One full octave below BEAD tuning

[HaphAsSard]

This was discussed before (a missing fundamental harmonic), and I think it’s not so much that it sounds the same, or that your brain fills in the missing fundamental. It’s more like the note is recognizable even if the fundamental is missing.

So, a low E0 sounds like the same note even if the fundamental is missing, and not like the note E1 an octave up, due to the intervals on the harmonics. However it’s timbre is different, thinner or more tinny, when the fundamental is missing. It is surprising though, since you might think that an E0 with the fundamental missing would sound the same as the E1.

I listened to a bunch of YouTube “missing fundamental” demonstrations to convince myself……

A fundamental-less E0 "note" (as in, a bundle of specific partials, namely E1-B1-E2-G#2-B2-D3-E3 ...) does sound different from an E1 "note" precisely because the latter's harmonic makeup is different (as evident from the first two-octave chunk, i.e. E1-E2-B2-E3 and...that's it).
Specifically, the former sounds an octave below: it gets its pitch assigned by the brain to "E0", and the brain does fill in a missing fundamental, triangulating where to place it from the pitch intervals between the partials it actually hears.
Our noggin is capable of playing us this trick at any register, of course. Ask someone to whistle a held note (better if in the lowest register of whistling this person is capable of, with the tongue in the "oo" position - it is a tone reasonably close to a sine wave), then add a whistled note a perfect fifth above: in my experience, a virtual fundamental an octave below the other person's note immediately appears.

 

[Jonny Reese]

I studied organ before bass and there are many pipe organs that can go down to 16 Hz. The pipes that make those low notes don't have the shortcomings loudspeakers do, so the effect is truly thrilling. Notes that low are not perceived as "musical" by most people, but they sure are dramatic and augment the subharmonic of the fundamental.

But I see no use for it in popular music.

 

[BarfanyShart]

I've said it before, but an EUB is a pretty great platform to experiment with the crazy low stuff. 40-42" scale standard, and piezos are better at picking up the low frequencies than mags. You don't have to sweat intonating the thing either.

 

[Lenny JG]

Yes people do it, yes it makes sense to do it. People forget you aren't playing a some wave, you're playing a bass guitar that resonates multiple frequencies when you strike a note. The bigger the string and lower the fundamental, the less high frequencies you have. I play a full octave below standard E, and have had to go lower, and know guys that go much lower.
If you want to get the fundamental you'd need a servo or a tapped horn subwoofer.

Don't listen to the people asking why or saying it doesn't make sense. They haven't tried it, guaranteed.

 

[Passinwind]

I've said it before, but an EUB is a pretty great platform to experiment with the crazy low stuff. 40-42" scale standard, and piezos are better at picking up the low frequencies than mags. You don't have to sweat intonating the thing either.

Yep. If you look through the long waterfall analysis thread one of the first posts shows harmonic content of my BSX EUB. “Bass is all harmonics” ain’t necessarily always so, not by a long shot.

 

[eddododo]

I’ve actually been trying even lower, approx 8hz- specifically it’s playing 16th notes at 120bpm

 

[definenredefine]

At least we found your new amp. View attachment 4848703

 

[definenredefine]

I'm using extreme low tunings in a progressive grunge band.

Sounds interesting. Do y'all have a bandcamp or what have you?

 

[Lenny JG]

Oh also, even if your cab can't reproduce the fundamental it will STILL sound an octave lower, because of psychoacoustics and how we perceive sound when high frequencies are taken away. So don't think that people saying your cab won't be able to do it are correct and don't think you have to have some crazy low frequency response. It'll sound right no matter what really. Again they just haven't tried it.

 

[Doug4321]

It doesn’t do much in my headphones:

 

[ga_edwards]

It doesn’t do much in my headphones:

It won't becuase it's a clean sine wave - effectively just the fundamental. A bass guitar string tuned to 15hz is not a sine wave and has other harmonics which you do hear.

 

[Lenny JG]

It won't becuase it's a clean sine wave - effectively just the fundamental. A bass guitar string tuned to 15hz is not a sine wave and has other harmonics which you do hear.

EXACTLY

 

[5StringBlues]

And I just want to chime in that you made me imagine elephants dancing and now my day is much better.

