No bass from subwoofer

[kozikowski]

AUP isn't a sound file. It's a text file that tells Audacity what to do with all that stuff inside the _DATA folder which is where the real music is.

Export a good quality MP3 and post that. We can't post very much on the forum.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 49&t=72887

Koz

[Tim Lookingbill]

Not sure if Koz was talking about the issue with 2.1 stereo systems in his internal hardware digital processing points, but this quote...

Stereo (2.0) is still the most common format for music, as most computers, television sets and portable audio players only feature two speakers, and the red book Audio CD standard used for retail distribution of music only allows for 2 channels. A 2.1 speaker set does generally not have a separate physical channel for the low frequency effects, as the speaker set downmixes the low frequency components of the two stereo channels into one channel for the subwoofer.

...from this wiki on Surround Sound specs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surround_sound may give a clue on what might be happening during recording.

I didn't have these issues back in 2002 when recording stereo music off my Time Warner Cable Digital Music channel going through and out a Kenwood 5.1 amp line level out using RCA cables hooked to the line level inputs on my Mac Powerbook in OS 9 using SoundApp, a software sound capture/digitizing app which wrote to aiff format and allowed me to burn to CD afterward. No digital effects processing was turned on in the Kenwood amp. I was recording Big Beat, Lounge, Chill, Fatboy Slim type stuff back then onto CD-R and all the subwoofer signals played in full through my two 10" subs in my sedan's trunk.

Not sure if HDMI and/or S-Force technology enables or invokes some type of similar LFE redirecting or downmixing.

Have you tried straight line level recording to rule this out?

[smokethrower2]

Did anyone have any more ideas after seeing the waves and the actual file from I had put up a few days ago?

[kozikowski]

No, because you didn't post a sound file. You posted an AUP file taken from an Audacity Project. AUP files are text, not sound. You need to create a sound file by exporting one.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Not sure if HDMI and/or S-Force technology enables or invokes some type of similar LFE redirecting or downmixing.

Exactly. Somewhere in this thicket of processing and competing special effects, the bass may be getting lost or processed out of existence. I identified three different places that could be happening, or even better an interaction between processors.

Koz

[smokethrower2]

Sorry guys, I hadn't received any email about any post updates so when I logged in to check for more I just saw my last post with the files at the bottom and thought there was no replies. I did not notice the second page of replies.

I didn't realized the aup file didn't have the recorded music, sorry. I was trying to get you guys the fresh recorded music without any kind of conversion. I'll attach a short mp3 clip but then also a link to the like 15 second version on my website.

Tim, as for your "Have you tried straight line level recording to rule this out?" I do not know what you mean by this. When I am recording I don't have the sound bar hooked up at all. When I record I just have chrome open with my streaming audio playing and then audacity open with stereo mix as the input. The music is playing through the laptop speakers. So there is nothing externally hooked up to the laptop at that time. Does that help? I only hook up the sound bar after recording to test to see if the sub-woofer is getting some bass to it.

http://kellywebservices.com/aud/shortClip.mp3 <- 15 second clip
http://kellywebservices.com/aud/ <- this one has all the files I have uploaded before to the post

[kozikowski]

Cool. "Sandstorm," anyone (attached)?

Clearly everything from about 400Hz down got suppressed. I need to go back and read through that again.

Koz

[kozikowski]

It sounds like what happens when you record or capture the Mid-High system of a processor that's trying really hard to send all the bass to the subwoofer. Koz

[kozikowski]

Back from the first post:

Started recording streaming audio through Stereo Mix and everything seemed to record fine.

But as we're finding out, it didn't because nothing in that sound system will play bass music enough for you to tell that it was broken.

Describe that capture system. In detail. Stereo-Mix shovels everything on the computer into the recording unless you stop it. People frequently complain that the dog barking goes into the recording along with the music because the live microphone gets left on by accident. Is that computer part of a larger theater sound or production system?

I'm going to run out of steam shortly. I'm not a Windows elf. Stereo-Mix runs both the play and record sides of your computer at the same time to pull off this Self Recording trick. You could be recording a pathway that just doesn't have bass, or you could have Windows "Theater Effects" in service by accident. Again, I'm not the system elf, but I would be setting up for a Stereo-Mix recording and put your Sound Bar on the output of the computer when you do it. I bet step one of this process is broken.

Koz

[Tim Lookingbill]

Tim, as for your "Have you tried straight line level recording to rule this out?" I do not know what you mean by this. When I am recording I don't have the sound bar hooked up at all. When I record I just have chrome open with my streaming audio playing and then audacity open with stereo mix as the input. The music is playing through the laptop speakers. So there is nothing externally hooked up to the laptop at that time. Does that help? I only hook up the sound bar after recording to test to see if the sub-woofer is getting some bass to it.

Line level recording...Assuming you have another computer, hook a 1/8 inch male stereo jack cable to the output port of your laptop (headphones?) that is streaming the music through your Chrome web browser and hook the other 1/8 inch male stereo jack cable end to the other computer's 1/8 inch female input port and use an app that enables you to capture/digitize or "Record To File" (whatever the term) that streaming sound input making sure effects like EQ's and other sound enhancements are turned off in that app if they exist (hunt for it in the sound app's prefs). (not sure which app to use since I'm not familiar with Windows sound card systems).

Convert or save the file according to CD standards 44,1kHz/16bit and burn to CD. Test listening on other devices that have a subwoofer or YOU KNOW has a straight 80Hz amplified subwoofer crossover network like I have in my sedan. Don't only rely testing on that Sony sound bar system.

This external 1/8 in. mini jack analog cable setup rules out possible stereo/LFE channel rerouting or splitting from the use of digital optical hookups and how they might be receiving embedded digital processing instructions streaming from the source website. The site you might be streaming from may be catering to gamers which might be including these embedded instructions that trigger sound card digital processing.

The part of your setup that's still a mystery is which media player app your Chrome browser is using to stream the music you hear on your laptop. On my Mac Mini I'm never sure whether my Firefox browser is using Flash, HTML 5 or Quicktime to play the sound through my OS's internal sound card system since it's sometimes determined by the website and its settings (i.e. Vimeo offers both options for streaming with Flash or HTML 5) or the browser's default media player app. The Flash plugin has its own internal preferences that can be accessed by Control clicking on the actual video/music file within the web page play/pause interface of the music being streamed.

Are you getting an idea just how complicated streaming music over the web can get? There might even be embedded copyright protection assurances to prevent recording a high quality version of the streaming data by truncating certain frequencies (bass) by default when it detects the signal is being recorded by an app. Not sure.