am I hearing the fundamental tone or...?

[jimnto]

I just drove over 800 kilometers to buy a mesa buster bass 200 and it is heavy and I am excited! But as I plugged it in in my living room, I know it is different there than on a gig, I felt as though i wasn't really hearing the low stuff. Now this is through a 15" and maybe I needed a bigger room to make sure.

How can I make sure I even know what 42Hz sounds like?

I have been playing 30 years and I am a little freaked out I am even asking this question. In singing, I do have a little trouble hearing octaves so (maybe that is from standing near a snare drum all these years).
I am in toronto

[totallyfrozen]

I was told that it takes 8 feet for the open E string's wave to make one complete cycle. Assuming that is true, that means that you have to be 8 feet away from the speaker to hear a true E. So I'd say it is possible that you can be too close to the speaker to actually hear the frequencies accurately. Whether you need a larger room or not is for you to decide since I can't see the room.

[Mingo Sanders]

Originally Posted by totallyfrozen

I was told that it takes 8 feet for the open E string's wave to make one complete cycle. Assuming that is true, that means that you have to be 8 feet away from the speaker to hear a true E. So I'd say it is possible that you can be too close to the speaker to actually hear the frequencies accurately. Whether you need a larger room or not is for you to decide since I can't see the room.

Assuming the speed of sound is approximately 1,100 ft/sec, a 20 Hz tone wavelength is 55 feet long, and the low E at 41 Hz is about 27.5 feet long.

Both of those tones are audible in headphones.

It's hard to say why the OP's new amp doesn't have a familiar response, but it's very unlikely caused by the room, especially if the previous rig sounded normal in that same room.

[rad bassman]

when you play an open E string what you hear is not just the fundamental 42Hz,Bass frequency/waterfall plots: what they mean to rigs might explain it better

to hear your rig to its full potential i would say it should sound better in a larger room, altho i dont have any problem hearing/feeling the lows in my living room with my rig, but tbh a fEARful's lows is hard to get away from

[silky smoove]

The obvious question is: Why do you think you need to hear it in the first place?

Few rigs produce much content down that low. The majority of what people think is low end is actually at the overtone, not the fundamental.

Do you dig the sound of your new amp? If you do, then don't sweat it.

[Ric5]

Originally Posted by totallyfrozen

I was told that it takes 8 feet for the open E string's wave to make one complete cycle. Assuming that is true, that means that you have to be 8 feet away from the speaker to hear a true E. So I'd say it is possible that you can be too close to the speaker to actually hear the frequencies accurately. Whether you need a larger room or not is for you to decide since I can't see the room.

Oh my ... that myth has come back again ....

If that were true headphones would not work.

[seamonkey]

Is this just a head? Not the combo?
Does another head sound lower with the same cabinet?

Sometimes you have to turn knobs. They are not all calibrated to have equal effect at straight up.

[Papa Dangerous]

Originally Posted by Mingo Sanders

Assuming the speed of sound is approximately 1,100 ft/sec, a 20 Hz tone wavelength is 55 feet long, and the low E at 41 Hz is about 27.5 feet long.

Both of those tones are audible in headphones.

It's hard to say why the OP's new amp doesn't have a familiar response, but it's very unlikely caused by the room, especially if the previous rig sounded normal in that same room.

Your making me think!! I find this information to golden and very interesting.

[will33]

Originally Posted by rad bassman

when you play an open E string what you hear is not just the fundamental 42Hz,Bass frequency/waterfall plots: what they mean to rigs might explain it better

to hear your rig to its full potential i would say it should sound better in a larger room, altho i dont have any problem hearing/feeling the lows in my living room with my rig, but tbh a fEARful's lows is hard to get away from

+1 on the waterfall plots. There's the fundamentsl plus many, many harmonics that make up the tone.

OP, there's a lot of people who may have never heard the fundamental of their low notes. Except for a very damn few, bass cabs don't play that low. What we hear as deep bass maybe 60hz, more like 80. I make my bass cabs to sound nice and deep, like there's no lack of bottom end,...they're all falling off in the 50's. If you go to a concert and basically fight your way to the front and sit on top of a big subwoofer......the bass you can feel as much as hear.....that's getting close to the fundamental. And even then, the bass will be passed higher than 40hz.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Here we go again...

Yet another +1 for the waterfall plots.



As for recognising/hearing the fundamental freqency, do this:

Download a freeware frequency generator of some sort, WinISD for example has one.

Buy/make a 1/4"->1/8" plug adapter or a cord.

Plug Your rig to the computer.

Experiment.

Be amazed of what really isn't there as far as your rig is concerned.


BE WARNED THOUGH: Start from comfortable (volumewise) settings from around 400 Hz or so. That way You won't over excurse Your speaker that easily when you hit the lower frequencies, or scare the bejeesus out of the involuntary "spectators" if you start low and work your way up without adjusting the volume.

WATCH THE CONE MOVEMENT CLOSELY. You don't want to destroy your speaker, now do you?

Regards
Sam

[dalahorse]

Originally Posted by Papa Dangerous

Your making me think!! I find this information to golden and very interesting.

While you're visualizing the sine wave, also visualize the sound as pulses. That may help. I'm not formally trained in physics, so this is about as good of an explanation as I can provide. But I do hope it helps!

The the original poster:

Other things to consider are EQ and positioning. The sound of your cab will change as you move it around the room. Corners will sound different than backed against a wall or in the center of the room. It will sound different in big rooms and small rooms, as every room reflects, absorbs, and resonates differently. Every stage or practice space may require slight positioning and EQ modifications to keep the sound consistent to what you want to hear.

