From “ill” to “trill,” buzz words have been a mainstay in hip hop culture since its inception, used to associate one’s self with a particular scene or movement. A few years ago, using the word “crunk” in a lyric served as an automatic association with the South while “hyphey” was code for California (specifically the Bay Area). As a rapper, buzzwords can either earn you street cred or date your work and career.

Snoop Dogg is the perfect case study on the benefits of buzz words. Like T-Pain with his Auto-Tune, “izzle” became Snoop’s brand, one which was so heavily copied and referenced that it elevated his status above and beyond his “Gin N’ Juice” days (via imitation being the highest form of flattery).*

While the term “swagger” is not technnically new to hip hop, it has only recently become a movement, turning the game on its head and defining what it means to be cool in 2009. “Swagga Like Us,” a hit collaboration between the four hottest** rappers in the game: Kanye West, TI, Jay-Z, and Lil Wayne. It’s the closest thing to a “super group” rap music has seen thus far. Because of this, everything in the song becomes significant automatically.

There are a number of notable musical devices used in this song***, but what struck me most was the word swagger itself. Dope, fire, fly,… Those terms have all been more or less meaningless, merely synonyms for “cool.” But swagger calls to mind a very specific brand of cool. Swagger is classy. Sophisticated. Timeless. Those who possess swagger stay in control no matter the situation.

I’ve heard some rappers imply that people can have all different ‘types of swag,’ but this article refers to classic Swag, the real deal, of which TI is the archetype. It’s not hard to imagine that TI had Sinatra in mind when crafting his his image.

“A person with swagger is classy, stylish, confident, above the fray, perhaps a bit aloof.”

-TI

Keri Hilson desires a man who has his “swagger right.” Mike Jones isn’t afraid to go pop for a woman with “Swag Through The Roof.” But as with anything that blows up quickly, its popularity could be its downfall…

The Death of Swag?

Several weeks ago, there was an internet uproar when CNN did a segment on Obama’s “swagga” (thank you, CNN for the ‘authentic’ spelling). Ehow.com now has instructions on how to “turn [one’s] swag on” (see: “Turn My Swag On” by Soulja Boy). But swag started going down hill long before CNN caught wind of it.

I consider myself a connoisseur of pop music. Give me the dirtiest, most superficial, mindless morsels of sugary pop goodnesss and I’ll devour them in one bite. But every now and then a song comes along that is just so utterly baffling that I have to stop myself. I’m going to go against popular opinion here and put myself out there: “Swagg Surfin”? Really? Is this serious? “I SWAGG WHEN I SURF NOW WATCH ME SURF N SWAGG”? I practically had a heart attack when I heard this song for the first time. Swagg Surfin is beyond me. Maybe it’s the fake horns, maybe it’s the laughable dance, but I will not allow myself to like this song. Swagg Surfin is the new Laffy Taffy. Take a look:

The funny thing is, I’ve listened to Swagg Surfin so many times now (in an attempt to wrap my head around it) that I actually enjoy the song now. While it’s been all over Atlanta radio for a while now, a lack of a Wikipedia page leads to me to believe F.L.Y. and their Song-Dance has yet to make it out of the South.

So what does it all mean? Is swagger signaling a more mature direction for rap, a response to increasing social awareness from the 2008 presidential election? Has the younger generation decided to “turn (their collective swag) on and tune in?” Can you think of more rap buzz words? Comment with your favorites.

Download Swagga Like Us on Amazon MP3.

*Of course, today all but the dorkiest of middle-class white kids are tired and unamused by izzle references, including Snoop himself I’m sure.

**Young Jeezy is certainly up there, but his latest album didn’t do so well (though I’m a huge fan of “Put On” and “Vacation”) and he is branded as a cocaine dealer (“the snowman”), which is problematic for him because rap has turned away from gangster rap in favor of party/club music. At this time two years ago, every rap client put down Young Jeezy as a reference on our Fix Your Mix Submission Form but now it’s all Swagg Surf or TI.