 

[Doug4321]

It won't becuase it's a clean sine wave - effectively just the fundamental. A bass guitar string tuned to 15hz is not a sine wave and has other harmonics which you do hear.

Oh yeah I knew that!

 

[eddododo]

Oh also, even if your cab can't reproduce the fundamental it will STILL sound an octave lower, because of psychoacoustics and how we perceive sound when high frequencies are taken away. So don't think that people saying your cab won't be able to do it are correct and don't think you have to have some crazy low frequency response. It'll sound right no matter what really. Again they just haven't tried it.

Yeah totally, because our tendency to hear the first harmonic over the root means that is doesn’t matter at all if the fundamental is present. That’s why bass amps don’t even bother reproducing anything below like 300z



guys, 15hz is a playable rhythm

“It’ll sound right no matter what really”

just .. what ? then why are we stopping at 15hz then? Clearly for the arms race in downtuned metal the logical conclusion is for everyone to just tune to .00001 hz, right? Or maybe more to the point, if it just sounds right and everyone’s being dramatic, then why… why is it even a conversation? Clearly this is testable and the results would be pretty easy to parse; oh, that’s right, a ton of people have tried to push the low-tuning boundaries for decades, and it has remained, regardless of elaborate hybrid setups with subwoofers, that most people simply find that it stops working below a certain point, especially with a vibrating string.

will it sound like something? Sure!
Do people really miss the boat by thinking that the fundamental is more important and audible than it is? You bet! Does that mean that ‘oh as low as you want works just fine, it will sound just like every other note’? Bro, no, no it does not

 

[Lenny JG]

Yeah totally, because our tendency to hear the first harmonic over the root means that is doesn’t matter at all if the fundamental is present. That’s why bass amps don’t even bother reproducing anything below like 300z



guys, 15hz is a playable rhythm

“It’ll sound right no matter what really”

just .. what ? then why are we stopping at 15hz then? Clearly for the arms race in downtuned metal the logical conclusion is for everyone to just tune to .00001 hz, right? Or maybe more to the point, if it just sounds right and everyone’s being dramatic, then why… why is it even a conversation? Clearly this is testable and the results would be pretty easy to parse; oh, that’s right, a ton of people have tried to push the low-tuning boundaries for decades, and it has remained, regardless of elaborate hybrid setups with subwoofers, that most people simply find that it stops working below a certain point, especially with a vibrating string.

will it sound like something? Sure!
Do people really miss the boat by thinking that the fundamental is more important and audible than it is? You bet! Does that mean that ‘oh as low as you want works just fine, it will sound just like every other note’? Bro, no, no it does not

You clearly have never tried it. People def go lower. That's fine but don't tell people who have done it and are around people who do it as a norm that they're wrong. I'm right and no amount of philosophizing you'll do will make me wrong. Have a better day.

 

[johnh89]

Overthinking this a bit chaps . Try it and see if it has musical value to you . A practical demonstration of some of my more 'outlandish' ideas is worth way more than someone telling me that it was a dumb idea in the first place .

 

[eddododo]

You clearly have never tried it. People def go lower. That's fine but don't tell people who have done it and are around people who do it as a norm that they're wrong. I'm right and no amount of philosophizing you'll do will make me wrong. Have a better day.

I literally have an amp setup where I welded together a cart to carry the subwoofer /cab/amp to do my synth / bass setup. I’m pretty familiar. Maybe you just sound bad and don’t realize it?

be blessed! Have the day you deserve!

 

[Lenny JG]

I literally have an amp setup where I welded together a cart to carry the subwoofer /cab/amp to do my synth / bass setup. I’m pretty familiar. Maybe you just sound bad and don’t realize it?

be blessed! Have the day you deserve!

That has nothing to do w/ what I said, and then you decided to insinuate I might sound bad because I state that you haven't tried playing a bass tuned this low. What a joke. Don't have a better day on second thought. And please go find a conversation you fit into better.

 

[NigeJ]

Tried it for a few months, but only with an octave down pedal. Used a 2x15 mesa rig. Soundwise, bit like a fart in a wind tunnel. Never really sat well in a mix with seven and eight string guitars, even when properly mixed live or in a studio.