Want to produce very low notes

[Rayblewit]

I have been surprised how very few really low organ notes there are on CD. When I got my subwoofer I started listening to organ music just to be able to hear some super low notes but they seem to be few and far between.

Have you heard EL&P's Lucky Man?
Also Thunderclap Newman's Something in the Air.
Those have VERY low bass sounds.
Ray

 

[happyrat1]

Like I said way back at the beginning of this thread. Commercial speaker manufacturers cheat on their specs. The distortion numbers at those frequencies are appalling.

Seriously, we're talking about numbers that only blue whales and dolphins can hear.

There is laboratory gear in some specialized labs that can reproduce this stuff.

But for human consumption? It's waste of time even discussing it.

Gary

 

[Karl]

Ray, Gary, and John, thank you for your replies. There's a lot of good information there. Gary, the video clips were enjoyable. I didn't know the brown note was a thing. Please don't leave me, I value your advice and I'm grateful for all the great advice you've given me. Ray, I'm going to listen to the two pieces you suggest later tonight, probably sometime after 9pm NY time. There's a sick person in my household so I can't use the audio system, but I do look forward to listening to them and I will get back to you about what notes I think are on those pieces and how they play on my subwoofer.

I would like to emphasize I'm almost a total newcomer to keyboards and I am truly in the dark about the 'facts' l cite, and how to achieve the things I want in a keyboard. I should insert IMHO in front of everything I say, really. So if my comments seem less than knowledgeable or even foolish, I'd like to apologize, but I am trying to fight my way through a thicket of ignorance (my own of course) to some kind of light about this subject. I'm not putting forth my views as being truth, just as a vehicle to inform people 'where l'm at' in my thinking so that I can be helped to come to an intelligent decision when I eventually make a purchase. I like to do thorough research before I buy, and then not have to send a product back. I want the music store to make their profit and not have to deal with a return or exchange from me. I am a conscientious consumer in that sense.

I do appreciate this forum as a refreshing source of the best information I've been able to come across so far from any source -- YouTube videos, product descriptions on websites, or talking to salesmen. And it's all free of charge from people who care passionately about keyboards. It's great!

I talked to a salesman at Sweetwater, in Indiana I think, and he said that a piano, as opposed to a synthesizer, that goes below the lowest "A" on an 88-key piano with an octave shift will not give the sound I'm hearing on recorded music. It will produce the tones, but not in the pure and forceful way I desire.

He also, like Gary, recommends the Juno sd88 would be what I'm looking for. But he did say that that it does not have Bluetooth. Since Bluetooth would allow me to play the keyboard through my audio system (a small fact I was not aware of until Gary told me) without a wire connection, I would now like to get it on whatever keyboard I buy.

Also, on some Roland keyboards, Bluetooth will turn pages for you in sheet music displayed on an iPad perched on the keyboard's music rack, with one of the pedals.

So, to summarize, I would like to produce the notes between the G-sharp below the lowest A on an 88-key piano, down to that next D below that (in other words down to about 20 Hertz), and I'd like to reproduce those notes like I hear in recorded music, forcefully and pure. And I'd like to have midi and audio Bluetooth. My budget is flexible. I said before it's $1,000, but I don't mind spending more.

 

[happyrat1]

Bluetooth is EXTREMELY rare on most current keyboards. I would say 99.99% of all keyboards ever produced lack any sort of bluetooth capability. These are professional instruments, normally connected by 1/4" TS or TRS stereo connectors or occasionally on higher end instruments they'll have an optical or digital output. Keyboards that can connect via bluetooth to an iPhone are extremely rare today and I'm not certain if the connection is data only or audio and data.

You'll end up spending at least triple your budget on any keyboard that meets all of your criteria.

Instead, if wireless is a necessity you may be able to kludge together a wireless bluetooth transmitter and the appropriate adapters to hook it up to your audio system. Be forewarned you will require all sorts of weird adapters to get this working properly, if at all.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=bluetooth audio transmitter for tv

I frankly find it difficult to believe that you do not own an audio system without at least a set of RCA or a 3.5 mm TRS AUX IN jacks. But you would have required adapters for those as well.

You're on your own if you need advice on how to make this work though.

BTW, IMHO Bluetooth is the crappiest computer protocol ever invented. Lousy range and worse security. Personally I think its days are numbered.

Gary

 

[Karl]

Ray, I finally got to listen to Thunderclap Newman's "Something In the Air." I'm 66 so I remember it vividly from when it was a hit. How the worm has turned. The revolution really is here, isn't it, just not in the way Thunderclap Newman envisioned. Emerson Lake and Palmer's "Lucky Man" was enjoyable to hear again also. The synthesizer in that song goes low but only in a very small portion at the end of the song. "Something in the Air" got low, but I don't think it touched the low notes I'm talking about.