***This song also struck me because it was on the iTunes Top 10 at the same time as the song its beat was sampled from, which demonstrates another trend, Sampling Stuff That Isn’t Old. Other songwriting devices used in “Swagga Like Us” include Phrygian mode and a driving kick drum pattern

Psychoacoustics plays a very important role in our everyday lives.  We are not necessarily affected by what we hear so much as how our minds interpret what we hear.  For instance, right now you might think you are sitting in a perfectly silent environment.  But listen closer:  the whirr of your computer fan, the gentle hum of the air conditioner, your neighbors’ blarring all kinds of intolerable pop songs.  We can notice all kinds of ambient noise when prompted, but often our minds just let them go unperceived.  This is a good thing because it helps us not be disturbed by all the frivolous noise out there.  Our minds filter out things for us so that we don’t get bothered by them unnecessarily

 

As professionals, amateurs, or hobbyists in the audio realm, we have to be more acquainted with psychoacoustic phenomena than the average Joe.  I have been discussing the sub-bass portion of the audible spectrum, which is the most demanding register in terms of its share of the power spectrum, and it brings up an important psychoacoustic phenomenon called masking.

 

From Sweetwater Sound’s wonderful Word For the Day dictionary:

 

When sounds that contain similar frequencies are played simultaneously, the weaker sound tends to have those overlapping frequencies covered – ‘masked’ – by the frequencies from the stronger sound (especially in a dense mix). The frequencies of the weaker sound are still there; they are just not discernable over the more dominant sound with the same frequencies.

 

This is explicitly why it is important not to have too much information in the sub-bass region especially.  The sub-bass is often an unusable portion of the audible spectrum, yet putting too much of it in a mix, perhaps such that some of it is audible, can cause it to mask neighboring frequencies in the bass register.  This can lead to muddy, indistinct low end as the sub-bass masks frequencies in the bass section.

 

This becomes even more of an issue in digital audio due to encoding algorithms.  The designers of audio codecs, notably MP3s, use masking as a way of excising “unnecessary” portions of audio.  They have processes set up that detect masked frequencies and eliminate them from the mix.  These algorithms are necessarily imperfect since no single metric could feasibly fit all recorded music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you look at a spectrometer for a full spectrum mix, you can see that the sub-bass portion generally reads extremely loud even though you can’t hear most of it.  This means that, to an algorithm searching for masking phenomena, the sub-bass would read as the stronger sound, and despite being largely inaudible and unusable, the algorithm would preserve it at the expense of other more important, but less spectrally powerful portions of the audio spectrum.

 

As we’ll further explore next week, the entire bass region (including the sub-bass) is a relatively small region in terms of frequency bandwidth, so neighboring frequencies are very dependent on each other down there.  Masking can occur at any portion of the audio spectrum, but it is especially important in the bass region.

Following the success of my compositional analysis of “Single Ladies”, today I’m here to talk to you about a song which is equally unusual but lives in a completely different realm of music and pop culture. Battles is a mostly-instrumental, indie-math-something-or-other rock band comprised of several other influential but fairly obscure bands and Boston scene veterans.* “Atlas,” the first single from their debut and most recent LP, Mirrored, illustrates a number of interesting songwriting techniques that you can use to expand or understand your own writing.

Tempo: 134 BPM
Key Signature: D Lydian (same notes as A major)
Time Signature: 4/4
Special Songwriting Devices Used: Shuffle groove, Modal harmony

What’s most compelling about this song is that it is haunting, but not dark in a depressing way–rather it is hypnotic, like an alien army marching into a battlefield. While there is plenty of interesting stuff going on here production-wise,** this post seeks to explore what gives this song its otherworldly feel from a compositional perspective.

The first thing to note is that the song was written in Lydian mode, a scale which is considered “mostly major” because it is the same scale shape as major except the fourth note is raised by a half step. (To turn D major into D lydian, you would change the G to G#). To  better help you understand what modes are, where they come from, and how they can be used check out Keith’s Crash Course on Modes For Self-Taught Musicians. Lydian is one of the least common modes in pop music today but can be the most beautiful. You hear it mostly in film music and 70s rock (see: the intro to Led Zeppelin’s “Dancin Days“).

