4 ms·

The issue with those ultra-deep frequencies is that the waves become really long and the acoustics to make them behave become increasingly unwieldy the lower yo

by atoav 4y ago

The issue with those ultra-deep frequencies is that the waves become really long and the acoustics to make them behave become increasingly unwieldy the lower you go. Dampening a the 9.8 meter long wave of a 35 Hz tone is already hard, dampening a ~19 meter long 18Hz wave mist be pretty much impossible. The only thing more amazing than loud low bass is bone dry loud low bass that starts and stops precisely.

JohnBooty 4y ago
The only thing more amazing than loud low bass is bone dry loud low bass Bone dry sounds awesome. My frustration with rock venues is that there's usually lots of bass, but it's super sloppy. Everything below ~80hz sounds like a giant audio sludgeball. I feel like even a little bit of tuning and room correction (the sort one can do at home with freeware and a $89 calibrated microphone) would help tremendously, but there's no appetite for that on the part of concertgoers or sound techs. I'm glad there are dance venues getting this right.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  That sounds like something I could do for my own loungeroom. I mean, I have no fancy gear but it seems like a process to make the best of what I have. For the cost of a decent microphone it could be worth it.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    The gist of it is: - get a calibrated mic - use REW (Room EQ Wizard, free) to take several measurements in your room, in the listening area(s) - REW will average them and generate an inverse EQ curve to compensate - you can export the parametric EQ settings and use them anywhere that supports parameteric EQ such as EqualizerAPO (windows, free) or CoreAudio parametric EQ units (Mac, free) or in a standalone hardware device like the MiniDSP (~$100 IIRC) you can always tweak the parametric EQ curve to suit your personal taste, like some extra bass or extra treble to compensate for aging ears (like mine) have fun and good luck!
    - _carbyau_ 4y ago
      I have already played with EqualizerAPO in the past and it surprised me with how capable it was. As you seem to have intuited, I am in beginner territory and that "gist of it" overview is all I needed. My HTPC/Steam machine will get a calibration in the near future! Thank you very much for helping me to help myself to improve listening experience.
    - icelancer 4y ago
      Wow, thanks for the quick writeup. I think I'll give this a shot at work where we have audio/video equipment for presentations and the like.
      - JohnBooty 4y ago
        Good luck! Corporate meeting rooms tend to be a bit of a worst case scenario for sound. The absolute worst case scenario for sound is an empty rectangular (or cube) shaped room with bare walls and most corporate meeting rooms come pretty close to this. However, you can still make some improvements.
        icelancer 4y ago
        Yeah, foam deadening has gone a long way for us to reduce echo and other issues over Zoom, along with many directional mics condensed into a mixer. I am a bit of a stickler with sound quality over conference calls, so anything to improve it is very interesting to me.
    - kimburgess 4y ago
      REW is an excellent piece of software. You may be able to make some improvements for a single listing positioning, but just a heads up that you can't EQ away room level issues. From their own (again excellent) help guide: https://www.roomeqwizard.com/help/help_en-GB/html/iseqtheanswer.html https://www.roomeqwizard.com/help/help_en-GB/html/iseqtheans...
      - JohnBooty 4y ago
- regpertom 4y ago
  Hey stemming from this is a lot of talk of eq and rooms. I hope no one minds but may I also add something for budding sound techs: mics and speakers and why it’s easier for a dance venue compared to a live rock venue. These are what I’d call newbie-ish problems so forgive me if you’re talking about pro level rock venues. Low end builds up on stage and unless managed gets into mics you don’t want it to leading to lots of sloppy bass. One might low cut mics that aren’t meant to be receiving low end content for example or mute ones not in use. Another thing is that producing bass frequencies requires the speaker diaphragm to move more air and so there’s a slower transient response or time to complete a cycle. If you send too many different things at once to the low end the poor thing gets ‘confused’ and things get sloppy. Double hangs seem to be getting quite popular for this reason, less instruments fighting over the same cycle. Otherwise don’t send everything you can to the sub just because you can. Personally, unless there’s some reason to, I rarely let anything go below 80 anyway and defs not 60. I hate giving advice, tell me how I’m wrong.
- timc3 4y ago
  Room correction rarely can get as good a result as actually sorting out the room, particularly at concert/club levels.
- kimburgess 4y ago
  It sounds like you frequent some questionable venues. You'd be hard pressed to find many live sound engineers operating today that won't be working with a dual channel RTA (Smaart, or similar) and keeping an eye on the venue's transfer function during a gig as the acoustics change (different crowds, temperature etc).
w_for_wumbo 4y ago
I'm curious, if these waves aren't heard, is there much need to dampen them? Are we talking about to reduce the physical effects on those around, or is there a mechanism that makes these audible at some point?
- regpertom 4y ago
  The article is talking between 8 and 37hz, iirc. General given hearing range is 20hz to 20khz. So the vlf is flirting with that range. Throwing in an aside here, inaudible might be a better word than undetectable. I was always told just because you can’t hear it doesn’t mean you can’t feel it, for both high and low end. As for why you might want to dampen inaudible low end aside from a fastidious want for control, or not wanting a build up of that feeling only for some lucky punters, you might just not want to shake a ceiling tile loose or a vibrating air duct might be annoying: there is more energy in the low end.
- tibbon 4y ago
  Without damping them you get a few problems around standing waves and room modes. Those modes will make it so that you have some areas in the room where that frequency will be uncomfortably loud, and other areas where it goes away entirely.
tibbon 4y ago
Works at somewhere like Burning Man where there's little to have standing waves against.
kimburgess 4y ago
This is one of the factors that make decently large, remote outdoor electronic events (bush doofs etc) such an experience. There's no better way to enjoy the tranquil surrounds of nature than slapping a giant Funktion One system into it.

by atoav 4y ago

JohnBooty 4y ago

The only thing more amazing than loud low bass is bone dry loud low bass Bone dry sounds awesome. My frustration with rock venues is that there's usually lots of bass, but it's super sloppy. Everything below ~80hz sounds like a giant audio sludgeball. I feel like even a little bit of tuning and room correction (the sort one can do at home with freeware and a $89 calibrated microphone) would help tremendously, but there's no appetite for that on the part of concertgoers or sound techs. I'm glad there are dance venues getting this right.

