some of this wears off. I also dismissed 'That Heavenly Choir' ... (to bed for those raving cynics). Well, utmost love and blessings to you all.
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bitflipper
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I just generated tones at 40Hz, 60Hz, 66Hz, and 80Hz and listened on my laptop's 3/4" diameter speakers with the sound card set to *no enhancements* and I could hear all of them If you heard 40Hz out of your laptop speakers, I'm guessing what you were actually hearing was mainly overtones from harmonic distortion in the laptop's amplifier. Try the same test but put a microphone where your ears were and then use SPAN to see the frequency distribution. Bear in mind that the threshold of perception at 40Hz is 50dbSPL and at music listening levels it needs to be up around 80dbSPL or more.
All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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The Maillard Reaction
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Bear in mind that the microphone may have reduced perception at 40Hz as well. ;-)
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The Maillard Reaction
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bitflipper
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Is that waveform what you recorded from the laptop speakers using a microphone? Yep, there is some 40Hz in there... 
All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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batsbrew
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it is hard to imagine a laptop speaker being able to genereate 40hz
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The Maillard Reaction
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I just held a Tascam DR-05 digital recorder near one of the speakers for a minute or so and picked out a portion to upload.
On my install of Adobe Audition the hump at 40 Hz seemed more pronounced while viewing the frequency response instantaneously. Is that graph an averaged-over-time response?
The source of the sound was a pure sine wave at 40 Hz so as suggested a large portion of what we actually hear are the overtones as visible in bitflipper's screen shot... but as noted there is a fundamental tone present as well and the microphones on the Tascam recorder heard them.
FWIW, the sound card has "all enhancements" turned off which indicates that there are no overtones purposefully added as a loudness strategy.
all the best,
mike
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bitflipper
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The screenshot is from SPAN after clicking on the Hold button at a random point during playback. I cropped the vertical scale from the image, but those are 3db gradations, making the peak at ~360Hz nearly 20db higher than the 40Hz component. I guess the lesson is "don't use your laptop speakers for mastering".
post edited by bitflipper - 2011/08/25 23:29:50
All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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batsbrew
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the 40 has to be an anomaly.
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Starise
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Scotty to Kirk aboard the Enterprise......I think we have an anomaly here Capin'. Sulu lets do a scan on that thing......OMG it IS an anomaly!! It looks like.....NO IT CAN'T BE !! Its 40HZ!!
Sorry guys ,Ive had a long week and its Friday and I'm a little goofy. I love the word anomaly lol.....Batsbrew I agree it must be an anomaly(speaking serious now).
In my Toyota,the first thing I noticed was the extreme perceived extra bass in the sound. Not sure if they somehow use the trunk because the rear speakers fire into the trunk on the back side. It was way to overbearing for me and I am always adjusting a lot of that bass out of my sound. I guess This is the bass compensation you are talking about here.
Too much bass can actually make you sick...don't ask me how I know that....years ago I built my own bass speakers with 15"woofers. They were so big that when I used them noone could sit in the back seat. When I drove those things with a 300 watt amp it literally made me sick and a little dizzy. Those days are long gone and I would like to think that I'm a little smarter than that now.....
Comments Danni made are relating directly to something I have considered. Using a preset palette of sounds and settings so that more things can be predetermined during the recording process. If I know where I'm going with a mix and its my stuff I can pre notch or pre boost things and save that. Mixing for clients has to be another thing all together.
I'm pretty certain that his comments likely relate to his seeing tons of different mixes,so you can't necessarily control things from musician to musician,band to band or mix to mix when it comes to bass EQ or anything else for that matter with a one size fits all kind of thing.Danni if I'm wrong please correct me there...
If we have a Q we can slide while listening, wouldn't listening to the sound to get a bass sweet spot be more effective than saying boost at such and such HZ or cut this freq. as an across the board rule? Maybe for those with no subwoofer a decent pair of headphones would suffice to hear the effective bass spectrum. Its funny how important bass is but also how unimportant it is at the same time. Most of the time I want it in there but I really don't want to hear it to be overly prominent.
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The Maillard Reaction
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It seems like anyone ought to be able to make their test tone and just go listen... Here's what the very same .wav file I posted for everyone looks like in Adobe Audition's frequency analysis. This image is a simple print screen copy while playing back the file so it shows an *instantaneous* response.  Please do me a big favor and click view image so you can see the graph in detail. best, mike
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Starise
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I have seen some pretty good bass ports in some laptops and Adobe audition doesn't lie as far as I know. Maybe the lower freqs work better in Florida :)
I know this was a fairly serious discussion and I am here making things worse....I'll defer to someone else who wants to make a comment thats serious.