D Lydian is officially established when the vocals come in. The A-section melody (“People won’t be people when they hear this sound…”) outlines a D Lydian scale going down in perfect fifths starting on solfege syllable sol (A). These repetitive intervallic jumps in Lydian mode make for a trance-inducing result. The bassline underneath remains firmly planted on D, which is exactly where it stays except for moving to E at 3:29 (5:30 in the album version) for a few seconds. This lack of chordal movement is part of what gives Atlas its drone-like quality. In the absence of a chord progression, Battles relies on evolving melodies, syncopated rhythms and the frequent introduction of new elements/sounds** to keep interest level high throughout this seven minute epic.

Shuffle

Shuffles are kind of like the matrix. No one can be told what a shuffle is… Well, I guess really what I’m trying to say here is that the text book definition of a shuffle is not necessarily how we hear it. Shuffle is a fancy name for a triplet feel where the second note of the triplet is not played or generally emphasized. Often, though, we hear the third beat of each triplet not as part of a triplet at all, but simply a pickup note going back to the initial beat rather than part of a triplet. A song which uses all beats of the triplet is said to be in 12/8 time. One could argue that Atlas is actually a 12/8 groove rather than a shuffle because the drums often use all three beats of the triplet, but the vocal melody and bassline strongly reinforce a shuffle feel. Soloists sometimes use triplet patterns over shuffles, so the presence of a few full triplets here is negligible.

The Difference Between a Shuffle and Swing

Shuffle feel is actually a type of swing based on a tap dance (the shuffle). There are two main differences:

1. Shuffles typically emphasize beats 2 and 4 while a swing groove often does not (see: the entire Jazz idiom). Atlas features a clap (speak of the devil) on beats 2 and 4 during the verses, with the snare drum eventually coming in.
2. Though it sometimes sounds like it, swing is not thought of as a triplet feel. What’s actually happening is every other 8th note (or other note value) swings (drags) a little bit late, hence the name. The end result may sound like a triplet, but unlike in a shuffle, a timing of a swung note is inexact–some performers are known to “swing harder” than others and certain subgenres of jazz call for different types of swing feels. And again as with shuffles, triplets are sometimes used for soloing over swing time.

I hope you’ve found this article useful. If you have any other observations about Atlas, feel free to leave a comment. If you find yourself writing in the same songs over and over again, try integrating modal harmony or a triplet feel into your next song. It could end up being the stand-out track on your album.

WARNING: BEFORE COMMENTING ON THIS POST, WRITE YOUR COMMENT ON A SEPARATE DOCUMENT AND THEN PASTE IT INTO THE COMMENT BOX. WE HAVE BEEN HAVING PROBLEMS WITH COMMENTS GETTING LOST ON THIS PARTICULAR POST. THANKS.

*My first experience with Battles was several summers ago, and Mirrored was just about to be released. A friend of mine convinced me to go on a road trip to New York City from Atlanta, one of our main objectives being to see brit-rockers The Noisettes. To our delight, we learned upon arrival that the show had been combined with a Battles show which was set to take place at elsewhere but had been cancelled. I was blown away by what I saw, and it looked a lot like what you see in the video above.

**To read about the Atlas vocal tone, check out Phil’s post on the Boss VT-1.

Buy “Atlas” on Amazon MP3

Battles “Atlas” on iTunes.

UPDATED: July 19th, 2011

I listen to all types of music, but I think you’ll see from this blog that pop music is what gets me excited. From years of working as an audio engineer, I’ve found that many pop songwriters (except the old school ones at the very top) have little, if any, formal music education. But the internet is changing all that, and I want to help in any way that I can. I’ve researched modes online to see what’s out there, and frankly most of it is either downright confusing or written exclusively for guitarists. So without further adieu…

Keith’s Crash Course on Modes For Self-Taught Musicians

You probably already know that there are two types of keys: major and minor (aka the “happy” and “sad” scales, respectively). But what if I told you that there are also 5 other exciting, sexy scales to choose from?

Play a major scale. Now play those same notes, but this time start from the sixth note (or “degree”) of the scale. You’ll notice that it sounds dark–you’re playing what’s known as the “relative minor” of your original major scale. Every major scale has one. Take C major and A minor, for example: they are comprised of the exact same notes (the white keys on the piano) but sound very different.

