N00b question about frequency response and hearing bass

[SomeHoser]

TL;dr: How far below a speaker's published frequency response range can I go and still pick out the low end of a 5-string clearly?

This is largely a question about hearing bass clearly, but it's also a forward-looking question about future recording and editing. I'm not sure how much I'm overthinking this. I'm a general tech nerd but to me audio is some vague concepts and a cryptic sea of jargon, and thus I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question or words that don't mean what I think they mean.

My immediate question is about buy speakers for my PC that will let me pick bass out of recordings so that I can hear nuances and learn parts. I'm pretty sure the official model name of the speakers I have right now is Cheap & Crappy Mudslingers, and I want to replace them with something that will let me pick out 4- and 5-string bass lines. I went on a speaker shopping frenzy last night and realized that I'm missing a piece of the puzzle, and that's a practical understanding of how frequency response affects the ability to hear the bass. I understand that the sounds trails off gradually below the bottom of the published range.

I have a pair of JBL 104s on my work laptop (don't ask) with specs at 88 Hz - 20 kHz at -3 dB, and 60 Hz - 20 kHz at -10 db. I tried listening to music that used the low end of the E string extensively and the low bits were definitely not at their best. From this I conclude that I want something that has a lower range. Thus, my question-- what kind of frequency response should I be looking for if I don't want to lose the lowest part of the bass in the mud? I know I don't need to look for a range of 31 Hz to (many kHz) and probably not even 41 Hz up, but what range should I be targeting? If I can get my hands on a graph rather than just a published range how much amplitude can I lose and still get reasonably clear bass?

A second consideration is that I can easily see myself sliding into audio recording and editing in the future. Does it make sense to invest in reference speakers now or should I just grab something consumer-grade with a big enough woofer to meet my current needs and then cross the reference bridge when I get to it?

I'd be delighted to learn about factors that I'm overlooking, places where I clearly don't know what I'm talking about, or a specific "just buy these and stop thinking about it" recommendations.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

TL;dr: How far below a speaker's published frequency response range can I go and still pick out the low end of a 5-string clearly?

This is largely a question about hearing bass clearly, but it's also a forward-looking question about future recording and editing. I'm not sure how much I'm overthinking this. I'm a general tech nerd but to me audio is some vague concepts and a cryptic sea of jargon, and thus I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question or words that don't mean what I think they mean.

My immediate question is about buy speakers for my PC that will let me pick bass out of recordings so that I can hear nuances and learn parts. I'm pretty sure the official model name of the speakers I have right now is Cheap & Crappy Mudslingers, and I want to replace them with something that will let me pick out 4- and 5-string bass lines. I went on a speaker shopping frenzy last night and realized that I'm missing a piece of the puzzle, and that's a practical understanding of how frequency response affects the ability to hear the bass. I understand that the sounds trails off gradually below the bottom of the published range.

I have a pair of JBL 104s on my work laptop (don't ask) with specs at 88 Hz - 20 kHz at -3 dB, and 60 Hz - 20 kHz at -10 db. I tried listening to music that used the low end of the E string extensively and the low bits were definitely not at their best. From this I conclude that I want something that has a lower range. Thus, my question-- what kind of frequency response should I be looking for if I don't want to lose the lowest part of the bass in the mud? I know I don't need to look for a range of 31 Hz to (many kHz) and probably not even 41 Hz up, but what range should I be targeting? If I can get my hands on a graph rather than just a published range how much amplitude can I lose and still get reasonably clear bass?

A second consideration is that I can easily see myself sliding into audio recording and editing in the future. Does it make sense to invest in reference speakers now or should I just grab something consumer-grade with a big enough woofer to meet my current needs and then cross the reference bridge when I get to it?

I'd be delighted to learn about factors that I'm overlooking, places where I clearly don't know what I'm talking about, or a specific "just buy these and stop thinking about it" recommendations.

80-300hz

That's where the low end is clear enough to hear. Everything else is sub, honk, or clack.

