Bass: The Bad Boy From Beatsville

Some of you might have picked up on the fact that I swiped the title of this post from The Cramps. The Cramps started off with two guitar players in the band and no bass player. They quickly realized that having no bass kinda sucks and makes the band sound a little creepy.

Some classic rock aficionados might be quick to point out that The Doors also eschewed the use of a bass player, opting instead for " the cheapo organ sound". This illustrates my point, because I can think of no other band that sounds creepier and generates larger waves of depression from speakers. From the first time I heard this band in my youth until the present day, it has always reminded me of nails on a blackboard; and let's just leave it at that.

Bass is the most misunderstood component of music. It is also the most difficult part of the audible frequency spectrum to reproduce accurately. It is hotly contested and debated ad infinitum. And bass players often get a bad rap, not the kind of derision usually directed at drummers mind you, but many jokes are made at their expense.

Like many things musical these days, bass has evolved into a caricature of itself and has become a seriously misunderstood phenomenon amongst the masses. One has to delve into the roots of modern music to gain a little perspective.

I know about as much about Classical music as a dog knows about theoretical particle physics. When I was selling audio, we would often tell a prospective customer to come back at a later date with some CD's that he liked and was familiar with. Many of them returned with Classical music.CD's and asked for a demo. It completely threw me for a loop. I couldn't for the life of me, point out various nuances in the audio system when I was listening to some Bulgarian harpsichord player. I had no point of reference ( also it sucked).

Igor ! More brains !

I recently went to a friend's high end audio shop. He had just received a pair of Wilson Sacha and I wanted to hear them. Breaking my own cardinal rule, I didn't bring any CD's along. One of the salesman ( who obviously did not know me) brought me to the large listening room and fired up some tunes on the Devialet that driving the Wilsons. He put on some Opera. Firstly, I am perplexed as what it was about my demeanor that would make that dude think I was remotely interested in opera. Secondly, Opera scares the hell out of me and thirdly; no bass. Someone needs to have a long talk with that boy, or maybe he just didn't want anyone of my greasy ilk hanging out in the store for too long.

As I have stated in a previous post , I learned long ago to avoid discussions about audio or music in bars. They always would devolve into bold catch-all statements like " Hendrix was the greatest guitar player who ever lived" or the even more infuriating, " My Sansui rocks, man". It was exasperating and impossible to refute, especially with drunks who fixated on a single thought and continue to repeat it, mantra-like.

So at the risk of starting another argument, let me tell you a little something about the roots of Rock'n Roll and the influence of bass in its development. John Hammond was a seminal record producer, talent scout and ethno-musicologist. He organized the now legendary " From Swing to Spirituals" concerts at Carnegie hall in the 30's and 40's.

Unbeknownst to pretty much everyone at the time, the performers included, an incredible event was about to occur. This event would become a catalyst to everything that would follow in its wake and reverberate from decades to come, even in abominations like Duran Duran and Nickleback ( apologies from all of Canada for the latter).

In December 1938,  The Count Basie Orchestra were the main cats at this concert. Hammond had also invited a pair of relatively obscure piano players named Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson. They played a pair of grand pianos that were set up nose to nose. They were about to set the musical world on its ear by featuring a new type of music. It had been called Stride but had evolved into a new form and it was called Boogie Woogie.

What was amazing, as well as mesmerizing, was the infectious rhythm of the left hand bass parts of that frenetic piano playing. Most Boogie Woogie was 16 bar and the left hand dexterity that Pete and Albert possessed was exceptional.The bass parts were rock solid and relentless ( many Boogie Woogie pianists developed tendonitis as a result).

2 pianos , 12 roadies

Even if you don't dig old music, you owe it to yourself to at least check it out, it is available on Youtube. Pay particular attention to the left hand bass parts. Boogie Woogie eventually took the nation by storm and entered the mainstream musical vernacular. Big bands adopted it with a passion and it prevailed until the end of the 40's.

The last cats to hitch their wagon to this musical genre were Country musicians and in the late 40's, a new musical genre emerged called Country-Boogie. The self-explanatory name of this style says it all, infectious rhythms to the strains of wild pedal steel guitars. Country Boogie is often cited as Rockabilly's big brother. At Sun records another as-of-yet unnamed musical catalyst was brewing. Drawing on many influences, Sam Phillips and some unknown hillbilly cats were experimenting with a new sound. There are many theories as to where the name came from, but it was new and raw and it was called Rockabilly. These early cats often did not use a drummer. The upright bass doubled as a percussive instrument as the strings were slapped on the bridge. Maybe you heard of a cat called Elvis and his seminal Sun sessions.