Already knew that? Here’s something you may not have tried: start from another degree of the major scale other than the first or sixth. These scales are called modes. You’ll notice that they have an unusual but not entirely unfamiliar sound. Each mode has its own general vibe. Technically, the major and minor scales are also considered modes, but songs written in these two most common scales are not thought of as “modal” music. Listed in order of degrees that they start from on the major scale:

1 – The Major Scale (aka “Ionian Mode”) – The most common scale there is.

2 – Dorian Mode – Minor with an exotic twist.* Often associated with the Eastern world, particularly Asia, or psychedelic music (see: the first half of “Come Alive“). Minor scale shape with a raised 6th degree (starting from the root of this Dorian scale, not from the relative major scale).

3 – Phrygian Mode – Darker than the regular minor scale. Most commonly used in metal and rap (see: “Swagger Like Us“). Minor scale shape with a lowered 2nd degree.

4 – Lydian Mode – Major with an exotic twist. Used mostly in film music and dreamy rock (see: intro to “Dancin Days“). Major scale shape with raised 4th degree.

5 – Mixolydian – Major with a rock edge. Defined the 90s pop rock sound (see: “Since U Been Gone“). Can sometimes sound Eastern. Often referred to as “Mixo” for short. Major scale shape with a flatted 7th degree.

6 – The Minor Scale – All styles. More specifically called “natural minor” or “aeolian mode.” I sometimes call it the “regular minor” scale because everyone knows what that means, but that’s not an academic name for it.

7 – Locrian Mode – A very unstable, confusing-sounding version of minor. (see: “YYZ“) Some argue that our ears cannot perceive a song as being Locrian for reasons which I will not get into. Minor scale shape with a flatted 2nd and 5th degree.

To make things even clearer, you can play the following scales with the notes CDEFGAB:

C Major, D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Minor, and B Locrian.

Now you’re probably wondering: “if all these scales use the same notes, how do we know what mode a song is in?” After all, if you read my compositional analysis of “Kids” by MGMT, you know that major key songs don’t always start on the root note.

Unfortunately that answer is mostly beyond the scope of this article and not always definitive. Each mode has its own identifying characteristics in a compositional context (versus a soloing context), but for now, try to hear which root note/chord feels like “home,” and use that information, along with which scale degrees are being used, to deduce what mode you’re in.

It can be tough to write something that actually sounds modal, because certain chords will cause the listener to hear the song in the relative major or minor key (the one that has the same notes as whatever mode you’re in). For this reason, there is typically very little bass movement in modal music.

Modes are not the end-all be-all of music or scales. Far from it. There are many other harmonic possibilities including pentatonic scales (5 notes per scale instead of 7), harmonic minor (regular minor with a raised 7th), songs where the key changes from section to section, songs that borrow chords from parallel keys, secondary dominant chords, and even songs with two different keys at once (polytonality). The list goes on. Nonetheless, being aware of modes will give you yet another tool for your songwriting toolbox.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post. If there’s something you still don’t understand, feel free to leave a comment and I will do my best to clarify it. Theory won’t make you a great songwriter, and it’s certainly not required for becoming one, but you can think of it as a toolbox for understanding what you love or hate about certain songs and a potential cure for writer’s block.

*A great rock guitar player on getting through jazz solos: “play dorian over everything and people will think you’re hip.”

Last week we discussed some of the inherent problems with sub-bass frequencies and how to deal with them.  One of the major issues is how sounds in that bandwidth lack specificity.  One instrument’s rumble, boom, and thud sound pretty similar to any other instrument’s.  For the frequency bands above the sub, we have to start talking about fundamentals, overtones, harmonics, and formants in order to properly appreciate some of the roles each portion of the audible spectrum plays in our interpretation of sound.