I located a Midi note chart, acting on the what I've learned from Gary. The notes I would be interested in being able to reproduce would be Midi note numbers 20, and down to #12 -- the G# immediately below the lowest key on an 88-key piano, down to the next C.

I don't want them to sound like a piano but instead be constant, strong, tones. I was glad to learn that almost all pianos are Midi and can be transposed at least an octave down. That's enough for me.

Now I would like to be able to hear what these notes would sound like on a Juno DS or any keyboard. I think the way to do that might be to find a Youtube video of someone playing the very low notes (in a composition or just by themselves) and listen to it through my audio system instead of just on a laptop or tablet like I have been doing, so that I can hear all the sounds produced. When I'm certain it can produce what I'm looking for, I'm ready to buy. I think I may indeed have viewed videos that do this but since I was viewing on my tablet I didn't hear the low notes.

 

[Karl]

The song I cite in my first post, "Before Time" by Hilary Stagg, is a good example of what I'd like to do. He's playing a harp, but the low notes are not coming from the harp (I don't think) since they're lower than the strings on a harp can produce, and much more constant and powerful. And hhey don't seem to be plucked.

 

[happyrat1]

Concert grand PEDAL HARPS have 47 strings, or six-and-one-half octaves, almost the full range of the piano. The bottom string is C, three notes above the piano's lowest A. The top string is G, four notes below the piano's highest C.

No problems reproducing this with a Juno DS.

For additional reading...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_(music)

[image]https://s19.postimg.org/jmqppquqb/orchestra-ranges.jpg [/image]

Gary

 

[Karl]

Great! Tonight (hopefully) I'm going to play all the Juno DS demonstration videos through my audio system. I have played them all already but on my tablet and not through my audio system. I will bet some of the demos will go low.

 

[Rayblewit]

For additional reading...

Fascinating reading Gary.

The song I cite in my first post, "Before Time" by Hilary Stagg, i

Beautiful music Karl. I never heard of Hilary Stagg before your OP. I googled him on youtube and played a number of his tunes. Superb muso. Thanks for the heads up. He is on my play list now.
Ray

 

[Karl]

So glad you like him. Here's a short bio. Like yourself, Ray, his music interested me the first time I heard it. I usually, since I discovered him a couple months ago, have five of his albums always shuffling on Amazon Music. I'm listening to it right now, as I usually am.

 

[happyrat1]

If you guys appreciate harp music you should give a listen to Alan Stivell.

Personally I own this album of his.

https://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Celtic-Harp-Alan-Stivell/dp/B002LD9TCE/

Good stuff

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

BTW Karl, if you plan on listening to Youtube for fringe frequencies you're out of luck. Youtube uses a lot of digital compression on its audio and and it's nowhere near CD quality.

In fact, don't expect better than CD bandwidth from any digital instrument either. They pretty much all use digital samples taken around 42KHz to 48KHz depending on the instrument.

Gary

 

[Karl]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to listen to him tonight yet.

I know my Amazon Music is compressed also.

 

[Karl]

I haven't managed to listen to Alan Stivell yet but I will tonight.

I watched a dozen or so Youtube videos demonstrating the Juno DS88 and it seems to be the one I would most like to have. I was considering waiting for the Roland FP-60 which will first be shipping in November, but in that one they seem to emphasize making it as much like an acoustic piano as possible with all kinds of effects to mimic pedal noise, etc.

The FP-60 has Bluetooth and built in speakers. But for the nice price and versatility of the DS88 ($999) I think I would choose it before the FP-60 ($1399). It's not a top priority of mine that a keyboard feel exactly like a piano either.

With an FP-60 I was thinking I wouldn't need to buy a speaker, and with the DS-88 I would. But I can also connect it with a wire to the AUX of the audio system. But I would want to buy a amp/speaker with the DS-88. I was just wondering if anyone might have a suggestion on a speaker. I will never use it to play out anywhere, just for home use. I would want to be able to plug my subwoofer into it.

 

[happyrat1]

Karl >>> For speakers on a budget for home use I say this is your best bet.

https://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-ProMedia-Certified-Computer-Speaker/dp/B01MQOC40C/

Plus you'll need this adapter.

https://www.amazon.com/Hosa-YMP-434-Stereo-Breakout-Cable/dp/B0010D0HO0/

This will give you full range, powerful, clean sound at a fraction of the price of a set of dedicated Nearfield monitors and subwoofer designed for studio use.

BTW, if you wanted to use your subwoofer with a set of monitors you'd also have to invest in a small mixer to and a lot more cabling to achieve the same result.