Long ago, rock critic Lester Bangs hit the nail on the head when discussing this obscure musical genre, " Rockabilly was the only true Rock n' Roll " He wrote, " It never went anywhere." Quite true at the time. So inane bar arguments notwithstanding, that is the nutshell that created the Rock n' Roll that you are listening to and the reason that I started talking to myself in bars.

Regardless of opposing views on musical historical timelines, I think that we can all agree that bass is the rhythmic force that drives music. It is the part of the musical spectrum that makes us connect with the music that we like. Whether one listens to acoustic jazz or is ordering new woofers after a very loud Kraftwerk listening session, we like our bass. Somewhere down the road it went sideways and bass " jumped the shark".

The main problem from the start was that a lot of people confused bass with excessive mid-bass. That misconception still prevails today. At the dawn of high end audio. getting tight, deep and coherent bass was difficult. Amplifiers simply did not the slewing rate and the damping factor necessary for controlling drivers. Speaker technology was not quite there either as the materials technology of the time was limited and made it difficult to manufacture stiff drivers. All those inebriated Sansui people fail to notice that the foam surrounds on their 70's speakers with the cross-hatch wooden grilles are crumbling. One can even hear the death rattle of the woofers, but I guess it just makes that Classic Rock more classic-sounding.

Thankfully high end pre-amplifiers emerged in the 70's and people started to understand that tone controls were nothing more than rotary turd polishers, but those people were a minority. The debate rages on to this day, and this another argument that I try to avoid.

It's like talking to someone who has ADD when I try to explain that tone controls are nothing but filters and you can't add artifacts to something that has already been mastered and recorded. I suppose these tone control disciples could hire one of the hundreds of underemployed bass players to come over to their place and play along with the stereo.

As tone controls became de riguer on all those big ugly receivers, some genius along the way decided that a loudness control would be a good idea. I still see them around and they are the sonic equivalent of a loud drunk at a wedding who becomes even louder as the night progresses, and decides to grab the microphone away from the master of ceremonies ( maudlin speeches or bad karaoke are sure to ensue).

Then the big manufacturers decided that this abomination wasn't sufficient and started marketing equalizers to the masses. Home theater receivers took that several step further and started offering tone controls or EQ for each of the multiple channels and even including time delays fro each channel.They claimed that it was done in the digital domain, but it was really an analog function. The sonic equivalent of drowning in a sea of chicken soup.

Although in defense of that intellectually challenged kid brother of audio,  Anthem's new HT receivers include a neat DSP function for room correction. It truly works in the digital domain, and it's not bad.

Which brings me to the subject of home theater. I don't want to indulge in a rambling diatribe about this branch of consumer electronics, but suffice it to say that I was not pleased when it came on the market and we had to sell it. None of my old school audiophile co-workers and I gave a damn about video resolution, screen gain, and center channel speakers.

These receivers were all menu driven, hellishly complicated to learn and sounded like crap when playing music. I was perfectly happy watching Bugs Bunny cartoons on a 19 inch CRT with 79 cent speakers inside it. It seemed more pure. However a a salesmen with a zen philosophy of cartoons doesn't sell much stuff and is soon fired, so a lot of reading of instruction manuals will be necessary. The dumbest thing to emerge from home theater's rapidly escalating market share was sub woofers.

There were subs around in the early days, but no one really paid attention. If someone wanted big bass, they would purchase those monstrous Infinity speaker systems that had Emit-r tweeter towers and separate woofer towers. Useful if you lived in a large structure like a barn I guess ( or to quickly break a lease), but they wouldn't fit in most people's apartments.

Sub woofers have probably created more arguments between neighbors than demented dogs barking all night, rusty Chevy's on blocks and busted fences combined. Home theater sales soon surpassed 2-channel audio sales and lots of people had HT systems in their homes. I guess if you want Smaug the Dragon shaking your drywall loose it serves its purpose, but it's not for everyone.

Forgetting for a minute that most amplified sub woofers are pretty crappy, people seem unaware that they are designed specifically for movie soundtracks. Six channel movie soundtracks are just that,; they are mixed in 6 channels in the studio. The 6th channel is a low frequency effect (LFE) track and is mixed accordingly. Maybe the movie explosions gave your mother-in-law a coronary, but forget about playing music through your sub.

That is the main misconception right there; sub woofers are not designed for music.