 

Since most of our clients and readers deal at least some of the time in the digital domain, chances are you’ve seen a complex waveform that looks something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In simple terms, waveforms of this type are the summation of various component frequencies.  In the illustration below, you see how a simple sine wave becomes more complex by the addition of harmonics:

 

 

The waveform starts with the fundamental frequency.  This is the lowest frequency present in the waveform that falls within the harmonic series.  When you play the 440 Hz A on the piano, 440 is really just the frequency of the fundamental, not the only frequency present.  Other frequencies are created when you play notes on almost any instrument in any environment—these additional frequencies beyond the fundamental are what help us distinguish one instrument from another.  Those that are above the fundamental are called overtones or upper partials.  Overtones that are integer multiples of the fundamental are called harmonics.

 

 

There can also be lower partials or undertones, though these are slightly less common.  And there are also sub-harmonics which follow the pattern of (1/x)(fundamental).  That is to say ½(440 Hz), ¼(440 Hz), etc.

 

Existing both above and below the fundamental are things called formants, which are acoustical resonances that, on an instrument, will sound no matter what.  For a violin, one formant of the instrument is a frequency whose nodes lie on opposite ends of the length of the violin.  Any vibration from any note stimulates the violin body itself to resonate and the aforementioned frequency sounds as well.

 

Formants and overtones are some of the things that allow us to distinguish a 440 A on the piano from a 440 A on a synthesizer, a singer, a violin, or a drum.  The also help us separate a Yamaha from a Stradivarius.

 

So if I were to hit that 440 Hz A on a piano, I would generate several frequencies:  the fundamental at 440 Hz; harmonics at 880, 1320, 1760, etc.; as well as whatever formants are present in that specific instrument.

 

The ratio of these frequencies relative to each other is what makes a characteristic sound.  So for instance, a guitar with nickel wound strings might sound that very same 440 Hz A and but have more emphasis on odd numbered harmonics whereas a guitar with nylon strings might hit that same 440 Hz A and have more emphasis on the even numbered harmonics.  Similarly, the nickel-stringed guitar might have a formant at 900 Hz and the nylon might have a formant at 4200 Hz.

 

You can see that when dealing with overtones and formants, you can very quickly span the entire audio spectrum.  That’s why if you get yourself a spectrum analyzer or even some of the nice plugin digital EQs out there, you’ll see that hitting any note on any instrument produces many more frequencies than that of the fundamental note you hit. 

 

When we talk about treating the bass, mid, and upper frequency bands over the next few weeks, you’ll see how important overtones and formants are to audio perception.

More from Phil’s Audible Spectrum series:

• The Audible Spectrum, Part 1: Introduction
• The Audible Spectrum, Part 2: Capture and Reproduction Limitations
• The Audible Spectrum, Part 3: Components
• The Audible Spectrum, Part 4: Sub-Bass Issues

Miami-based indie rock band Ex Norwegian is a Fix Your Mix artist we’re excited about right now. They’ve been featured on XM radio, performed live on Sky News (London) and at the 2008 CMJ Music Marathon in New York City where I saw them play for the first time.

Click here to check out “Sad Wonder” off their new album Standby.

I was blown away by this song upon first listen. Usually when you think of psychedelic music, you think of effects, but to me, these chord changes are psychedelic. Add a catchy melody, loud-soft dynamics, and an arrangement that holds your interest all the way to the end and you’ve got a recipe for success.

I knew right off the bat that I wanted to emphasize the synth pad “ahhhs,” so I mixed the chorus first. That’s how I usually begin a mix: pick a section or element of the song that excites me the most and build the rest of the mix around it.

They were going for a retro sound with a modern twist. Drum samples and compression define the modern rock sound, so I dropped the former and kept the latter.

Rock mixers today tend to rely mainly on samples for drum ambience rather than reverb or room mics. Instead of doing either of those, I downplayed the drum ambience altogether and focused on punchiness instead. This was also important because the other instruments were being sent to several different reverbs and delays.

To keep it modern, the individual elements and overall mix were compressed a good deal more than Ex Norwegian’s old-school references (Big Star, David Bowie, ELO) and I added a vocal stutter edit during the first verse for some extra modern flare.

I also went heavier on the low end than a standard rock mix, which worked out perfectly because the electric bass locks up with the kick drum. (This goes along with one of the themes that tends to comes up when Phil and I have philosophical discussions about music: Arrangement is King.)

