Bass energy vs the rest of the music

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bcodemz

New member
I have a subwoofer that's flat to 20Hz in my room. I have a few questions on bass levels vs the rest of the music.

If I have a flat frequency response, without bass boost, the bass sounds so weak. When I listen to some songs with a lot of bass, and watching my SPL meter, the bass notes are about 5-7dB louder compared to the rest of the music. The song I'm playing for this example is DJ Snake's Turn Down For What because this song has a strong sustained 41Hz note throughout the body of the song instead of most songs where the bass beat hits once a second or so, which would mess up with the SPL reading if the meter is not quick enough to show the burst in SPL. The main music is playing at around 65dB.

However, if I put this song through Audacity and plot a frequency vs energy spectrum for the entire song, I see that the 41Hz note is around 30dB louder compared to the midrange.

Here's the spectrum for Turn Down For What

23ubhac.png


According to Audacity, most hip-hop/rap songs have bass 20-30dB higher than the mids and highs. On flat, the bass sounds really weak. If I bring up the sub volume so it is 20dB higher than the mids and highs, just like Audacity's spectrum, then it sounds a lot more normal, and a lot closer to "flat". But really, I want another 6-10dB more on top of that to really get that bass in music to sound exciting and powerful.

Does anyone know how much louder the bass beats are compared to the rest of the music? If I have a flat FR, shouldn't the bass on that song be around 30dB louder than the music?
 
Use your ears not the numbers spat out by audacity.
If you can't trust them to tell you how loud things should be, practise some more.

A 'flat' speaker is not necessarily a 'good' speaker.
A 'flat' sub in a non-perfect room (i.e. every room IRL) is not a flat sub

You hear with your ears, not with your eyes. Use them.
 
I know it is flat because I have measurement tools and I EQ'd my sub so it is flat to 20Hz at my listening position.

Yes, I should use my ears, but I'd also like to know some theory behind bass in music.
 
Well...for one thing...there's nothing anywhere about bass needing to be 30dB hotter than the mids/highs.

I think even with dubstep, you want the mids/highs there to create the contrast, otherwise, without them, you just keep adding more and more bass to the existing bass...and it all goes into a low-end blur.

Also...don't stare at measurements as a way of deciding if you have too much or too little of something. Sure, it's nice to look at the screen and be able to see what the sounds are doing, but if you dwell too much over needing to *see* a certain frequency curve...you'll lose your perspective on how it sounds.

Finally...if you're slathering on the low-end, and it just keeps sounding thin....you may have monitoring issues. The acoustics in the room may be the problem.
 
bcodemz said:
Does anyone know how much louder the bass beats are compared to the rest of the music? If I have a flat FR, shouldn't the bass on that song be around 30dB louder than the music?
Click to expand...

With Layering. You can use layering to create some great bass tone especially with sylenth.

But the example you used is way off, cause it masks your ears you are focusing on graphics for reference.
Reference is great to use, but only if you use it smartly.

Throw a commercial song in your DAW and any time you're feeling you're way off, flip the mixes and check out where you're at.
It "restarts" your ears.

In short, use audio reference not image's references :)
 
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