Tunes to test/express BASS

Robert Earl Keen’s “The Five Pound Bass” is loaded with weighty bass-ness (over two kilos!). You can find it on the West Textures and No.2 Live Dinner albums.

Paul Chambers, “Bass On Top”

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34 Hz Earth Drum and a nice 2nd Harmonic at 68Hz on Temple Caves:

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Used to be a good test CD back in the day for auditioning speakers. Probably still is today.

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YELLO TOUCH Takla Makan - really low bass.

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Horror Inc. Briefly Eternal. Phowa

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Anything off “A Trick of the Tail” by Genesis. Mike Rutherford is an amazing player and uses Moog Taurus bass pedals extensively here which get you down into the sub-bass level.

“The Trinity Session” by Cowboy Junkies. “Blue Moon Revisited” is exceptional.

“No Reply at All” by Genesis off “Abacab”. Mike Rutherford basically plays the melody for this entire song on bass.

“Hey Bulldog” by the Beatles off “Magical Mystery Tour”.

Edit: sorry to repeat myself. I forgot I already said this stuff.

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Great call out - this is good stuff!

Firth of Fifth at the 6:40 mark makes the room shake without Subwoofers when the Bass Pedals kick in. Only the 200g Quie-X LP that I used to have could do this. Studio version 2003 Pressing.

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Bass Mekanik Presents: Bassatronics tracks Sub Bass Excursion and Bass I love You

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Why so many tests/interest in bass and not midrange? Isn’t midrange the most important spectrum?

Peace
Bruce in Philly

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If I were to make an analogy to Golf, Bass is the drive where the Midrange is the Putt, lots of show in the big hit but the putt is where the money is. Nobody cares about the long Putt contest but they’ll line up for the long drive.

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I quite enjoy using percussion instruments to demonstrate & evaluate bass. Dead Can Dance’s Anastasis has subterranean bass is great demo material (particularly on vinyl, digital a little less so.) The Ondekoza Devils on Drums is a great recording. The often used Telarc Kodo Drum cd pales in comparison to this one. Mickey Hart’s Global Drum cd is an extremely entertaining collaboration between four percussion masters from different cultures. The Alan Hovhaness recording is another great demo disc. When Mt. St. Helen “blows” in symphony #50, it will test your woofer’s excursion. The other compositions are also excellent. !




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This album is a recommendation for 3 reasons:

  1. great music
  2. great sound
  3. very suitable for voicing bass (even treble) of your setup (nearly all tracks, I mostly use 2-5 or higher). If this album sounds right, not boomy anywhere under 100Hz and with deep bass and not too thin but strong enough highs, then nearly any other music also sounds right.

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My favorite bass tune for showing off is probably Purple Lamborghini from Suicide Squad (featuring Skrillex and Rick Ross), but I do enjoy a couple of others mentioned above. The Blinding by Jay Electornica is pretty good. Wow by Beck is up there. Reaching Out by Bassnectar.

Sometimes a bit repetitive but there’s some killer bass lines

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I’ll nominate an old recording of me: Jon Hassell’s “City: Works of Fiction”.

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The first acoustic bass track of this album is great for checking your bass. It’s also very low but throughout extremely defined and firm. A few further great tracks (e.g. track 4) on this, but track 1 is maybe the most demanding for some setups/rooms…

Fun Recordings I like to use to evaluate bass performance. They work well both in digital formats and vinyl. :wink:
JNH&F

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Ron and I just heard something from the Howard disk at the after hours MBL event here in Tampa. Off a UHA reel to reel deck. Pretty awesome.

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