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How to get that ‘live’ bass drum kick from HT?


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5 hours ago, Nada said:

Do drummers themselves experience chest slap when they pound the kick drum?

 

Is chest slap a creation of sound engineering?

 

Does chest slap only happen at >110dB?

 

Does chest slap = hearing damage?

Chest slap or the feeling of as far as I reckon is demonstrated in one of the emails above showing the human stick figure where human biology body sound freq resonance shows the human chest cavity or the muscle diaphragm or combination of the two typically resonates at 63hz thereabouts, not much higher or lower.

 

Chest slap and hearing damage will not only depend on one particular frequency. Worksafe legislation codes and standards about hearing damage safety levels refer to a broad range of the octave frequencies that exist such as in music and a total of that expressed as 85dB Leq (A) over an 8 hour exposure period, see chart below for higher noise levels vs less time exposure (Note: A weighted bell curve, not a flat or linear noise measurement as often mentioned in hifi).

 

Exposure to any high noise environment, commonly concerts, home audio and work related activities will gradually cause loss of hearing permantly over time if you constantly and repeatedly exceed the limits set in the charts below according to hearing health medical sources. 1 in 5 people experience these issues in western countries though not only from loud music exposure, and above 50 years age related hearing loss increases dramatically according the stats.

 

The last chart below isn’t quite right but helps to demonstrate hearing damage for too loud a music environment as the Australian safe noise limit for 8 hours is 85 dB(A), not 40 hours, the rest correspondingly less.

 

The chest slap affect would vary for each person per decibel loudness level depending on your body mass, fat etc.

 

Post edit: Personally I have felt this in concerts emiting a 30m distance from stage to mixing desk level at around 95dB(A) vs above post saying 110dB (no weighting stated so means nothing, but likely to be Z or linear weighting, that might translate to about 103dB(A)) still some ways off my experience at much less perceived hearing loudness.

 

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Edited by Al.M
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Interesting thread.  I do like a 'live' sound.

Have always preferred 12" drivers in a nice big box for my main stereo speakers to maintain a good even clean response into the lower bass regions.

 

I also have a PA system for band and party duties. The main speakers are DIY with Etone 1225 Woofers and CTS (Motorola) rectangular horns in 90L ported enclosures.  I designed the crossover for a smooth transition from the woofer to the horn, but the limitation of the box size and the port design I used for extending the bass a little, resulted in a small hump in the region we are discussing.

 

When using them for the band (folk/country/bluegrass styles) I EQ a little to even it out, but I must admit that when using them for a party, (or a fun listening session during setup or the day after) I do prefer to leave it flat and enjoy that extra bit of 'kick'.

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To get the chest thump you do need a considerable amount of SPL. Something that home speakers are generally not designed for. At least not without high amounts of distortion and more importantly large compression.

To get the crisp 'snap' of the drum kit, including the bass drum you need enormous dynamic range in the 100-500Hz region. This has little to do with the subwoofer when talking HT.

Any reasonable recording will be good enough. You don't need a live band hooked up directly to get this chest thump and snap.

The room comes into play. With a single subwoofer, your typical frequency response will be full of peaks an nulls making the bass sound limp and swampy. With two well-placed subwoofers, the problem will be halved. A third well-placed subwoofer can tighten up the bass tremendously to outperform a single sub by a large margin.

large and lightweight cone. This is completely contrary to most home speakers, that achieve reasonably deep bass from very small enclosures. It's a tradeoff. The laws of physics are quite clear on this. Add mass to get bass extension, power handling and compression will suffer. Sure, we can design extreme excursion drivers and huge amps to somewhat compensate, but compression and impulse response is no match to an efficient design that all things equal, will be physically huge in comparison.

@Marc describes his experience with a large efficient speaker very well earlier in this thread. Practicality and personal preference are of course large factors in all of this.

/Mark

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Do drummers themselves experience chest slap when they pound the kick drum?
 
Is chest slap a creation of sound engineering?
 
Does chest slap only happen at >110dB?
 
Does chest slap = hearing damage?
Generally speaking I'd say, no. Drummers will get the most acoustic noise from the kit, definitely vibrations from hitting the bass drum but not in those lower frequency regions.

The sound is typically 'crafted' or 'enhanced' through the mics and mixing console so what is heard from the PA is often different.
110dB of a kick drum, per acoustic truth would hurt... 110dB of 60hz in the chest is typically the opposite.
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Some good information again thanks; some of which I'm aware of.
 
