How long is a bass frequency

As a general rule of thumb, I keep the kick drum pretty dry. Especially on rhythmic dance tracks. However, there is definitely a time and place to putting reverb on a kick. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Physics How big are bass waves? The speed of sound, ft. To find the length of a given frequency, we take the speed of sound, ft. If we use 20 Hz. Our answer is This means that 20 Hz.

How does this 20 Hz or The answer is that it does not and never will. There is a theory that will help us understand how sound waves react inside our rooms. It is termed wave theory or wavelength theory. It is divided into the full-wave, half wave, and quarter wavelength sections to attempt to explain all the side effects that different sized waves produce in enclosed spaces such as our home theater, listening rooms, or professional recording studios.

If we examine our 20 Hz. Unfortunately, most of our rooms that we record or playback music in do not have a This is an example of a full-wave theory. After our 20 Hz. If we do not have at least half wavelength distances within our rooms to accommodate especially low-frequency waves, we will have the waves telling us that they are not happy with the accommodations we have given them.

They will do this by producing resonances that tell us they think their quarters are too cramped. They will produce resonances between each of our room boundary surfaces. This phenomenon of sound waves mixing with their own reflections causes pressure build-ups loudness and cancellations softness at predictable distances from the wall, given a specific frequency.

With bass notes, the problems are especially noticeable, since the wavelengths are longer and you can't simply move your head a couple of inches to compensate for the problem - something you probably do unconsciously for higher frequencies.

This wavelength issue is the cause of many bass headaches, and understanding the boundary effect can help you to create more solid bass when mixing, even when working in a room with less than ideal modal ratios. Let's take a moment to examine what happens when a speaker vibrates at 40 Hz. Forty times per second, the speaker cone thrusts forward, causing a compression "peak" to travel across the room at the speed of sound.

In between each such forward peak, the speaker cone travels backward, creating rarefaction "valleys. Since sound travels through the air at a speed of approximately feet per second, and 40 waves are going past any given point in a second, each wave cycle will be 28 feet apart divided by 40 equals approximately The distance between a peak and a valley will be half that: 14 feet.

In a free field with no boundaries, you could stand at any reasonable distance from the speaker and hear flat, even bass, because the alternating peaks and valleys just keep going right past you, no matter where you stand.

In a room, on the other hand, a wave will hit a wall or other surface, reverse direction, and then this reflected wave will mix with the source wave coming from the speakers. Inside, as opposed to outside, speakers sound louder due to these reflections, as volume is not lost to "outer space. Exactly where in the room this happens varies with which bass note is sounding, and this is what drives engineers nuts as they try to decide on the bass level, EQ, and compression.

The volume of any given bass note is completely dependent upon where you are in the room; conversely, the amount of bass you perceive at any given point in the room is dependent upon what note is being played.

Top Figure 1: Five different phases of a 40 Hz. The ear hears the wave by detecting variations in pressure from static pressure represented by the horizontal line through the middle.

At any given point in the room, the direct and reflected waves combine additively, with values above the horizontal line being positive, and those below the line being negative.

Note: for visual clarity, the reflected waves are shown to have the same amplitude as the source waves. In reality, the reflected waves are several decibels lower in amplitude, due to reflection-related energy loss, so the nulls are actually less than total.

Click the image for a larger version. In a medium-size control room, 19 feet deep, a sound wave's compression peak will hit the back wall, reverse direction, and combine with the next rarefaction valley at one quarter of its wavelength, or seven feet from the wall in the case of 40 Hz.

The rarefaction valley is one half of a wavelength, or 14 feet, behind the compression peak. Thus, after hitting the wall, the compression peak and the rarefaction valley, moving toward each other at equal speed, will meet at a quarter of the wavelength from the wall, or approximately seven feet. Figure 1 at left shows the 40 Hz. So, someone sitting seven feet from the rear wall is in the null point for 40 Hz.

If the song is in the key of E, this is a serious problem, since low E on the bass is approximately 41 Hz. See Figure 2. And for certain types of kick drum sounds, the lack of 40 Hz. You can hear the kick drum by itself at the beginning of the track with the bass joining in around It's in all styles of music. You also need to remember that the frequency ranges of other instruments overlap with the bass.

You're at the bottom of the range, but your tone bubbles far up into the sonic spectrum. When you make decisions about your bass sound, you're making decisions for the whole band. Remember that out of all of the instruments you commonly play with, the drummer's kick drum is your best friend. Stick together. Don't fight. In the next article in this series we'll break down the sound of the bass examining the different parts of the bass frequency spectrum. To use the many interactive features of StudyBass, please enable javascript.

Bass Frequency Range. What is the Frequency Range of Bass? Bass Overtone Range The overtones extend higher. Bass Frequencies and Other Instruments I made you a little graphic so you can see the frequency range of the bass and how it compares to some other popular instruments with which you'll play: Bass Frequency Interlopers Looking at the chart above, you'll notice a lot of overlap of fundamentals with drums, keyboards, guitar and male singers.

Let's talk about a very important sonic relationship for bass players.