Standby is filled with stand out tracks. My personal favorites are Sad Wonder, Aventura, and Add Vice.

Ex Norwegian on Myspace

Buy Ex Norwegian’s debut album Standby on Amazon MP3.

Last week we started examining component parts of the audible spectrum.  Of those component parts, perhaps none is more misunderstood and mishandled than the sub.  Perhaps it’s all those cars with bumpin’ sound systems out there, but it seems like everyone wants to cram as much “sub” as they can in the mix.  Just make sure you know what you are asking for!

 

Firstly, I just have to provide a disclaimer that I think any car with a big subwoofer in the back sounds terrible to me.  Outside my studio someone was parked blaring some Lady Gaga tune or something like that and all I could hear was the sub.  I could hear it distinctly too despite being three walls and a hundred yards away.  I can’t help but think about how badly those people are destroying their ears.  Morever, it just plain doesn’t sound good to me.

 

As I mentioned last week:  for practical purposes, Sub-Bass should be anything that sounds below the lowest fundamental note of your song.  This can include percussion and any sub-harmonics, resonations, formants, and room tones.  These are frequencies that would really only be reproduced by sub-woofers and large format PA/sound reinforcement systems so even if you have a million dollar audio setup and can hear all the way down to 20 Hz, realize that 90% of your fans still won’t hear that.  As I mentioned in the Limitations article, most of this won’t be reproduced by any consumer grade sound system.

 

Moreover, the sub is for audio content that lacks position specificity.  If you’ve ever seen a surround sound set-up before, you know that there are 5 speakers (LCR and two rears) plus a single sub-woofer.  Sub frequencies are very difficult to locate spatially and will more or less sound like they are coming from the same place no matter the position of the loudspeaker.  This is why surround sound setups don’t also require 5 separate subs.  A single sub placed in the center will suffice for all positions in the surround soundstage.  Because of this, too much sub content will turn into a big muddy bass because there is no real way to separate the rumble of the kick from the rumble of the bass or the rumble of the synth.

 

In order to get a focused sounding sub—the kind that moves you in the club or the kind that is noticeable (in a pleasant way) in home hi-fi systems that can actually reproduce those frequencies—you need to alter your thinking about the sub.  Don’t think of it as a separate frequency band that needs to stand on its own merit or be equal to the other frequency bands.  In fact, it helps even more to think of it as a garnish on the bass.  Something to help emphasize the bass, but not overpower it or stand on its own. 

 

If your bass lives in the bass and mid range frequencies, adding in the sub should make it stand out all the more.  But the bass should not expressly be confined in the sub regions. 

 

Furthermore, a sub bass is more clearly defined by what is NOT in it and for how long.  Imagine a band consisting of a drummer, a bass player, a synth player, and maybe a string orchestra—rocking out 80s arena style.  With all of those instruments you have the OPTION of including all that information in the sub:  the kick drum, the bass formants, the synth sub-harmonics, and the orchestra formants.  There would also be additional room tones and environmental sounds all going into the sub.  Since the sub has no position specificity and because sounds are distinguished from each other predominantly by upper harmonics, the sub sounds will be big and washed out because you won’t easily be able to tell the sub-bass components of each instrument apart from each other.

 

This introduces the problem of muddled bass.  So a kick drum that is short in duration might get buried by the longer notes of the orchestra and synthesizer, so you might get more sub overall, but lose the clarity of the kick.  In these sub ranges, sounds are really just a rumble and boom so the only way to tell things apart is by relative volumes and note duration.  Cramming all that stuff together like in the example above obscures all that.  That just creates an audible but unusable low-frequency noise floor.

 

Instead, a more preferable choice is to be selective in what makes it to the sub woofer.  That’s how you really draw emphasis and get the most out of the sub frequencies.  Make the drummer sound like John Bonham by putting a high pass filter over the mix at 45 Hz and bypass the filter on the kick drum track or maybe the entire drumset.  Then the kick drum really gets beefy and the rest of the ensemble doesn’t cloud that portion of the spectrum.

