Message 32/38
Date: 25-Oct-02 @ 09:05 AM -
RE: bass
One thing you folks are so sadly not mentioning to is the high-pass trick. So one of the things that makes that sick stuff work is that the bass remains in the USEABLE frequencies of most speakers. I am what most call a bass technician, and especially for recordings (also for live sets, depending on the system's capabilities on which I performing) you HAVE to make sure that you're not just wasting headroom and efficiency in your sound by pumping subsonics that are nothing but energy eaters for most speakers.
I'm playing on some 21-inch woofered Beyma cabinets Saturday night, so I'll tell you about the realities of that after, however even 18's in most configurations can only accurately reproduce freqs so low, and after that, it's just loose speaker wobble, and everything else flubs out.
One of the reasons why the Mini sounds so damn fat is that it's output only goes down to a certain frequency, and then it just does't bother wasting energy. I actually contaced Big Briar about modifying the filter to actually put out those serious subs, and they told me to get a different synth. Efficiency.
Another perfect example....The MS-20. Why doe that thing sound so sick? because it has a hi-pass after the lowpass, and it strips out the unuseable sound and just leaves you with a thick dirty stinky sound that puts the available ow end to use, and doesn't waste it on ULFs.
I've also learned to stand back from my monitors when actually checkin the bass in a mix, listening for ghosts nad dead spots in the sound, cuz the waves just don't come alive that close to nearfields. Physics. Anyhoos, yeah so try using a high pass, like a 12-db around 20-30 hz, and watch what happens to your mix, how it compresses, etc..
Good luck.
Good bass.
Ape