 

[David McIntire]

I'll be honest, I started playin bass guitar in the early 80s. I had 8 Tracks, cassettes and LPs to try an learn lines on. And crappy home stereo speakers or boom box tape players. None of those old pieces had frequency responses anywhere close to today's stuff. And I could pick out every line I needed to, from Jamerson to Valory to Harris to Lee to Sheehan.

I still use crappy headphones and boom boxes, even phone speakers, and I can pick out the bass guitar lines on any an all recordings. In fact, when I was young, guys that could hear the bass lines without help were rare. It's how we knew we were bass guitarists. Not everyone can hear the bass guitar. Certainly not back then.

I looked at those early trials as ear training. I still do. That's why I still use the crappiest speakers I can find, usually my phone speaker, sometimes 5 dollar headphones, and learn songs on it. I learn a lot of material each year. Still works for me.

Bass guitar, next to a piano and the human voice, has a greater frequency range and response than many other instruments. Yes, there are lows. But, most of what we hear is the Definition of bass guitar in recordings, not it's extreme low range. What Defines bass guitar in recordings is far above a bass guitar's lowest range. I don't think there's any way my phone speaker responds below 1k, yet I can still hear the bass guitar. I don't think one needs all kinds of fancy gear to learn bass lines.

Recording might be a different story. But, as mentioned above, gear has come a LONG way in regards to overall sound quality, and in low frequency reproduction. I don't think there are any bad choices today. Especially considering where I came from. I've heard great recordings done with mediocre recording gear. Computers have helped with tone sculpting and editing, to the point I think you could save yerself some cash by going with what you can afford now. Tech being what it is, next year will have a slew of "better" options, with this year's options becoming cheaper as designs advance. Plenty of great, budget choices out there, too. It's a good time to be a bass guitarist. Compared to when I was growing up, there aren't any bad choices today.

 

[bholder]

80-300hz

That's where the low end is clear enough to hear. Everything else is sub, honk, or clack.

Disagree. I need to hear all the way to 40hz at least.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

Disagree. I need to hear all the way to 40hz at least.

Mud

 

[AGCurry]

Something not yet addressed here is the recording itself.

In recordings of Count Basie's Orchestra from the 1930s and 1940s, you will be hard pressed to discern Walter Page's double-bass lines clearly, even using audiophile equipment (a shame, because he was great). Recordings of Miles Davis in the late 1950s, Paul Chambers's bass is clear as a bell.

@David McIntire mentioned James Jamerson above. I've always had trouble hearing the details of the Fender bass (but not the double bass!) lines in early Motown records, yet bass lines from Carol Kaye or Joe Osborne or Duck Dunn - same era - seem quite clear to me. They're all great bassists, so I have to ascribe my ability to pick out the lines to the approach in the recording studio - playing, recording, mixing, and mastering.

I take the middle road when it comes to "what speakers do I need?" I don't need expensive speakers, and I don't want crappy speakers. And most of my listening for "practice" purposes is through headphones. A decent set of used near-field monitors with 6" woofers should set you back around $200 and provide all the clarity you need.

 

[bholder]

Something not yet addressed here is the recording itself.

In recordings of Count Basie's Orchestra from the 1930s and 1940s, you will be hard pressed to discern Walter Page's double-bass lines clearly, even using audiophile equipment (a shame, because he was great). Recordings of Miles Davis in the late 1950s, Paul Chambers's bass is clear as a bell.

@David McIntire mentioned James Jamerson above. I've always had trouble hearing the details of the Fender bass (but not the double bass!) lines in early Motown records, yet bass lines from Carol Kaye or Joe Osborne or Duck Dunn - same era - seem quite clear to me. They're all great bassists, so I have to ascribe my ability to pick out the lines to the approach in the recording studio - playing, recording, mixing, and mastering.

I take the middle road when it comes to "what speakers do I need?" I don't need expensive speakers, and I don't want crappy speakers. And most of my listening for "practice" purposes is through headphones. A decent set of used near-field monitors with 6" woofers should set you back around $200 and provide all the clarity you need.