Gary

 

[cpcohen1945]

I talked to a salesman at Sweetwater, in Indiana I think, and he said that a piano, as opposed to a synthesizer, that goes below the lowest "A" on an 88-key piano with an octave shift will not give the sound I'm hearing on recorded music. It will produce the tones, but not in the pure and forceful way I desire.

He also, like Gary, recommends the Juno sd88 would be what I'm looking for. But he did say that that it does not have Bluetooth. Since Bluetooth would allow me to play the keyboard through my audio system (a small fact I was not aware of until Gary told me) without a wire connection, I would now like to get it on whatever keyboard I buy.
. . . .
So, to summarize, I would like to produce the notes between the G-sharp below the lowest A on an 88-key piano, down to that next D below that (in other words down to about 20 Hertz), and I'd like to reproduce those notes like I hear in recorded music, forcefully and pure. And I'd like to have midi and audio Bluetooth. My budget is flexible. I said before it's $1,000, but I don't mind spending more.

PMFJI --

On Bluetooth:

Don't let the cart direct the horse. THere are two ways of getting around the "Bluetooth requirement":

a) Getting an audio-to-Bluetooth adapter (or interface). I don't know who makes them, but I'll bet they exist.

b) As Gary suggested, using plain old copper cables to connect the synth to your audio system.

Off-the-wall idea:

An alternative to what you've been suggesting -- a synth keyboard -- is to use a "software synthesizer" (= "softsynth"), running on your computer. There are many of them available, and several good ones are free. If _all_ you want to do is produce really low frequencies (and you haven't mentioned anything else), the least-expensive way to do it may be:

. . . Get a freeware software synthesizer that will run "standalone" on a computer, and install it.

. . . Either use the softsynth's "mouse-click" keyboard to drive it, or get an inexpensive MIDI controller
. . . (a small keyboard that sends MIDI data to the computer)
. . . . . . like the M-Audio "Keystation Mini-32" (about $100)

. . . See if your computer's sound card will produce the frequencies you want (down to 20 Hz or so);

. . . . . . If not, get an "audio interface" like the Behringer UMC 202HD, which should be flat to 20 Hz.

. . . Use cable to connect the computer's output to your audio system.

This is worth doing _if_ you're willing to develop some technical skills. The Juno DS88 gives you a lot more functionality, in an easy-to-use package (insofar as any real synth is "easy to use").

I agree with Gary -- the problem isn't _generating_ the frequencies you want, it's finding a loudspeaker that will reproduce them well.

. Charles

 

[Gypsy]

Note re "Brown Noise" comedy above:

Weaponized ULF is not a myth. It is currently being used OVERTLY for "riot" control in the US.
This is not paranoid conspiracy theory stuff, just the fairly simple physics of recombined ultra-low frequencies at select amplitudes; WAY shy of rocket science.

First-hand subjection: I participated in the last major demonstrations by the Soldarity movement in Warsaw on August 31st, 1982. I was toward the back of a group of about 600 protesters. We turned a corner and started down a block-long urban corridor. When the group was halfway down the block, three soviet military vehicles suddenly blocked the intersection ahead. The middle vehicle was a fairly simple looking olive-drab van.
THEN, the van opened its two mid-ships doors revealing 2 parabola about 4' each in diameter. Not speakers, sat-style parabola. Suddenly, there was a massive ULF burst of energy and the front 1-200 people just toppled backwards. Like godzilla just sneezed at them. At the back, I clearly recall experiencing a bone-deep shudder, but was able to stay on my feet.
Folks were back on their feet fairly quickly, and we all returned in the direction whence we came.
Spooky, real shit.
Many declare that the Warsaw demos that day were the true beginning of the end of the USSR.
Personally, I believe 'the fall' was a complex combination of many geopolitical factors.
Still, it was quite a day!
Ultra Low Frequencies... Aloha!

 

[happyrat1]

Are you certain they used ULF audio frequencies on you and not UHF Audio or even a high powered Microwave burst?

The Mythbusters pretty much disproved the efficacy of ULF audio in creating a physical response but there has been plenty of other research on using microwaves to manage crowd control.

I wouldn't put that past the Russians either.

Gary

 

[Gypsy]

Ah-so...
Yeah, I suppose microwaves are possible.

What is certain is that a similar tech is now being used against demos in the US.
I wouldn't put anything past the pentagon, either.
Nor any level of US law enforcement.
New. World. Order.

 

[happyrat1]

The fact that you were at the back of the crowd and relatively unaffected might also serve to bear that out as well.

Microwave and all EM radiation adheres to the inverse square law meaning twice the distance = 1/4 the intensity.

The Pentagon has indeed been putzing about with scrambling neurons via EM bursts for decades.

However, the likelihood of it being used even in Trump's America are still pretty low.

The Russians, though, pretty much don't give a damn about constitutional law and civil lawsuits.

Gary