No bass from subwoofer

[smokethrower2]

Hi all, and thanks for looking at this thread to help! First off, I'm very new to Audacity, only learned what I know so far from YouTube and google searches. That being said, I didn't want to be the noob to come in here asking questions without researching, so I have researched for a few days but seem to only be able to find fixes for the problem of too much bass, not no bass. Here is my issue.

Started recording streaming audio through Stereo Mix and everything seemed to record fine. Played it back through my laptop before mp3 export, sounded the same as what I streamed, so exported to mp3 with LAME. So then I recorded a few more and put them on my phone. They still sound good, can't tell anything is wrong. But my laptop and cheap headphones don't usually have much bass. I finally made a cd the other day mixing in other mp3s not recorded by me with the ones I recorded. Go to my car that has 1-12" JL sub-woofer, put in the cd and the other mp3s I didn't record sounds perfect. Then my recorded audio comes on and the highs sound nice, but there is absolutely no bass. The sub-woofer is not doing anything. I tried many of my recorded mp3s, same results, I can here a tad bit of some quiet bass from my front speakers but I have the high and low pass filters to keep certain frequencies from certain speakers.

I thought the LAME export must have lost some frequencies so started researching online. Everything I see is about the recording having too much bass or how to use bass boost. Here is what I have done to troubleshoot based on what I have read. I hooked my laptop to my 2.1 Sony Sound bar and played the online streaming audio that I originally recorded and it has bass, a lot of bass from the sub-woofer. So then I used Audacity to record it the same way I did it before. After recording a 30 second sample, I play the recorded audio through the sound bar but got the same result as I do in my car, the highs come from the bar with a tiny bit of subtle bass, but the sub-woofer is not doing anything. To me this means I can rule out the LAME MP3 export. So then I used the bass boost feature that I read about, replayed but almost same result. There was a little more quiet bass from the bar but nothing from the sub. I repeated the bass boost several times only to hear distorted but quiet bass from the bar but still nothing from the sub-woofer. I've tried to find posts about this or settings I need to change but can't seem to find any.

So this is where I am at, any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Audacity 2.0.5
Lame 3.98.2
Realtek High Definition Audio driver 6.0.1.6162 which is from 07/2010 - So maybe I can try to find an updated version? Windows claims it is up to date.

[kozikowski]

Lame/MP3 doesn't do that. You can get a lot of other strange effects, but probably not that one.

Magnify the blue waves on the song with weak bass. Do the majority of the waves go the same direction (attach 1), or the opposite direction (attach 2)?

This is a 13 second organ solo. It has good but maybe not great bass. Download it and play it in Windows Media Player, and then import it into Audacity and play it again. Do they sound roughly the same?

http://www.kozco.com/tech/organfinale.mp3

Koz

[steve]

I finally made a cd the other day mixing in other mp3s not recorded by me with the ones I recorded.

Was that a standard audio CD (not an MP3 CD)?

[smokethrower2]

I will have to download and try that mp3 out tonight when I get home from work. Based of just memory of how the waves looked while/after recording, the left and right waves looked pretty close to identical. I don't have the waves setup like you do, I have the default where it has the 2 shades of blue that color in the entire wave. Maybe that makes it harder to tell what you want to know. Because it seems like it makes the same waves on top of the line and below the line on both channels. If that makes any sense. I can attach screen shots and even upload a one of the mp3s and link it later tonight.

I finally made a cd the other day mixing in other mp3s not recorded by me with the ones I recorded.

Was that a standard audio CD (not an MP3 CD)?

As far as this, it was an MP3 cd, not an audio cd. I had close to 100 songs on it. I had copied them all over using Windows Explorer and I believe it opened windows media player to do the burning. But I don't think it has anything to do with the CD burning or MP3 export since i have the lost bass issue immediately after recording before mp3 export.

[DVDdoug]

I hooked my laptop to my 2.1 Sony Sound bar and played the online streaming audio that I originally recorded and it has bass, a lot of bass from the sub-woofer...

...After recording a 30 second sample, I play the recorded audio through the sound bar but got the same result as I do in my car, the highs come from the bar with a tiny bit of subtle bass, but the sub-woofer is not doing anything.

Is the Sony soundbar connected to USB, or to the headphone-out on the laptop?