I've always wondered why JJ's great basslines didn't "jump out and grab me" like others did back when I was a wee lad - great stuff, but yeah, I think the fundamentals were starved on those recordings, you're right. I mean, I grew up with all those songs and appreciated them, including the bass (always cool), but those recordings didn't quite grab me viscerally like some soon after did (the Jacks, Bruce and Casady). Never considered that studio technique / capability might be a factor. Anyway, kinda missing JJ the first time around gave me the joy of finding him again once I had some playing under my belt and could really appreciate what he was doing.

 

[bholder]

Mud

One man's mud is another man's fundamental. I gotta have it, and gotta have it clearly. (An expensive "personal taste" requirement to have, as it turns out.)

 

[sloppy_phil]

Mud

A lot of reggae producers (dub reggae, especially) would politely disagree. Some probably even not so politely! It's all about the needs of the song.

OP, this isn't *completely* related to your request, but I just opted for a pair of reference headphones over monitors as the first purchase for my home "studio" setup, and feel pretty happy about that. Super flat response, which should give you the clarity to hear the bass parts you want!

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

A lot of reggae producers (dub reggae, especially) would politely disagree. Some probably even not so politely! It's all about the needs of the song

I know bro. What she asked was, ...to clearly hear the bass parts...

You're never going to hear what the bass is doing on a system that's boosting the sub lows. It gets covered.

And, I'm in a reggae band.

 

[stigbeve]

I used to use this to figure out parts. Great clarity on the bass. Sadly it got stolen out of my garage. Lesson learned. Need to get another one.

 

[cheapbasslovin]

So, right now I am using arguably the worst things with the most benefit. I am using a little 2 x 4"speaker bluetooth unit to listen to songs and playing bass through an Ernie Ball Valve Jr through an Ashdown After 8 converted to cab duty.

Neither is very bassy, but for the classic rock things I'm listening to I'm having a much easier time picking apart the nuances than I did when I played through headphones or a dedicated bass amp.

It would appear that the super lows obscure minor imperfections while just letting the harmonics go makes them stand out much more noticeably. I would never play out or record like this, but for sorting out difficult to hear lines, this has been the best way of the handful of methods I've tried.

Edit: sorry for the sideways angle on your question

 

[Max Bogosity]

It depends whether your higher priority is that it sounds satisfying and makes your pants flap, or that you can hear and learn the parts. If it is the latter, you actually don’t need to hear the fundamental at all in order to tell what pitch the note is. Because of the Masking Effect and the human ear’s worse pitch sensitivity at very low frequencies, cutting lows can actually make it easier to detect pitch.

 

[Marc valero]

For just learning songs at home something that goes down to 80hz would work. Right now I am using a little blue tooth speaker with my cellphone to learn stuff off youtube. Years ago I had my big JBL speakers 4411 with 12 inch woofers and they were great, but they are packed away now. With a small stereo setup with decent speakers you can turn the bass EQ up at reasonable volumes and extend that low end response, but too much low eq with cheap speakers can get muddy sounding.

 

[SomeHoser]

Thank you! I appreciate the diversity of opinions.

I just did a test using the remaster of Peter Gabriel's Red Rain from YouTube, because it has some excellent B string action and listening to it a few times in a row didn't suck. I specifically paid attention to a section where the bass was mostly carrying the song (e.g. 0:45 in the video) and one where it was buried (2:35 in the video). Listening devices:

• Arctis Steelseries 3 gaming headset (I'd just finished a work meeting and had them on), spec: 20-20K Hz
• Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones, spec 8-25K Hz
• JBL 104, specs 88-20K Hz or 60-20K Hz with some dropoff

As expected, Sennheiser > Arctis > JBL. The Arctis did a little better than I would have guessed but it's really designed for gaming rather than obsessively precise audio reproduction. For all three I could pick out the bass easily enough when there wasn't as much piled on top of it and the Arctis was pretty close to the Sennheisers, and even there the JBLs were worse than the other two. In the section with a lot more in the mix there was a bigger difference between the two headsets and the JBL's were a slog through knee-deep mud.

