kdgh wrote:lol AK i don't wanted to offend you!
If i did, my bad.
@ Steevio :
Yeah sound is relevant, but don't you think that the most ears are already destroyed? As in loud compression radio's, limited pop songs and whatsoever. Listeners already made a 'sound standard'?
not being anoying, just lighting up a discussion that should be friendly ;-)
no what i was saying was everything is relevant, theres so many different factors that affect how we perceive music.
my initial reaction was against your 'simple' statement, you talked about harmonics as if they were some magic dust you just sprinkle on your music and everything will be ok without explaining in the kind of detail which beginniners are going to need to be able to implement it , or 'just use this plugin' and then make fun of the fact that the other guys talk about it in scientific terms.
plenty of the guys on this forum have had alot of experience, you dont need to tell them about harmonics / fletcher munson curves etc.. as if its some new knowledge that we all should know about, ....but you could be telling Koen1978 and explaining it to him, he's the one who asked the question.
as far as our poor trashed ears are concerned, i dont really have an answer. everyones hearing is different and has been damaged to different extents, some people are very careful and wear earplugs at clubs, others may have had their hearing taking out in one mad night of standing directly infront of a PA horn, or using an angle grinder without ear protectors, who can say.
i dont think there is a sound standard. its subjective. a dubstep guy is going to think that the average minimal track from recent years has got virtually no bass in it whatsoever like Tone Def was aluding to, and i'd have to agree.
one thing is certain, sub bass is a difficult thing to deal with. the majority of producers who dont have decent monitors or subs, might not even know its there in their music in the first place.
but by using spectrum analysis, you will know for sure if you've got sub bass problems.
its one the most important things to get right, for clarity in your mix.
but i have to agree with AK in that its bass as a whole that needs to be looked at, because we probably cant agree on exactly what sub-bass is.
you'll probably find that sound system designers dont even talk about sub bass, they talk about lower and upper bass, or infra bass, or talk purely in terms of octaves, lower bass cabinets in PAs are tuned to octaves, so you might get a cabinet that is tuned for the octave between 27Hz and 55 Hz for instance.
anyway mate, this subject has been covered so many times on this forum, a search will bring up lots of great advice and info,
Being a very amateuristic producer, I usually just EQ my basskick to a quite narrow range, and leave the rest to subbass, make it as good as I can (possibly with some sidechaining to the basskick, gently ducking). But truth be told: the real thight stuff is done afterwards by the mastering engineer who cleans up the mess. I guess all you can do in the end is try to get it as good as possible and then tell the mastering engineer what you want to have. Think it's at least as important to be able to get that message across.