In my case I've found it's a bit damned if I do and damned if I don't.
If I remove my subs(s) out of the corners I end up with large nulls.
As you probably know by corner loading subs it will excite more room modes which will more likely reduce room nulls.
 
I get some chest thump right now, but not live concert level for sure.
What I'm thinking of doing is bringing down the crossover point of my mains from 80Hz to 50-60Hz to overlap the subwoofers.
Then there'll be four more 10 inch drivers working in the "chest thump" region along with my three subwoofers.
Hmmm.. I'm not sure I'd recommend that and not because your 10 inch drivers probably aren't capable but in a home theatre environment the LFE channel is meant to be level tuned to 10dB louder than the mains...
So following simple math, yes you may have more speaker cones emitting 50-70hz but only at that channel level - which will be 10dB less than LFE(sub) level.

I have 15" drivers in my main speakers and yet I actually find 80-90hz LFE to my 18" Cyclonix subs to be the sweet spot of sending them LFE data as it retains a strong 50-70hz presence.
Dropping to a point where only 50hz and lower is sent to the subs will thicken your bass but possibly make it too rubbery and slow.
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2 minutes ago, Neilsy said:

Hmmm.. I'm not sure I'd recommend that and not because your 10 inch drivers probably aren't capable but in a home theatre environment the LFE channel is meant to be level tuned to 10dB louder than the mains...
So following simple math, yes you may have more speaker cones emitting 50-70hz but only at that channel level - which will be 10dB less than LFE(sub) level.

I have 15" drivers in my main speakers and yet I actually find 80-90hz LFE to my 18" Cyclonix subs to be the sweet spot of sending them LFE data as it retains a strong 50-70hz presence.
Dropping to a point where only 50hz and lower is sent to the subs will thicken your bass but possibly make it too rubbery and slow.

I'm going to try leaving the sub-wooofers at 80Hz and then simply lower my mains from 80Hz to 50-60Hz.

This is with a miniDSP, not an AVR or HT processor.

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On 11/12/2018 at 11:37 PM, Al.M said:

Chest slap and hearing damage will not only depend on one particular frequency. Worksafe legislation codes and standards about hearing damage safety levels refer to a broad range of the octave frequencies that exist such as in music and a total of that expressed as 85dB Leq (A) over an 8 hour exposure period, see chart below for higher noise levels vs less time exposure (Note: A weighted bell curve, not a flat or linear noise measurement as often mentioned in hifi).

Note:  Because of the A-weighting ..... 60Hz will never be above this limit.... as it would require 60Hz @ ~110dB (unweighted) for 8 hours.

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20 hours ago, m8audio said:

To get the crisp 'snap' of the drum kit, including the bass drum you need enormous dynamic range in the 100-500Hz region. This has little to do with the subwoofer when talking HT.

Any reasonable recording will be good enough. You don't need a live band hooked up directly to get this chest thump and snap.

The room comes into play. With a single subwoofer, your typical frequency response will be full of peaks an nulls making the bass sound limp and swampy. With two well-placed subwoofers, the problem will be halved. A third well-placed subwoofer can tighten up the bass tremendously to outperform a single sub by a large margin.


High quality thread.  Another insightful post, thanks Mark.

 

One of my favourite music types is solo piano (pure acoustic), and I get visceral sensations from sitting about 30ft from a grand piano when the soloist bangs out some LF chords (bum off the seat, hair flying...).   

A piano has a surprising amount of dynamic range.  When reproduced, it is relatively easy to hear any distortion in your chain. And I find it's difficult to reproduce that exploding piano effect cleanly in your listening room.

 

So I have been fussing about my subwoofers and crossover points, but the above insights from guys with pro audio and live sound experience are sure useful, encouraging more focus on the 100Hz +  freq range.
 

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11 hours ago, davewantsmoore said:

Note:  Because of the A-weighting ..... 60Hz will never be above this limit.... as it would require 60Hz @ ~110dB (unweighted) for 8 hours.

Are you saying we can listen to 60Hz at 110dB for hours without hearing damage?  I do like visceral bass in rock  but I dont want to do deaf.