_carbyau_ 4y ago
That sounds like something I could do for my own loungeroom. I mean, I have no fancy gear but it seems like a process to make the best of what I have. For the cost of a decent microphone it could be worth it.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  The gist of it is: - get a calibrated mic - use REW (Room EQ Wizard, free) to take several measurements in your room, in the listening area(s) - REW will average them and generate an inverse EQ curve to compensate - you can export the parametric EQ settings and use them anywhere that supports parameteric EQ such as EqualizerAPO (windows, free) or CoreAudio parametric EQ units (Mac, free) or in a standalone hardware device like the MiniDSP (~$100 IIRC) you can always tweak the parametric EQ curve to suit your personal taste, like some extra bass or extra treble to compensate for aging ears (like mine) have fun and good luck!
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    I have already played with EqualizerAPO in the past and it surprised me with how capable it was. As you seem to have intuited, I am in beginner territory and that "gist of it" overview is all I needed. My HTPC/Steam machine will get a calibration in the near future! Thank you very much for helping me to help myself to improve listening experience.
  - icelancer 4y ago
    Wow, thanks for the quick writeup. I think I'll give this a shot at work where we have audio/video equipment for presentations and the like.
    - JohnBooty 4y ago
      Good luck! Corporate meeting rooms tend to be a bit of a worst case scenario for sound. The absolute worst case scenario for sound is an empty rectangular (or cube) shaped room with bare walls and most corporate meeting rooms come pretty close to this. However, you can still make some improvements.
      - icelancer 4y ago
        Yeah, foam deadening has gone a long way for us to reduce echo and other issues over Zoom, along with many directional mics condensed into a mixer. I am a bit of a stickler with sound quality over conference calls, so anything to improve it is very interesting to me.
  - kimburgess 4y ago
    REW is an excellent piece of software. You may be able to make some improvements for a single listing positioning, but just a heads up that you can't EQ away room level issues. From their own (again excellent) help guide: https://www.roomeqwizard.com/help/help_en-GB/html/iseqtheanswer.html https://www.roomeqwizard.com/help/help_en-GB/html/iseqtheans...
    - JohnBooty 4y ago
regpertom 4y ago
Hey stemming from this is a lot of talk of eq and rooms. I hope no one minds but may I also add something for budding sound techs: mics and speakers and why it’s easier for a dance venue compared to a live rock venue. These are what I’d call newbie-ish problems so forgive me if you’re talking about pro level rock venues. Low end builds up on stage and unless managed gets into mics you don’t want it to leading to lots of sloppy bass. One might low cut mics that aren’t meant to be receiving low end content for example or mute ones not in use. Another thing is that producing bass frequencies requires the speaker diaphragm to move more air and so there’s a slower transient response or time to complete a cycle. If you send too many different things at once to the low end the poor thing gets ‘confused’ and things get sloppy. Double hangs seem to be getting quite popular for this reason, less instruments fighting over the same cycle. Otherwise don’t send everything you can to the sub just because you can. Personally, unless there’s some reason to, I rarely let anything go below 80 anyway and defs not 60. I hate giving advice, tell me how I’m wrong.
timc3 4y ago
Room correction rarely can get as good a result as actually sorting out the room, particularly at concert/club levels.
kimburgess 4y ago
It sounds like you frequent some questionable venues. You'd be hard pressed to find many live sound engineers operating today that won't be working with a dual channel RTA (Smaart, or similar) and keeping an eye on the venue's transfer function during a gig as the acoustics change (different crowds, temperature etc).

w_for_wumbo 4y ago

I'm curious, if these waves aren't heard, is there much need to dampen them? Are we talking about to reduce the physical effects on those around, or is there a mechanism that makes these audible at some point?

regpertom 4y ago
The article is talking between 8 and 37hz, iirc. General given hearing range is 20hz to 20khz. So the vlf is flirting with that range. Throwing in an aside here, inaudible might be a better word than undetectable. I was always told just because you can’t hear it doesn’t mean you can’t feel it, for both high and low end. As for why you might want to dampen inaudible low end aside from a fastidious want for control, or not wanting a build up of that feeling only for some lucky punters, you might just not want to shake a ceiling tile loose or a vibrating air duct might be annoying: there is more energy in the low end.
tibbon 4y ago
Without damping them you get a few problems around standing waves and room modes. Those modes will make it so that you have some areas in the room where that frequency will be uncomfortably loud, and other areas where it goes away entirely.

tibbon 4y ago

Works at somewhere like Burning Man where there's little to have standing waves against.

kimburgess 4y ago

This is one of the factors that make decently large, remote outdoor electronic events (bush doofs etc) such an experience. There's no better way to enjoy the tranquil surrounds of nature than slapping a giant Funktion One system into it.