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Why don't bands use sub-base?

21 votes
?
by jimitheexploder

I have been listening to alot of electronic music latly and then decided to have a listen to some more band based gubbins and there is a massive lack of botom end to pretty much all bands ever.

Do any bands use it? I can't think of any, and I would love to hear some one playing about with it.

Where's the base at?

jimitheexploder | 23 Jul '08, 14:14 | Send note | Report this | Reply

Strapping Young Lad used it on 'Alien'

Apart from that I can't think of any other bands that use it.


its well rare

aint it.

Come on bands there are whole other frequency's you can check out...


*

lately bottom BASS!


thanx

it means I don't have to do it when people keep coming by to correct it hehe


:-)

you're welcome!


bass?

sub bass is such a shitey concept invented by "dubsteppers" to intellectualise the genre. Human beings cannot hear anything AT ALL below 20hz, and very little in the frequencies around that. People talk about sub bass when they really just mean "very loud/highly mixed" low frequency sounds. Lower frequency signals are just used to clog up the mix and the bass sound to make it thicker and louder. The actual note you hear won't be that low.


umm

you may not be able to hear below 20hz but you can definitely hear very well between 32-96hz which has an acutely visceral effect

also, you can totally FEEL 20hz and below

and
"sub bass is such a shitey concept invented by "dubsteppers" to intellectualise the genre" is total bollocks


its about feelin the music

like when you play dubstep you can feel the bass.

You can't feel the music of bands any where near as much.

But I mean like any real low end bass not just the super low stuff. Bands just dont use it and I was wondering why. loadsa bands use technology now-a-days to do stuff that dance genres have been doin for freakin years and years why not massive bottom end?


because you need subwoofers to hear it or "feel" it

very few people own subwoofers at home. I'm sure it would make sense "in da club" but it's generally a silly dubstep thing. I'm gonna make a term for frequencies between 550hz and 600hz then fetishise that.


Shrill-Step

Squeak-Hop

It doesn't stop electronic artists of allgenres not just dubstep, and indeed dub as pointed out bellow, using it all the time. And bands don't even use it live, they just haven't thought of doing it.


more than half the people I know own subwoofers at home

mainly on home cinema systems and computer speaker set-ups

also, I can't remember the last time I went to see a band and the P.A. system had no subwoofers

you're really struggling with this one yes_


who the hell has a home cinema system?

yet again confirming my theory that dubstep is a very "exclusive" genre and it suffers for it. Kode 9 has a PHD. I like dubstep, i just don't like the cliqueness, posturing and verbiage that goes along with it.

"this choon is totally disgusting maaaan. sick"

shut up.


I've never heard anyone who likes dubstep say that

I'd suggest going to your nearest dubstep night and experiencing first hand the sort of people who like it. You might be surprised.


It aint to cliquey

I started posting on dubstepforum every now and again, and they have been nothing but friendly and a bunch of York dubstep peeps even invited me down to their night.

You don't have to talk like loadsa them hell I'm frm rural north yorkshire it just isn't gona happen hehe.


enough people for currys to

carry 29 speakers systems in stock
http://tinyurl.com/5mx762

plus around half of their PC speakers come with a sub


...

1) Sub-bass was around long before dub-step, whatever that is.

2) Any decent pair of PC speakers comes with a speaker capable of producing sub-bass. This has been the case for some time now.

3) You are not the world. Please stop making statements as if you were.


Christ in heaven

The one refreshing thing about dubstep for me is the acute lack of posturing, especially when compared to how "indie" (dodgy-collective term I know) is so relentlessly whorish and self-aggrandising. I think youre clutching at straws to defend a general inability to engage with the music itself.

And yes, most people I know that listen to music have subwoofers. Practically every home PC nowadays comes with one.


Hmmm

Not sure where you got the impression that sub bass was thought up by 'dubsteppers', it's been used in Reggae and Dub tracks for years. The note won't be lower but the frequency will be, and sub bass is mostly used to be felt by the listener, not to be heard.


wiki says

Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound.


you may enjoy

SunnO)))


or

The Swans


I really should

get some of that, I keep meaning too cheers.


Sub-Bass refers to audible sounds at 90-32hz

and has been utilised in techno, drone & dub long before dubstep was a twinkle in El-B's eye.


yeah man


I welcome selective use of it

thing is, to do it properly you have to program a seperate 'sub' bass ot compliment the main bass..rarely is the sub bass the result of a real bass being played..

of course this is diffent in dub, where the main bass lines are turned int sub basses a lot.