Here's what I'm thinking.... Maybe there's some equalizer or "sound enhancement" for your built-in soundard that's knocking-out the bass. (That's what you record when you choose "Stereo Mix".) The USB device has it's own soundcard, so those adjustments are not applied so you get the full bass.

[smokethrower2]

Well I am not getting bass out of the sound bar sub-woofer when it's hooked up to the laptop or in my car after on a cd. The sound bar is hooked up to the hdmi out to my TV then out of my TV through optical cable to the sound bar. When I play other mp3s not recorded by me or the original streaming audio with the sound bar hooked up the same way the sub - woofer works perfectly with normal bass. So I don't think it is a hook up issue.

[kozikowski]

This is a piece from the Sony sheet.

S-Force® technology delivers simulated surround sound

So you're using this as a "speaker system" when Sony designed a Surround Processor Product. Then you connected it to your TV which I'd be willing to bet has its own processor. The last time I installed a 51" panel, it had no fewer than four different "sound effects" all turned on from the factory.

Then there's the car. I bet you have a higher-end sound system...[wait for it], with its own processor.

So you're not looking for sound that has or doesn't have bass, you're looking for why some of your sound plays well with all the processors and some doesn't.

I bet it comes down to some of your music was once mono and some were always stereo. I bet the processors don't like mono at all. There's no separation there for them to "chew on," so they just play it straight. There may be two sets of blue waves on the bad songs, but I bet they're identical. If you apply Effect > Vocal Removal to one of the bad songs, I bet the whole song vanishes.

Koz

[smokethrower2]

This is a piece from the Sony sheet.

S-Force® technology delivers simulated surround sound

So you're using this as a "speaker system" when Sony designed a Surround Processor Product. Then you connected it to your TV which I'd be willing to bet has its own processor. The last time I installed a 51" panel, it had no fewer than four different "sound effects" all turned on from the factory.

Then there's the car. I bet you have a higher-end sound system...[wait for it], with its own processor.

So you're not looking for sound that has or doesn't have bass, you're looking for why some of your sound plays well with all the processors and some doesn't.

I bet it comes down to some of your music was once mono and some were always stereo. I bet the processors don't like mono at all. There's no separation there for them to "chew on," so they just play it straight. There may be two sets of blue waves on the bad songs, but I bet they're identical. If you apply Effect > Vocal Removal to one of the bad songs, I bet the whole song vanishes.

Koz

This could be, I will try this Vocal Removal when I get home. I will also upload the wav and mp3 files along with attachments of the issue before the Vocal Removal. Thanks for the ideas. I would hope the streaming audio is coming through in stereo so maybe my recording settings are some how causing this mono issue you speak of?

[DVDdoug]

The sound bar is hooked up to the hdmi out to my TV then out of my TV through optical cable to the sound bar. When I play other mp3s not recorded by me or the original streaming audio with the sound bar hooked up the same way the sub - woofer works perfectly with normal bass. So I don't think it is a hook up issue.

I don't think it's a "hook-up issue" either. I think it's a configuration issue...

Something in Windows or soundcard setup is reducing the bass. That also reduces the bass in the stereo mix which you are recording. When you use HDMI or USB, you are bypassing your soundcard and those effects/adjustments, so you get normal bass.

[smokethrower2]

Lame/MP3 doesn't do that. You can get a lot of other strange effects, but probably not that one.

Magnify the blue waves on the song with weak bass. Do the majority of the waves go the same direction (attach 1), or the opposite direction (attach 2)?

This is a 13 second organ solo. It has good but maybe not great bass. Download it and play it in Windows Media Player, and then import it into Audacity and play it again. Do they sound roughly the same?

http://www.kozco.com/tech/organfinale.mp3

Koz

Koz, I played the organ track on my laptop alone in both windows media player then audacity and they seem the same. Then hooked up to my sound bar and repeated and sounded the same and both versions used the sub-woofer.

I'm attaching the sound wave from a 15 second recording of streaming audio that I know has a bunch of bass. When played through my sound bar the streaming audio has a lot of bass. I then replay it from audacity and it has nothing from the sub-woofer and very little trying to come from the bar.

I then did the vocal removal and the whole song didn't disappear. The other attachment is what the waves look like after vocal removal. The result was a lot of high pitch music lol.

I still think it has to be a recording settings issue if the same streaming audio played over the sound bar sounds perfect and that exact same streaming audio is just recorded and then played the same way with a different result. Let me know what you guys think of these results and what I have uploaded. Thanks!