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The realm of the occupational hygienist. As a layman:

 

Earmuffs are required at 85dB for 8 hour dose (of noise) so as to protect the population as a whole. IIRC there are some outliers, these are people to whom lesser exposure can be as damaging as 8 hours to most. Also note that it's dose-related: that it works out to 8 hours at 85bB. Extreme spikes of course cause critical hearing damage (120dB anyone)?

 

[Text deleted because @Al.M covers it far better in the post below ]

 

More info from earmuff manufacturers' web sites and the American Occupational Hygienists for the background and research into noise dose.

 

So the query can be answered but needs to come back to a benchmark, say 85dB at 8 hours. "Does a noise dose 85dB at 8 hours of 60Hz sound cause less damage than the noise 85dB at 8 hours of full spectrum noise (low med high frequency combined)?"

Edited by ThirdDrawerDown
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12 hours ago, ThirdDrawerDown said:

earmuffs at 85dB for 8 hours protection also provide

Would have thought the ear muffs provide greater than that protection and here is an explanation, which shows greater levels of protection from ear muffs....

 

quote: 

How does NRR change decibels of exposure?

“When hearing protection is worn, your level of exposure to noise is based on the NRR rating of the protection device being used. Keep in mind, however, that while the NRR is measured in decibels, the hearing protector being used does not reduce the surrounding decibel level by the exact number of decibels associated with that protector’s NRR. For example, if you are at a rock concert where the level of noise exposure is 100 dB and you are wearing earplugs with an NRR 33dB, your level of exposure would not be reduced to 67 dB. Instead, to determine the actual amount of decibel deduction applied (when decibels are measured dBA which is the most common), you take the NRR number (in dB), subtract seven, and then divide by two. Given the previous example, your noise reduction equation would look like the following: (33-7)/2 = 13. This means that if you are at a rock concert with a level of noise exposure at 100 dB and you are wearing a hearing protector with an NRR 33 dB, your new level of noise exposure is 87 dB. If you are wearing a product with an NRR of 27 it would deduct 10 decibels (27-7/2=10).”

 

Also, 60Hz @ 110dB is just pure theoretical as in practice listening to music and just about every normal sound source in the human world there will rarely if ever be just a single frequency to contend with. It will nearly always be broad spectrum. So things like a bass note will range from say 20 - 200+ Hz. A single freq tone of whatever 60, 500 or 1000hz etc has nothing in it of itself that one would enjoy as music. You can hear examples of single tones though possibly not perfectly accurate frequencies depending what the iPad, tablet speakers can do at such links as http://onlinetonegenerator.com/

Edited by Al.M
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it's all been said above

To replicate the "kick in the chest" feel of an outdoor concert you need a treated room that soaks up the bass and decent speakers in the 60 - 300Hz range where that "kick in the chest" range is - nothing to do with subs.

Without room treatment, the bass will hang/reverberate, and you won't get that snap/slam - it will be "smeared" or more muddy.

 

The mid bass slam of my TD18s running 40Hz - 350Hz in a treated room is staggering - so good I created a thread seeking out tracks that have the "kick in the chest" feel

It doesn't need to be that loud to feel it - the room just needs to have a "dry" sound in the 100-500Hz region.

You end up wearing a silly grin and turning the bass up on the remote - tight dry bass is completely addictive.

 

Unfortunately you lose the ability to cope with boomy bass and ask friends to turn the bass down on their systems/in their cars cos it sounds so bad.

 

Mike

 

 

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A lot of great info in this thread, thanks. 

 

I use to mix live bands years ago as a hobby, so I was far from a professional. The best kick sound I have ever had from my home system is about 20 years ago when I had to do with what I had and I built 2 sealed subwoofers using 10" Alpine car subs I bought off a mate cheaply. 

 

They were very average for Movies but for rock music, especially the kick drum they were out of this world. 

 

They didn't go low, which makes the 55hz comments above ring true. 

 

I am still to this day trying to get that live kick sound back in my lounge room. 

 

Edited by Hytram
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In my experience ( the best man at my wedding was / is a drummer ) 

So I have heard my fair share of drumming in practice and live gigs 

Horn loaded subs “ coupled with” high sensitivity drivers are the best match 

 

One issue that may impact the soundwave timing is slow lumbering bass 

So the answer is to use an active subwoofer with high sensitivity drivers  - let’s say over 95db 

 

My Klipsch speakers do a very good job reproducing drum prat 

 

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3 hours ago, Hytram said:

I am still to this day trying to get that live kick sound back in my lounge room. 

difficult with a shared space.