 

If you have a ticky kick drum like Metallica, you could instead opt to make the bass guitar or orchestra super fat by sending that to the sub instead.  The point is to be selective about what information makes it to the woofer so as not to obfuscate the sonic image with unnecessary clutter.

 

Additionally, as I’ve mentioned before, it is imperative to understand that low frequencies are extremely power dense.  So if you are actually “hearing” anything below 40 Hz, you are taking up way too much of the power spectrum.  This will blow out speakers, distort channel strips, and otherwise yield bad mixes.  And in a closed system, this extreme bass content (which is barely audible) will steal precious headroom from the more important frequencies.

 

The important take home lessons are to not expect any of your listeners to hear any of the sub-bass.  For the majority of them, the sub doesn’t exist altogether.  For the rest of them, be selective in the sub-bass content in order to make sure that you are actually using the woofers properly.

More from Phil’s Audible Spectrum series:

• The Audible Spectrum, Part 1: Introduction
• The Audible Spectrum, Part 2: Capture and Reproduction Limitations
• The Audible Spectrum, Part 3: Components
• The Audible Spectrum, Part 5: Harmonics, Overtones, and Formants Primer

Over the past two weeks we have been discussing items pertaining to the audio spectrum at large.  In this article we’ll begin breaking down the audio spectrum into its component parts.  Though we disagree a bit on our subdivisions, Jay’s primer has excellent listening examples to hear each section individually.

 

Generally speaking, sounds can be lumped into three basic segments of the audio spectrum:  Bass, Mid, and Treble. 

 

The associated ranges would be approximately:

 

Bass 25 to 300 Hz.

Mids 300 to 2.4k Hz

Treble 2.4 to 20 kHz

 

Additionally, they can further be broken down in numerous ways depending on how people want to define sections:

 

Sub 25 to 45 Hz

Bass 45 to 300 Hz

Low-Mid 300 to 600 Hz

Mid 600  to 1.2k Hz

High-Mid  1.2 to 2.4 kHz

Treble 2.4 to 15 kHz

Super Treble 15 kHz to ~ 100 kHz

 

This Interactive Frequency Chart, much like the Carnegie Chart in the earlier article will help you understand how the frequency ranges match up with practical instrumentation.

 

For practical purposes, Sub-Bass should be anything that sounds below the lowest fundamental note of your song.  This can include percussion and any sub-harmonics, resonations, formants, and room tones.  These are frequencies that would really only be reproduced by sub-woofers and large format PA/sound reinforcement systems.  Some of this is undesirable—if you’ve ever watched an NFL game on windy day with a system that has a sub, pretty much everything is a big bass wash because of low-frequency wind noise.  We’ll go more in depth on that next week.

 

Bass should be reserved for the fundamental notes of the changes.  That is, the lowest sounding note of each chord progression.  This typically would include all the notes that would normally be played by a bass (Victor Wooten excluded).  This would also include bass playing synths and the left hand of the piano in many instances.

 

The Low-Mids and Mids include fundamental notes for melodic instruments as well as the first few orders of harmonics.  Harmonics help us distinguish sounds from each other and play a very important role in presence and clarity.  More on this when I examine the mid frequencies in two weeks.

 

The High-Mids deserve their own category because these frequencies contain sudden transient content.  For percussion, this would be the sound of sticks or mallets hitting the drum heads and cymbals.  For guitarists, this would be the sound of picks striking strings.  For vocalists, this would be the sound of hard consonance and sibilance.  All of these can be problematic, but also contribute greatly to impression of presence.

 

The treble portion of the audio spectrum contains almost nothing but upper harmonics of treble instruments and room tone.  This helps lead instruments and vocals sound present and full, but also adds brightness and clarity to a mix.

 

Over the next few weeks I’ll go into greater detail on problems with each part of the frequency spectrum.

More from Phil’s Audible Spectrum series:

• The Audible Spectrum, Part 1: Introduction
• The Audible Spectrum, Part 2: Capture and Reproduction Limitations
• The Audible Spectrum, Part 4: Sub-Bass Issues
• The Audible Spectrum, Part 5: Harmonics, Overtones, and Formants Primer