What's up with lousy bass on classic rock recordings?


Few examples: ACDC Back In Black, Van Halen 1, Boston (1), WHO's Next, Def Leopard Pyromania. 

The low end is almost non-existent. Digital and vinyl. 

It's not my system, I listen to a lot of jazz, other classics like Janis Ian Breaking Silence - bass is rich, full, has slam when appropriate.

Compression? Or were the low frequencies never there? Pretty disappointing. 

macg19

Showing 8 responses by mapman

@macg19 thanks.

One correction. Piano is commonly used in some rock music. A good quality standard 88 key piano can pretty much do it all. The lowest notes can reach under 20hz and the highest range up to 16khz

Another thing that helps manage expectations in regards to how recordings sound is to study the frequency range of musical instruments. There are charts on the internet that show this and I have one hanging on my wall.

16-60 hz is considered sub bass. You feel this more than hear it. Bass extends to 250 hz.

Other than synthesizers, no instruments including drums commonly used in rock music do anything below 40hz. Even a tympani drum used in orchestras only goes down to 60hz.

So there is a lot of bass happening actually on Baba O Riley but only between 50 and 250 hz. It’s mixed in with all the rest pretty reasonably I would say. It prevents the recording from sounding “thin”. To the contrary, there is a lot going on there in the bass region up to 250 hz. Just enough! So bravo….the engineers did a nice job!  Very interesting!

 

 

 

@dmac67

Baba O Riley

I listened in two rooms off same system Cambridge Evo 150 to kef ls50 metas + sub in smaller 12x12 room and in adjacent much larger L shaped room with more full range Ohm F5s, no sub.

In both cases the track starts to roll off steeply below 50-60 hz. When Entwhistle strikes the bass notes during the main riff there is a peak again in the 50-60 hz range, but the same rolloff below that. There is some action down to below 30hz but not much that one would hear. Great tune! Tasteful but limited use of electric bass helps make the main riff hit home and keeps things rolling. That’s about it. No pipe organs……😉

@dmac67 if you search I was able to find internet radio stations that play white noise last time I looked.

31hz isn’t perfect but still very useful.  Many hifis sans sub start to roll off well before that  especially in larger rooms.  The key is to keep the room response at your listening spot as extended and flat as possible.  That enables every inkling of bass to be heard at proper levels  

I’ll give Baba a play and report back.

@dmac67 Also I think it’s worth noting that when producing classic or any pop/rock recording, lots of bass is not always a priority. Producers and engineers and the artists they produce for are looking to emphasize different aspects of their music all the time. There is no audiophile in the room saying that they must maintain the bass levels no matter what. Recordings are what they are ie what the makers want them to be. It’s not a democratic process where the audiophile party rules.

@macg19 Tell me a specific classic rock track and I will give it a play and let you know what I hear and also stick the meter on it. 

@macg19 looks like you got the bases pretty well covered.    It does look like a larger room.  Have you ever measured using white noise?   That gives a good idea of frequency response and room acoustics. If white noise is not flat down to 20 hz with the subs in play,  then try adjusting the subs accordingly.  
 

Then you will be in a very good place to assess bass recording to recording.   Of course each will be different and range from lots of bass to virtually none.  Recordings are what they are.   If you have digital files you could always try remastering things yourself using readily available software like Audacity for example.   I use Audacity to master digital I create from my vinyl record collection. I’m sure there are even better ways.   Just a thought.   Where there’s a will there is often a way. 

Use a sound meter app like decibel on iPhone to measure the actual frequency response with a variety of recordings. Are you seeing response down below 40 hz or so with the recordings you know have extended bass? If not adding a proper spec’ed powered sub that is up to the task for your room and mixing it in using same sound app to measure while adjusting the sub to fill in the missing low end will make a huge difference. The key is to measure, see what’s missing and get a good sub big enough to do the job and fill in the low frequencies, not just add more of what you already have otherwise. After that if you don’t hear the bass it’s just not there to hear in the recordings you expect it to be. That’s assuming electronics used  are up to the task of delivering full range sound down to 20hz which is generally regarded as the practical low end for human ears.  Most good quality modern hifi gear should be up to the task.