Having said that, was it Loafah who said his dubstep lines were influenced by fieldy of Korn?

sub bass is used a lot in harsh noise to counter the extreme high frequencies.

sunnO)) use a lot live via cello and synth


interesting

I would like to find where Loafah said that hehe

I might go and ask dubstepforums see what abuse I get.


DJ Distance

Im pretty sure it was DJ Distance who was influenced by nu-metal


you may be right

it was some feature on resonance fm years ago...

i forgot who it was for sure..its just loafah was heavily featured


Animal Colletive's new stuff

has alot of nice low frequencies. Most noise acts use sub bass, and alot of drone / avant metal groups such as Sunn 0.


looks like I need more

noise!!!!


Jennifer by Faust

has a good throbbing dub-like bass sound on it, I can't think of any other tracks that they used it on though.


cool

cheers

I think I have a little Faust some where I will have a looksy.


Technically

Bass Guitar and Double Bass are both instruments that play in the contrabass register (they are scored an octave higher on sheet music so they are not reading a whole bunch of ledger-lines), so technically you could say that every song that uses those instruments uses sub-bass.

And thats my pretentious music theory school reply for the day


cool

so they do use it all the time heheh

nice one


We use it live...

www.myspace.com/lindasnephew it only every works though when we play in a good venue. Lame.


nice

I will check ya out.


I'm a bass addict

but bringing in good heavy bass to a band, is hard, because, you have to rehearse with equipment that can relpicate down to 20Hz and when you gig, you have to play through equipment that can handle the bass, and when you upload to myspace, you loose the quality of your recordings...

The only way to do it, is have your own sound system, built for bass, rehearse and write using it, and take the system everywhere you play.... like Dillinja and the Valve Sound system.


yeah

thats a good point, you kinda need ya own soundsystem I guess.


maybeshewill

use it live, i know that much after spending a week on tour with them and having every sound man look puzzled at the thought of a seperate track for sub bass!

plus, although you technically can't hear below 20hz, frequencies below that range do interact and have an impact on the frequencies you can hear. which is why you sample things at 44.1, and not 44khz.


My band hired

a crazy sub-woofer for a gig in a local 'toilet'. It was insane. We had it probably at at 1/10th of its full capacity and it was so loud and menacing and brilliant but I think we might have been the only ones to appreciate it.

I'm making a track at the moment that employs the 27 hrtz frequency that is embedded in the 'Irreversible' soundtrack, that supposedly induces nausea. Again, i'm not sure how much an audience is going to appreciate that one.


Irreversible

has an ace soundtrack, the dude from Daft Punk did it didn't he. I have a 12" with two of the tunes from it on, Outrage and Paris By Night plus some bonus beats.


are you

throbbing gristle??


your band

has some phat bass on ya new demo's


we use ugly low bass

by sticking guitars through octave pedals, big bass amps or good PAs pick it up fine.


.

my band used some sub bass on recordings recently. We're a rock band but found it useful for some extra bottom end in a few places. It's good fun!


This is bullshit.

Human hearing stops below 20hz. Most home hi-fi equipment (speakers with 5 or 6 inch drivers) cant really replicate sounds below 50hz, you really need at least a 10" speaker to get down to 20hz. The lowest note on a bass guitar is at 40hz, so bands tht use bass guitars are only missing 1 octave of audible sound and none of that would be audible on home sound-systems anyway. A lot of commercial recordings actually have all audio below 50hz cut away (so as not to damage hi-fi speakers) for this very reason so even with a good subwoofer you often won't hear any cds with stuff below 50 or 40hz.


I can feel

the bass on my stereo when I play dubstep stuff the fucker blows air at me when the real low bits come in.

Yeah some one up there said about the bass guitar being in that range, I aint an expert, I dropped out of sound engineer school and went to work in the countryside hehe.

Still bands dont have that same gut wrenching bass sound they just dont use it, or alot don't and I just think it could be used to ace effect at times.

P.S. why are new people on here always so angry heheh


yeah i use a POG on my bass

so i have an octave below and an octave above.

although there isn't much bottom end unless its rather loud


yeah

I think it's alot to do with soundsystems rather than the bands them selves.


^ 5

we used a pog on the bass guitar on a track!

Thought we'd have been the first to do it though...dagnammit!





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