A little bit more about me-- I started playing upright bass in the mid 70s and played orchestral and school theatre until near the end of high school... then the cello section graduated and I spent a summer learning to play and switched to it. I also played piano, woodwinds (loved bass clarinet... I've always enjoyed the low end), organ, and a few other things over the years but dabbled occasionally until recently when I decided to learn to play electric bass. I was also diagnosed with some minor hearing loss as a child though I think it was at the high end. And yes, I could just do it the hard way and gain more skill but I'm already frustrated with fingers that don't move as fast as they did a few years ago... I've learned to pick my battles wisely. Given the choice of working harder to hear music or throwing money at making it easy I'll throw the money. AGCurry's suggestion of 6" nearfield monitors was kind of what my gut was telling me. I don't need to spend a kajillion dollars to wring every last bit of perfection out of speakers but I'm happy to invest in middish-grade quality.

 

[Wasnex]

For mastering purposes you would benefit from extended lows. If the speakers are only flat to 80hz, then you can not really assess and adjust what is going on at lower frequencies.

As far as what is needed, it depends on the type of sound you want. Generally the bass guitar does not produce a strong fundamental, and what you hear is primarily the 1st overtone (octave up). Here is a relevant thread: Bass frequency/waterfall plots: what they mean to rigs | TalkBass.com

The fundamental of the low B string is around around 30hz, so you want relatively flat response down to about 60hz, so you can clearly hear the 1st overtone.

However just because bass guitar does not produce a strong fundamental, it does not mean you cannot hear the difference when you play bass through speakers with extended low frequency response.

IMHO our perception of fat bass is largely focused in the range between 60hz and about 140hz. So you can definitely create the perception of huge reggae bass without extended low frequency response. Many people think the Ampeg 810E has a huge low end, but its response is down by -3dB at 58hz, and -10dB by 40hz. AFAIK there are respected Reggae bassists who use this cab.

Another thing to consider is the bass produces some junk in the sub-bass region that is not harmonically related to the pitch of the notes. This junk eats up a lot of power and can sound unmusical, so it can be beneficial to reduce it.

 

[mrcbass]

I always use headphones when listening for bass details - I actually practice with them to spare my neighbors. Both your headphones support well below the 40hz standard open E. 20 hz would be an octave below that which will cover a standard B string and more. I use Audiotech headphones. Inexpensive and quality sound.

 

[silky smoove]

Lots of talk about monitors and their frequency response with no mention of the room and where they're placed within it, both of which will have as much if not more impact on any consumer or prosumer tier monitors than the monitors themselves. In an untreated room you're likely to have problems with intelligibility in the low end, room modes that cause exaggeration of the mid bass and lower midrange while simultaneously notching those ranges out in other parts of the spectrum, all of which is also volume dependent.

If you're going to spend the time to treat your space and learn about proper monitor placements than you absolutely should be concerned with the finer details of frequency response, port location, separate vs coaxial HF drivers, etc. If, on the other hand, you don't want to start with treatments and placement and instead would prefer to just grab some monitors for casual listening, playing along to previously recorded material and doing other non-professional tasks (which is perfectly fine) then my recommendation is always to just grab a pair of Kali LP6 or JBL 306P MKII monitors and get on with enjoying what you're doing.

 

[wiscoaster]

I think that getting wrapped up in frequency response range is missing the most important point about the bass sound experience and that's the feel of the bass audio vibrations. Clarity and fidelity of reproduction are not the same. The feel is determined by the amount of air mass that's moved back and forth through pressure variations and that hits your body and all immediate surfaces, causing them to vibrate in sympathy, and there's no way teeny tiny little PC speakers of any kind of frequency response ratings is going to duplicate that by moving enough air. A good dedicated powered subwoofer can come close to delivering feel, but usually lacks definition. IMO the only thing that's going to faithly reproduce a bass guitar audio experience in its entirety is an amp with adequate power for the size of the room driving a speaker that's large enough to move lots of air via sound pressure waves in that space, whether we're talking dedicated bass amp or we're talking audio/media system of some kind.

 

[bassbrad]

What is most important is learning to hear and listen. What you have should suffice for a beginning but a better set of studio monitors or quality headphones may certainly be in order. Getting my first set of headphones ( thanks Pop ) was a huge musical boost for learning and hearing in detail.

For many of us that Learning th Hear meant listening over AM radios, 45 rpm records or Lps on portable record players. That sharpened our skills.