lfe

[ssully]

LFE for music, no, unless there's cannon fire or volcanic eruptions or asteroid collisions on the track. I wish multichannel remix producers would take this to heart.

Bass management and subwoofers for music, on the other hand --- definitely yes.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

LFE for music, no, unless there's cannon fire or volcanic eruptions or asteroid collisions on the track. I wish multichannel remix producers would take this to heart.

Bass management and subwoofers for music, on the other hand --- definitely yes.

I agree but the battle has already been lost.

 

[DuncanS]

i hate the lfe
i hate the lfe
i hate the lfe
i hate the lfe
i am never touching it again
non-bass managed system owners can cry

I don't have an LFE! I have 4 floorstanders & a centre

 

[4-earredwonder]

I don't have an LFE! I have 4 floorstanders & a centre

And a gnome to keep you cuddly WARM!

 

[ssully]

Is the OP's system problem really about LFE?

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Is the OP's system problem really about LFE?

nyes

 

[Old Quad Guy]

The LFE is an old discussion. Back in the 2000s (and maybe today still), it mattered to those with satellite speakers that were not full range, and needed the LFE.

It was generally thought back then when creating new mixes not to put anything unique in a LFE speaker for music. And to sum the 4 or 5 full range speakers material to mono and apply a method for the LFE (or don’t put anything in the LFE. Just mix full range for 4.0 or 5.0).

But then, that was the rub, because it was also thought that trying to create the right frequencies for a LFE was just about impossible because everyone’s Bass Management would work different for each person’s system. Only sound effects for movies should be in the LFE. Anyway, that was the conversation back 15 years ago.

I would imagine creating some sort of mix down for LFE from the surround speakers is necessary. The question is how to do it properly.

 

[Electric Moo]

LFE for music, no, unless there's cannon fire or volcanic eruptions or asteroid collisions on the track. I wish multichannel remix producers would take this to heart.

Bass management and subwoofers for music, on the other hand --- definitely yes.

Agree 100%

I only put cannon fire, rolling thunder, explosions & other FX enhancements in the LFE. In fact the cannon fire LFE really helped out a lot, on panning the effect vs no sub!

I try to keep it fairly subtle, but it does embellish things nicely. I don't put any main musical content down there, except in a few rare cases.

 

[jimfisheye]

There's a line for some of this.

Mix the kick drum mono to the front L/R pair of speakers because it has the best chance to reproduce across most systems?
Most of the time anyway, sure. Seems reasonable. Yes there are exceptions!

Avoid the Lfe channel in a surround mix because some consumer might be misinformed about the format and have a small top system without proper speaker management?
Um, no! That's tough.
This is an official format that uses 5 (or more) FULL range channels. Figure it out if you're interested!

But these were always muddy waters! The restricted bandwidth Lfe channel was created for headroom issues with tape and signal vs. noise. It was also fully seat of the pants implemented. Early (and still to this day) mixes using the Lfe duplicated bass content from the mains channels. The idea was that the mains speakers were assumed to roll off before the lowest sub bass (as a lot of 'mostly' full range speakers do but especially back then - almost 40Hz sure but lower might be a stretch). The sub channel omitted higher frequency drivers and then added a crossover to limit the range. Mixers literally doubled a mix element in the Lfe channel and left it to the shortcoming of the mains drivers to roll off the sub frequencies or not and the Subwoofer to roll off any highs and mids. Literally conceiving this as an extension to the mains channels for bass content just fast and loose like that.

If you make the mix arrangement right and only use the extension for special fx, perfect calibration can be fast and loose and it still comes across as intended.

So this has been cleaned up now. There are specs like the 120Hz upper frequency limit and a level calibration. However there are STILL mixes being made to this day with the fast and loose method doubling sub content in the mains and sub and leaving it to random installations where the mains fail to reproduce some low range and thus how much of that Lfe content is unintentionally doubled.

If I read over that ranting, I admit Ssully's reaction makes the most sense. But I still want to say something like: Make your own new format if you don't like 5.1 including full range channels! This is how it's spec'd. Embrace it or hear commercial mixes skewed as you wish.

Movie mixes are probably just always going to be crude. Don't set the system for some random weirdness from some movie soundtrack. Just grab the controls as needed for screw ups that come along.

 

[DuncanS]

And a gnome to keep you cuddly WARM!

If Gnomes go down to the woods today.......

 

[Doug G.]

Bass management. I have never understood why anybody would want to manage fish while listening to music.

Doug

 

[Electric Moo]

Bass management. I have never understood why anybody would want to manage fish while listening to music.

Doug

Jaco was pretty good at it!

 

[MidiMagic]

Bass management. I have never understood why anybody would want to manage fish while listening to music.

Doug

Quit carping!

 

[J. PUPSTER]

another way to look at this from a music only angle ///

back in the mid 70's I was fortunate to be at an Emerson Lake & Palmer concert, only about 10-20 rows from the stage (standing audience on the main floor.)
Lake's bass was so loud it felt like it was going to dislodge my heart and give me a heart attack, and I was in my healthy 20's at that time mind you!

So even with Quad subs at home blasting away, not sure that level of experience could be achieved.

I'd just have to decide (at my current age/health) if it'd be worth dying over

 

[jimfisheye]

another way to look at this from a music only angle ///

back in the mid 70's I was fortunate to be at an Emerson Lake & Palmer concert, only about 10-20 rows from the stage (standing audience on the main floor.)
Lake's bass was so loud it felt like it was going to dislodge my heart and give me a heart attack, and I was in my healthy 20's at that time mind you!

So even with Quad subs at home blasting away, not sure that level of experience could be achieved.

I'd just have to decide (at my current age/health) if it'd be worth dying over

Well I'm jealous! The quad Welcome Back... is as close as I'll get to that experience.

I've been to a few events (as a civilian) where they had some 8000W or something sub system and a tightly gated kick drum with the sub frequency goosed up to the moon. (Possibly a triggered sample layered in there too.) A couple times I seriously wondered if it was dangerous and could actually stop your heart!

 

[Sonik Wiz]

So I was reading an article on The Guardian & the topic was whether or not London is truly a 24 hour city. One of the locations mentioned was a night club disco named Fabric. So natch I looked it up & on Wiki what got my attention was this:

A feature of the club is its vibrating floor in Room One: known as a "bodysonic" dancefloor, sections of the floor are attached to 400 bass transducers emitting bass frequencies of the music being played.

Great Googly Moogly!
I can only imagine what that experience is like. If source material was UHJ, the it would be Ambisonic Bodysonic dance floor. But seriously the LFE in music might have reason to exist there.

 

[gene_stl]

sounds like it would tickle you feetses.

 

[rawmacias]

another way to look at this from a music only angle ///

back in the mid 70's I was fortunate to be at an Emerson Lake & Palmer concert, only about 10-20 rows from the stage (standing audience on the main floor.)
Lake's bass was so loud it felt like it was going to dislodge my heart and give me a heart attack, and I was in my healthy 20's at that time mind you!

So even with Quad subs at home blasting away, not sure that level of experience could be achieved.

I'd just have to decide (at my current age/health) if it'd be worth dying over

I was fortunate enough to see them a Cal. Jam. We sat as close to the middle of the four sound towers as we could. Sound was as awesome as seeing Keith Emerson playing his keyboard as they both vertically rotated!
Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends!

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Time to put content exclusively in the lfe.

 

[jimfisheye]

I think I'll put some secret messages in the Lfe. Whispered voice (above 120Hz obviously) that can only be heard by someone speaker managing the Lfe channel into their full range front mains sans subwoofer. There's hidden tracks and then there's gaslighting tracks.