Having it, wanting it and needing it are all entirely different things.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Frequency response
- Thread starter 2strings2frets
- Start date
I will correct the fellow engineers on one point...
While it is complex and hard to do ABSOLUTE and accurate loudspeaker measurements, it is not that complicated or expensive to do good RELATIVE measurements. So you can do a proper evaluation of A vs B. Room problems etc will influence both test subjects equally.
Having a stable and clean signal source, well performing amplification, and good logging/recording gear is not impossible. Recording and analyzing your results is definitely doable.
The toughest requirement is to LEARN what to do, and how to do it.
But that goes for many things in life...
While it is complex and hard to do ABSOLUTE and accurate loudspeaker measurements, it is not that complicated or expensive to do good RELATIVE measurements. So you can do a proper evaluation of A vs B. Room problems etc will influence both test subjects equally.
Having a stable and clean signal source, well performing amplification, and good logging/recording gear is not impossible. Recording and analyzing your results is definitely doable.
The toughest requirement is to LEARN what to do, and how to do it.
But that goes for many things in life...
And it's for this reason why I've always loved the sound quality my rig produced when playing outdoors. And why the worst experiences have been in a small dance studio and a fully glazed orangery.
This discussion should include the Wall of Sound that Phil Lesh played through in 1973 and 1974. I was a young audiophile at that time and experienced it two or three times. It was a "blue sky" project that was difficult to tour with but was unique and thrilling to hear, like hearing a massive pipe organ in person.
I love hearing the big subs push 40hz or whatever elephant frequency is hot for the day at outdoor festivals. But more often than not, most of my gigs take place in rooms that simply would sound like a$$ with that much low end information. There’s a reason why HPF’s are a useful tool.
One thing which you need to understand is that when you play a note on bass guitar, there is not only one frequency-there are multiple frequencies contained in that sound.
The following link will lead you to an article which explains it clearly...including the "Missing fundamental effect".
The Harmonic Series and Timbre | StudyBass
Do not worry about your cab not being able to reproduce your bass' fundamental. You don't need it to...
A bass rig which is flat down to 30Hz might be a nice thing on its own.
But in case it is used together with FOH, it may become a nightmare because of the competing low frequencies. IME, YMMV
Any bass rig does the same thing, regardless of the bandwidth of it. Ampless is how you sound good in the audience.
Point taken, and it’s a nice speech for anyone who uses their gear in anechoic chambers. And yes, I understand boundary interference – measurements taken in different rooms, or even outdoors, will look different. In fact, I did take some outdoor measurements (although not in a hay field, as I don’t have one readily available), and while they did look much different, upper and lower extension were virtually the same.
Which was the point of my post.
However, the indoor measurements shown are a good representation of what I actually hear from these cabinets. In the real world. Where I use them. As well as the differences I hear between them.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Pedulla Club #45 Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Administrator, Official Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
My Rig: Stage and FOH Friendly
Pedulla Club #45
You said a bass cab could cause problems if it went down to 30 Hz. I'm saying it causes problems even if it only goes down to 60.
We are talking about bass cabs, and one of the unavoidable issues with them is, if you're going through a cabinet AND a PA, you have multiple sources of low frequency energy. As you move around in the audience, the sound at low frequencies will vary a lot, because of constructive and destructive interference - a wavelength at 60 Hz is 18 feet long - if you walk around the audience very half wavelength (9 feet) you'll go from a maximum to a minimum - at that frequency, your sound is going up and down a lot. Every frequency has its own wavelength, so every where you have ups and downs all over the place.
If you remove one of the sources (the PA or the bass cabinet) this situation gets better - not infinitely better, as there are still standing waves if you're inside, but the gist of this is, if you want your bass to sound good in the audience, using a bass cabinet OR a PA (but NOT both) will help considerably. Whether the cabinet goes down to 60 Hz, 50 Hz, 40 Hz, or 30 Hz, the same general rules apply.
I see. I agree with you. My experience is that the lower the bass cab goes, the bigger (or more likely) the issues are though.
The studies are mis-applied a lot. They were done many years ago, and used to justify telephone systems which lop off the fundamentals of the human voice. What they show is that, if you ear hears the harmonic series of a note, without its fundamental, your ear/brain combo is smart enough to figure out what note you're playing/singing/speaking - Fred will sound pretty much like Fred on the phone, even without some of the "notes" he's putting out. What they do NOT show is that it sounds the same as if the fundamental is present.
Any of us that have a bass with a pronounced dead spot know that taking away the fundamental of a note changes it character - when you have a dead spot, you have a note where the fundamental drops out quickly - the overtones hang on for quite a while (assuming round wound strings). Can you tell that the fundamental goes away? Of course you can - it sounds and feels far different than if the fundamental hangs in there. If you play a lower note, does that change things a lot? Not really.
You don't need to reproduce the fundamentals of your lowest notes to have the audience hear that you are playing a particular note. If you want to have them feel the note with impact, you absolutely need to reproduce that fundamental. If this wasn't true, tours would not carry subwoofers - they're big, heavy, and expensive to ship around - they justify that expense by the impact they provide.
Last edited:
As you go lower in frequency, the dead spots get bigger in size (the areas where it isn't dead get bigger as well - think of the sound field as a blocky plaid shirt where the pattern just gets bigger), so it may be that it's more apparent in certain circumstances, but the problem is very much there until you get to much shorter wavelengths.
Last edited:
And, an even better speech for those that overlay an imaginative and incorrect technical analysis over something that they think they hear.
That is a story that no one can beat
To think that I heard it on Talkbass Street.
- Feb 12, 2006
- 60,961
- 5
- 220,646
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
That’s the entire point though, room conditions don’t affect both samples equally, the interference pattern from the reflections can make large differences by moving either the source or measurement mic by a very small amount, and this varies by frequency.
RTA doesn't provide anything about excursion, only energy/frequency. You can download software like Room EQ Wizard and see this as well as the time component in a 'waterfall' plot, though.