 

My lightly constructed dedicated room with loads of absorption operating 100 Hz up sounds very good.

Due to my leaky room, EQ works fine to tweak the remaining issues below 100Hz.

 

The best speaker upgrade I've ever done was adding stereo Acoustic Elegance TD18s as my mid bass solution...

...there's nothing like good quality 18" drivers just ticking over in a treated "dry" sounding room to generate fabulous bass - my 18"s don't visibly move except at very elevated volumes - lots of friends have asked if they're even connected, as they're too used to small 6" and 8" woofers working hard with significant excursion to produce bass (who knows where they thought the prodigious bass was coming from if it wasn't the 18" drivers right in front of them :)).

 

My tapped horn sub only works below 60Hz - it plays absolutely no part in "hit in the chest" bass slam...I ran my setup without the sub for years, with plenty of bass slam.

I only added the sub after listening to another SNA member's stereo @jkn  and Jiri's bottom octave made the hairs stand up on my neck (very different to chest thump) - I knew I had to add a sub after that...but the sub makes minimal (if any) difference to bass slam/thump in the chest bass - just "weight" in the bottom end (no "slam").

 

IMHO you need to focus on treating the room to create a "dry" sounding room to replicate the bass produced by an outdoor gig.

 

If you've achieved a good sounding room,  then the speakers are the next priority.

 

IMHO my room achieves similar "quality" bass to what I've heard in live venues - just not necessarily the SPL capability. - but not far behind.

2 hours ago, Full Range said:

Horn loaded subs “ coupled with” high sensitivity drivers are the best match 

I happen to run a horn loaded sub and my TD18's are sensitive above 100Hz - but plenty of designs would achieve the same goal with a well treated room.

 

No particular design is better than any other - they all have their pros and cons.

 

cheers

Mike

Edited by almikel
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2 hours ago, almikel said:

IMHO you need to focus on treating the room to create a "dry" sounding room to replicate the bass produced by an outdoor gig.

Sounds very desirable, Mike.  For those of us who don't get to visit and compare lots of listening rooms, it would be useful if the "dryness" of a room can somehow be measured.

 

So, is there a target profile and/or numbers in a REW waterfall plot that could be used to judge and compare the "degree of dryness" of a room?

 

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On 15/12/2018 at 11:45 PM, marten said:

Sounds very desirable, Mike.  For those of us who don't get to visit and compare lots of listening rooms, it would be useful if the "dryness" of a room can somehow be measured.

 

So, is there a target profile and/or numbers in a REW waterfall plot that could be used to judge and compare the "degree of dryness" of a room?

 

check out the Acoustic Frontiers paper 

http://www.acousticfrontiers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/acoustic_measurement_standards.pdf

 

part c low freq delay times

 

My room doesn't quite get there, but reasonably close - regard the Acoustic Frontiers metrics as the "gold standard" and getting close will still sound amazing.

 

cheers

Mike

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I run a room curve with around 6dB of boost from 20Hz decreasing to 0dB around 3000Hz (I think) - I'm not at home at the moment - whatever it is it's smooth, no boost in the mid bass.

I use the standard EQ shelving filters on the DEQX remote very often, tweaking up/down the treble and bass as required to taste.

Having EQ on the remote is awesome -  tweak as needed, and the standard DEQX shelving filters work for me (I've no idea what they shelve at).

 

cheers

Mike

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34 minutes ago, Peta said:

One way to achieve that sound.

Front Sub.jpg

Two Subs.jpg

nice setup!

With a tiled floor and the front wall brick - depending on the construction of the rest of the room, it could be challenge to get reverberation times low enough in the bottom end to reproduce a "dry" sound without overhang.

Lots of glass can help heaps to let the bass out, but IME most rooms still benefit from absorption working 120Hz and above to clean up the mid bass.

 

The more "rigid" the room, the harder it is to get the bass right - concrete bunkers being the worst case, a tent in the middle of a field the best case - which is why the OP liked the sound so much.

 

cheers

Mike

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22 minutes ago, marten said:

Imposing air pump there Peta so easy to believe you. 

 

Could you reveal what crossover frequency you choose for cutting from subs to mains ?

 

120 hz crossover. That worked best when I tested it. The bass/mid of the main speakers go from 120 - 900. Tweeter above that. Crossover slopes 36dB/Octave (main speakers are bi-amped. I chose those frequencies by testing several configurations.

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