Once you have the position figured out, run up and down your bass' neck chromatically. When you find a range of frequencies that the room amplifies or absorbs, make minor tweeks to your amp's EQ settings.

With all of that, few rooms provide optimal sonic qualities. There will almost always be an element of compromise that goes into your sound, unfortunately.

[jimnto]

Thanks for the fabulous discussion. This amp is heavy and my SWR 4X10 is heavy and the mesa boogie bass 400+ is heavy but after running the NCH tone generator through my bass amp I got very very strange and interesting results. Very interesting. And I am going to have to compare and try out my other amps.

Somewhere arounf 90-92 I got a wierd overtone doubling and then I got some notes below that but I am thinking the fundamental was not well produced. Perhaps it is the audio of my laptop and now I need to go and analyse the output of my computer.

Thanks for all the input. If I could think of a way of sharing the frequency response from the output of my amp I would be glad to.

Very interesting. Is there a free (good) spectrum analyser out there?

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Originally Posted by jimnto

Very interesting. Is there a free (good) spectrum analyser out there?

I remember using Spectralab or something like that back in the day, but I'm not sure whether it was free or "free" .

Couldn't get it working like I wanted though, the noise floor on the hardware was too high to make any repeatable measurements.

Regards
Sam

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by dalahorse

While you're visualizing the sine wave, also visualize the sound as pulses. That may help. I'm not formally trained in physics

I am, and this is what happens when you hear something: your eardrums react to changes in air pressure. You don't need to be any distance from the source for your eardrums to feel that pressure.
OP, the responses with respect to the waterfall plots are correct. If they're difficult to understand this thread might help. The good stuff is on the second page:
BillFitzmaurice.info - View topic - Spectrum Analysis

[Bassamatic]

Listening on headphones is not the same as listening to speakers in an acoustic environment. The diaphragm of the headphones couples directly to your eardrum moving the eardrum back and forth.

What happens when you move the headphones even a short distance from your ear? You lose the mechanical coupling and the bass disappears.

[SactoBass]

This is kinda fun to play with. It is a tone generator at various frequencies...

Equal loudness contours and audiometry - Test your own hearing

...and you'll notice that you don't have to be 30 feet away from your computer speakers to hear the 45 hertz tone. The notion that you have to be at least one full wavelength away from the source in order to hear that frequency is nonsense.

[Mingo Sanders]

Originally Posted by Bassamatic

Listening on headphones is not the same as listening to speakers in an acoustic environment. The diaphragm of the headphones couples directly to your eardrum moving the eardrum back and forth.

What happens when you move the headphones even a short distance from your ear? You lose the mechanical coupling and the bass disappears.

The speed of sound in headphones is approximately 1,100 feet/sec. A 20 Hz tone wavelength in headphones is 55 feet long, and a 41 Hz tone wavelength in headphones is approximately 27.5 feet long. The headphone diaphragm does not touch the eardrum. There is no mechanical coupling. The headphone diaphragm moves air. 90 db SPL from headphones is exactly the same SPL as 90 db SPL from speakers.

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by Bassamatic

Listening on headphones is not the same as listening to speakers in an acoustic environment. The diaphragm of the headphones couples directly to your eardrum moving the eardrum back and forth.

What happens when you move the headphones even a short distance from your ear? You lose the mechanical coupling and the bass disappears.

The diaphragm does not couple to your eardrums, it moves air just like any speaker does. Bass response is full due to cabin gain, which gives up to a 12dB/octave increase in SPL starting where the longest room dimension is 1/2 wavelength long. The 'room' contained between the headphone and eardrum being so small that cabin gain starts up around 3kHz. But for cabin gain to exist the 'room' must be tight. When the earphones are moved and the seal is no longer tight cabin gain is lost, and the bass along with it.

[B-string]

Originally Posted by jimnto

Thanks for the fabulous discussion. This amp is heavy and my SWR 4X10 is heavy and the mesa boogie bass 400+ is heavy but after running the NCH tone generator through my bass amp I got very very strange and interesting results. Very interesting. And I am going to have to compare and try out my other amps.

Somewhere arounf 90-92 I got a wierd overtone doubling and then I got some notes below that but I am thinking the fundamental was not well produced. Perhaps it is the audio of my laptop and now I need to go and analyse the output of my computer.

Thanks for all the input. If I could think of a way of sharing the frequency response from the output of my amp I would be glad to.

Very interesting. Is there a free (good) spectrum analyser out there?

I believe it was Johnk_10 that posted a link to Visual Analyser 2011? Send him a PM.

Sorry it was fdeck Visual Analyser 2011 XE

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Originally Posted by Bassamatic

Listening on headphones is not the same as listening to speakers in an acoustic environment. The diaphragm of the headphones couples directly to your eardrum moving the eardrum back and forth.

What happens when you move the headphones even a short distance from your ear? You lose the mechanical coupling and the bass disappears.

Pneumatic may be the term You're referring to, not mechanical?

There are mechanical coupled "headphones" as well, but only as hearing aids AFAIK. The coupling is to the skull then, not to the eardrum.


BFM's explanation is way closer to the reality though.

A strong pneumatic coupling often does more harm than good unless both the driving diapraghm and the driven diapraghm are of the same size, the frequency response in the cylinder isn't frequency dependent, etc.

Regards
Sam