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Philip
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Mike: the "image" (graph) looks self-explanatory and I can't find the "view image" to click. It looks like a typical-classical wave snapshot of multiple instruments that are well knit.
Starise, We are all diverging here; your words are always excellent. 100Hz means a lot of things to a lot of artists.
As a crony skater/dancer, I agree that prolonged bass causes ear fatigue, much like the upper mids (3.5 khz) and highs (5+ kHz).
Fortunately, you/I can weave micro-beatz (in the DAW) and create macro-rests (like 8 measures) where there's less thumping while keeping the low end alive ... allowing the ears 'recovery' for the next rumble.
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The Maillard Reaction
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bitflipper
The screenshot is from SPAN after clicking on the Hold button at a random point during playback. I cropped the vertical scale from the image, but those are 3db gradations, making the peak at ~360Hz nearly 20db higher than the 40Hz component. I guess the lesson is "don't use your laptop speakers for mastering".
It occurs to me that you mat be using a smaller FFT window... and that there may be a lack of detail being reported in the lower frequencies. You may see that I was a using a setting of 8192. best regards, mike
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bitflipper
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Actually, a too-small FFT window would only affect low-frequency representation if it were so short as to not encompass a full cycle of the waveform. A window of 6 cycles (8192 samples) would yield the same breakdown as a single cycle (20ms) window.
That's really not the story here, though. The significance is the amount of harmonic distortion, which is large enough to guarantee that even very low-frequency signals will always be heard - but mostly only indirectly, through their harmonics.
Philip said "It looks like a typical-classical wave snapshot of multiple instruments that are well knit". Good observation. Except that it's not multiple instruments, it's a repeating waveform.
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batsbrew
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ok, see where you cats are going with this, i was thinking this was a capture of the audio OUTPUT off of the laptop speakers, not the source file!
LOL
ok, ok....
well, there can always be intense low end in the actual file, caused by a laundry list of things, and on playback, will swamp systems that can actually play below 40hz, AND not be in a treated room (like a car with subs)
you have to decide when mastering the file, where your rolloff (if any) is going to occur, and you have to decide during MIXING, how much low end info you really want to put in there... by creative use of HPF and really good tracking skills and decisions.
without HPF on my bass tracks, for example, i've got info down to 25hz that's just killing.
i HPF on both the track and the buss it's routed to.
but typically, if you're really watching your individual tracks along the way, you'll KNOW if you're going to have buildup, and where it's going to be, and how to deal with it and not lose the nice stuff.
this it the part of MIXING, that takes so long to get good at.
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D.J. ESPO
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I read this thread shortly after a visit to the tech papers and articles at Genelec............ This paper shows lots of nice testing that may be related to the OP's problems ( Give or take a few hz!!) I vote with the flipper ..... Check that monitoring ... If your mixing to a less than accurate signal from your monitors ; well then ................... http://www.genelecusa.com/documents/publications/aes117th.pdf Summary statistics of the upward deviations found in the frequency range 100–250 Hz for the 89 loudspeaker magnitude responses are shown in Table 2."
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D.J. ESPO
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This effect would be expected in any conventional direct radiating two-way design mounted in such a way, as it occurs below 250 Hz where loudspeakers of this size are relatively omni-directional
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The Maillard Reaction
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Bat says: "was thinking this was a capture of the audio OUTPUT off of the laptop speakers" Yes, that is exactly what it is. The wav file is from a microphone recording the output of my little 1"+/- laptop speakers. That is 40 Hz coming straight out of the 1" speakers and I suspect that this demonstration can be reproduced and confirmed by anyone who sticks a mic on a speaker.
Bit says: "Actually, a too-small FFT window would only affect low-frequency representation if it were so short as to not encompass a full cycle of the waveform. A window of 6 cycles (8192 samples) would yield the same breakdown as a single cycle (20ms) window." I think we both know that you know how FFT works and I just sort of kinda know :-) ... so I'm gonna let the picture explain what I'm trying to say:  This is the same tone being analyzed with SPAN at two different resolution levels. It shows that the more detail analysis reveals that the 40 Hz tone is clearly articulated and not just an ambiguous mush as perhaps suggested by the lower resolution analysis. Dave, you are right... they do say the same thing... but to an untrained eye the high res analysis tells a more complete story and in my opinion serves as a more suitable illustration to demonstrate that there is indeed a 40 HZ tone being produced by the speakers. The point is... people think it is simply impossible... and yet it can very easily be demonstrated that it actually occurs. all the best, mike
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