i've just programmed my keyboard so i can play bowl churning bass noise on it, basically by shifting it down two octaves, and i was just wondering if you kind people can tell me if your average fronthouse PA system will be ok with handelling that kind of noise, or whether i should abandon it. My keyboard speakers seem to be fine, although you can see and hear them vibrating in a way i've never noticed.
any help or advice with amplification on this subject would be great.
This signature is a forgery.
Do you know the actual range you're in? Does your keyboard have the full range of a piano or does it go down to that low C, two octaves below middle C?
You'll have to be careful with your keyboard speakers - if they're moving and vibrating, they're trying to move more air than they can handle, since they aren't designed to operate at such a low frequency. Be careful!
If you're going to use those notes, better to plug into a keyboard amp or a bass amp or something.
Now, if you're actually lower than a low A on a piano (lowest note) I'm not too sure what to tell you; someone else may know. I do know, however, that below a certain frequency you actually can't hear the sound; you feel it instead. You might have a hard time finding speakers that will handle that. As for the amp, there's something called bridging, and I don't really know how it works, but it separates bass from treble, or any combination, depending on how you've got it set up. You might need a dedicated amp for these frequencies. But I'm not expert - someone else probably knows much more than I do.
Good luck, man!
-lunchmeat
yeah. be careful with uber sub sonics. they could shake loose the voice coil in the speaker and wreak it.
dont know if PAs can handle that.
there are small bass amps you could look into.
how sub sonic are you going. talking to whales and submarines? :wink:
i think by the sounds of it looking into a bass amp is the best idea.
it's a 7 octave keyboard and im tuning it down a further two octaves. woulda been three but i got scared. when i play the lowest notes it sounds more like an earthquake than a musical note. It's quite disconcerting to hear.
This signature is a forgery.
sounds like it's sub woofer time. there are some interesting models out there..like for cars etc.
I ran into an artist who made artworks with sound. he made one piece using a weathered smooth tree trunk. he embedded a sub woofer and power unit inside. when running buildings would shake, windows vibrated and the feeling inside one's chest was creepy.
quite an engaging artwork.
Since I love low sounds, I did a search and found this:
http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/the-biggest-sub-woofer-ever-made/
Most FoH won't have something that big though ;)
I *think* most can go maybe down to 40Hz; I saw one for PAs that is rated at 33Hz, so that's about the range. Maybe you could get a rig with at least an 18" driver in it - but like you said, it's more of a feel than a distinct pitch. Well, you could put it through a scope and see the waveform distinctly, but the ear won't discern it.
And then there's bridging as Lunchmeat said, where amps are connected together to be able to produce more power - or the stereo PA amps have their outputs joined to create a mono output (like 2x400 watts = 800 watts), and then the other thing where they bi-amp or tri-amp using crossovers, which are little devices that separate frequencies and then send the high, mid and low parts of the sound to separate amps and cabs. I think they only use bi- and tri-amping on the huge outdoor rigs though..so it again depends on where you're gonna unleash this sound ;)
There are probably audio sites that have formulas for determining the actual frequency that low A is putting out, and if you find what it is exactly, you *might* want to readjust it to match what sort of sound system you might be playing through, or your personal amplification system. Like if it's 40Hz and you system can only reproduce down to 80Hz, then bring it upward a little so you're in that same register.
Something along those lines. I saw some site a long time ago that gave the frequencies of various instruments in an orchestra or the low notes of a pipe organ or something. Can't remember where it was though.
Best regards.
i think by the sounds of it looking into a bass amp is the best idea.
it's a 7 octave keyboard and im tuning it down a further two octaves. woulda been three but i got scared. when i play the lowest notes it sounds more like an earthquake than a musical note. It's quite disconcerting to hear.
Check out, if you don't already know it, CKY's reprise of Rio Bravo, Track 10 on the album CKY volume one - at around 55 seconds the music stops and a pure sine wave at full volume sweeps from literally higher than you can hear right down to so low that feel it more than hear it. It then goes seamlessley into a hidden track that starts with about 10 minutes of the same pitch rumble before the music of the hidden track comes in. Very cool :)
That's one big sub! :shock:
I *think* most can go maybe down to 40Hz; I saw one for PAs that is rated at 33Hz, so that's about the range. Maybe you could get a rig with at least an 18" driver in it - but like you said, it's more of a feel than a distinct pitch. Well, you could put it through a scope and see the waveform distinctly, but the ear won't discern it.
Aye, it's like drums - they have a note that they are tuned to, but it's so low that it doesn't register as a note in the conventional sense, the note can technically clash with whatever notes the guitars are playing and it won't sound odd like it would if another guitar were to play that same note a few octaves higher.
Uhh...40 hz?
That's not gonna cut it. The E string on a bass is about 44 hz, if I remember correctly...and a 4-string bass is a tenor instrument. You have a seven-octave keyboard and you've dropped down another two? You're gonna have a hard time finding drivers that can handle that, unless they're literally bigger than you are.
What you might consider is, instead of one speaker, a lot of tiny speakers - you might need a full array of 15s to get what you want. If you can get bass guitar notes out of an 8x10, you may be able to get subsonic notes out of, uh...man, I don't even know. There's probably a mathematical way to figure that out. You might need an 8x15, or maybe more, or something of that nature.
-lunchmeat
Did you ever figure out a solution?
-lunchmeat
Wow, missed this post.
Man, you really wanna go low, don't you. :shock:
Something like this may handle that:
The specs say this sub will produce frequencies down to 27Hz. That is low. The program power for this sub is 3200 watts, so you are gonna need a really powerful amplifier, most likely bridged.
Frequencies this low can cause problems though. You can get a low rumble, almost like a super low feedback that is very unpleasant. Your drummers kit is going to really rattle too. But if you want super-lows, this might be the way to go.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/frequency.html
A good reference, I finally found it. if you're two octaves below the lowest A on a piano, you're off that chart...
You'd need a lot of those speakers, though...man, they're beatiful. Great aesthetic.
Edit: Wait, no. Unless you really did something crazy to your keyboard, you've only gone down one octave, to MIDI#0 - meaning this may be a bit more feasible than I'd think. I'm thinking too much.
-lunchmeat
