Maybe this belongs in a new thread, but there seems to be a fairly limited interest in reggae bass on this board so I'll post it here where those that feel it can see it.
Do many of you feel the way I do, mainly that bass in traditional styles of reggae really has to be freaking loud to come into its own?
Since my teens I've been attending Sound Systems and reggae concerts, and one of the main things that got me hooked was the sheer power and direct emotional response i get from bass that is so high in the mix and amplified so heavily.
IMO a main feature of well recorded and live reggae bass is its inherent ability to sound great at unfeasibly high SPLs. I can't imagine being able to stand, never mind glory in, a bass tone that had too hard mids or untamed highs at the levels commonly heard in the genre. Also, the arrangements and mix of a typical reggae ensemble allows the bass (and all the instruments except commonly the bubbling organ) to be heard very cleanly and distinctly, even with a big band with horns and percussion. There are very few other genres that give the bass this freedom and prominence, more power to reggae!
There is something about the transformative power of extremely loud bass that is hard to explain but I imagine obvious to most reggae fans and players, mainly that level when the bass stops just being notes and becomes closer to what I think of as architecture. It's like the pure rhythmic power and intensity of drums but held longer, and there is such a visceral solidity to each note that it seems the whole room is transformed and becomes wed to the each note. No other frequency band is experienced in quite the same way, IMO, and it is this that makes it so fascinating.
The other interesting phenomenon is how directly an emotional response super loud bass can cause in a listener. No other instrument seems to have this strong an emotional effect, nor lends the player the same power to control an audience's emotions.
And most of that musically and emotionally useful power seems to reside in the low mids, we seemed tuned to it.
Just throwing some things long considered thoughts out there, feel free to shoot me down or big me up!