There are some expensive subs on the market, but they still aren't made for music. They just can't keep up with the pace and timing of the music and often don't integrate with the rest of the audio system.  It can be distracting, because it is difficult to forget that you are listening to a sub. Also, keeping with the Linn philosophy; excessive bass masks low level detail. I've heard a couple of exceptions, REL subs seemed to integrate nicely and disappear into a room, and even though Linn makes very good subs, I would opt for a larger Linn speaker instead.

As stated earlier, most people misconstrue excessive mid-bass for good, deep bass. The question must be asked however, who among us has ever heard truly deep bass? Open E on a bass guitar is 41 hz, which is pretty deep. Most speakers might roll that off at -3db and there aren't a ton of songs in the key of E. Crappy speakers can't reproduce the harmonics that go with that note anyway, so it might end up sounding like that angry sea lion who had a staring contest with me at the Aquarium ( he won).

The lowest note I ever heard was a stirring experience, truly a testament to the power of bass and its effect on the human psyche. Montreal is a city in eastern Canada whose claim to fame is the invention of the best food ever concocted; poutine. There is a little mountain in the middle and on the gently rolling western slopes of this mountain sits St .Joseph's. This is a scale replica of St. Paul's in Rome, but it is still huge. I usually don't go inside buildings of this nature. They kind of scare me, the priests always seem to be giving me the hairy eyeball and the holy water burns.

Most of the people at a blues bar.

The building is a tourist attraction and is usually open to the public. One day I just happened to be riding my bike in that general vicinity. I had heard that there was a massive pipe organ in there, and on a whim, I decided that I wanted to hear it. On the weekend, the organist is present and will usually play some music for several minutes every hour. I walked in there making sure that there weren't any priests staring me down, and proceeded to walk around.

The dome is huge and pretty impressive to look at once inside the building. It is so huge that it has a reverb delay of seven seconds. Without warning the pipe organ stated playing. It is one the top 60 largest in the world and the biggest pipe is 30 feet long ! The organist fired up a tune, the type that one would expect to be played on pipe organ. The acoustics of the dome made it eerily enticing. Then he hit a low note. That particular moment is hard to describe in writing, one has to actually experience this first hand. It was insane, it goes beyond shaking your entire body, it keeps resonating. It was an enjoyable, but disconcerting brief moment. The tune only had few low notes and it was soon over, also being inside that huge non-secular building was starting to freak me out. I left almost immediately after that. I've rarely heard anything like that since, and that moment stayed with me. I'll bet all the holy water in the large bowl near the exit that there isn't a sub woofer on earth that can make that sound.

I'll bet those hip-hop lovin' woof-balls on wheels guys think they might have it covered; but they'd be wrong. No discussion about bass would be complete without ridiculing those car audio guys with massive subs. This rolling madness is beyond bass and even the loudest of rappers would tell these guys to turn it down. I'm not sure where or how this mobile sonic assault began, but it makes little sense. You rarely see these guys ,who seem to have a propensity for wearing backwards baseball caps, blaring opera as they roll down the street.

They have even transcended trying to annoy people with hip -hop and have given up on music altogether. There are  SPL contests where a so-called burp is played. It is a nondescript low frequency tone which is blasted for a few seconds. Levels in excess of 170 dB SPL can be produced. You can see these guys grinning from ear to ear in the aftermath as the bowel-liquifying sound levels literally crack car bodies and pop windows.  I don't know why they are grinning, they just destroyed their Honda.

These woofers also produce about the same amount of heat as the space shuttle on take off ( and literally louder), so they have a tendency to fuse voice coils into  blobs of metal. Everyone needs a hobby I guess, but this one seems to be in the same league as guys who destroy their expensive 4x4's in butt-to-butt pulling contests down at the ole waterin' hole.

Dr. Dre says shut up.

Bass will always remain an enigmatic and elusive component of music reproduction systems. Before I became a Linn fanatic years ago, I found it difficult to understand their approach to bass. I eventually understood however. I now know what to listen for in bass articulation and am still satisfied when I can actually hear the notes that the bass player is playing. When Linn says pitch perfect, it means that if a song is in  the key of A you will hear it in A, and that's good enough for me. Linn is currently offering digital processing for various speakers ( including several non Linn speakers) called Exakt box. It manages speaker characteristics in the digital domain, mainly in the low frequency register.

There is just one simple rule to follow really; big bass equals big air. Some might disagree, but if you want more bass, get bigger speakers. It ain't gonna be cheap and a $ 600 sub woofer is a woefully inadequate substitute. Unless you have some really obnoxious neighbors that you want to annoy.