songs to tune bass and mids...

[arnold_k69]

what songs would you use when tuning bass and mids? i hope this will be useful to others as it will be useful to me.

singer : song

[SR]

madonna-----all albums
reason
recording process on all of madonna's albums are done very well good clean midrange response

as for the bassline
power of goodbye by madoona 3 distinctive bass notes it will tell how well your sub enclosures reproduce bass notes

[roger]

justin time records ---> a celebration of quality jazz......for vocals/instruments

christafari ----> dub,sound and power ......for bass

[VexXx Dogg]

eagles----> hotel california (reunion extended version)

really nice mids, midbass, and a deep bass

[~snYper~]

billy joel -> We didn't start the fire....(I am referring to the Intro here)

I find Michael Jackson's albums good also

[Hook]

I find pretty much anything from Sade Adu (Cherish The Day, Kiss Of Life, etc.) is gr8 for all around testing...she's got a pretty heavy voice for a woman so proper reproduction doesn't lend itself to that sort of shrill, annoying midrange setting ppl seem to be adopting

pretty much all Melissa Etheridge tracks have a clean, tight, low kick drum and heavy, poppy snare drum tones that I appreciate hearing properly reproduced

I also put on classical music (ones that I'm familiar with the musical score, dynamics and movements tho)...IMO the perfect test for any music system

[Black Lancer]

sting - shape of my heart
I like that mids, heights and has a decent bassline - clear

[Terabyte]

Toni Braxton-Unbreak My Heart
Jessica Simpson-I wanna Love You Forever
Celine Dion-Think Twice
U2-Love is Blindness
The Cranberries-No Need to Argue
Alanis Morrisette-Unsent
Sarah McLachlin-I Love You

......Guaranteed to give you a good basline, not to mention tabanca

[goodear]

I have read the responses so far and they are good.
Firstly i think that hotel california is an excellnt choice,good depth,timber and quick transient response.The madonna idea is also good
For me,however ,these are what i would go with and why :

Give it up-The Goodmen. Like hotel california it uses real instruments and like madonna it is recorded in an excellent studio format

Scientist- Coldplay. If your sub can sound clean here you've got it made,sweet lows with quick picks of the guitar,hard to reproduce cleanly

lovers rock-Sade .The bass is supposed to blend in with the rest of the system and has a throbbing bass drop in the start of the song.Again if you can get this good,you 'on like sock

Woman in chains-tears for fears. The older guys would remember this track from autosport days.It was, and still is, perfect.great stereo reproduction,both male and female voices recorded over a large soundstage,you could aactually position each instrument in their prospective places,if your stereo is tuned to the max that is.

[SanjayBasdeo]

Hey guys try playing some Indian music ..not chutney.. songs from them new Indian movies . You get high vocals and low vocals also it plays very clean.

[arnold_k69]

true that Sanjay, ive heard people talk about playing indian film songs to tune, because of all the instruments they use, if your system is good, its suppose to reproduce those notes cleanly. is there any truth to this, that these film songs are quite good for tuning? songs like chalte chalte & Kal Ho Na Ho and ting?

[RaLLiArT]

roxette- listen to your heart

[fuzz_174]

haddaway-what is love
celine dion-because u love me
Chumbawumba-Tubthumping
enrique-Hero
Garbage-#1 crush
John scatman-Scatman

......That should help u out a bit

[Hook]

IMO the recording quality of most of the indian film songs I've heard aren't up to standard...the guy's voice is EQ'd too mid/bottom heavy, the chic's voice is EQ'd waaaay too shrill and the highs/cymbals and wind instruments are too blaringly above the mix

if the test is with indian music, my artistes of choice would be Ravi Shankar and Shakti...to get the depth and crack of the percussion while still retaining the feel of the sitar and violins is a bit difficult to achieve but there's not much u can test wrt to basslines with it

[Polydor]

I agree with RaLLiArT


roxette- listen to your heart excellent for tuning all ranges in vocals not to mention 3 varying depths of bass for response tuning.

[SR]

including a sub bass that most sytems do not even reproduce

[roger]

as for the bassline
power of goodbye by madoona 3 distinctive bass notes it will tell how well your sub enclosures reproduce bass notes

3 killa bass notes!!

[Polydor]

D Image does play them though....realll low ask anyone in Valsayn








Neighbours Complain 2 much
Polydor.

[roger]

my image play dem too

but seriously doh...the bassline on power of goodbye is awesome. i was supprised when i heard it in car for the first time..

[~snYper~]

^^ they should cange your status from
"riding on 17's"

to

"-bass-whooore-"

[C is for Cyc]

Isreal Vibrations- Feeling Irie -

[RaLLiArT]

burning flames-- nice time
bob marley----- natural mystic

[roger]

^^ they should cange your status from
"riding on 17's"

to

"-bass-whooore-"

[TK!]

chemical brothers - setting sun .. if it sound good, yuh sheit orn!
jazz and classical... piano pieces are excellent since a piano sound is very very difficult to reproduce.. but fort u need to know how a real piano sounds eh.
and yeah, sr said madonna and he's right. some1 also said tears for fears and they're right. woman in chains good. it have others.. cyah remember..

[plex]

Ok, but is there not a specific CD used to test your bass and mids?

[belalegosi]

fellas this go sound rel dum but i'm sure many fellas out their dont know this...
how do you know exactly when u set up cant play certain ranges of frequencies?
wat you all do listen for distortions?
how do you all distinguish the distortion from the actual sound?
because some songs does sound like distortion to me
ok ok and lastly and the main question i wanted to ask
is how do you all tune your systems?
wat procedure do you all follow?
how do you know that you mids/bass is tuned properly

[Terabyte]

The car is a notorious acoustic environment, with lots of obstacles between the listener and the musical source. The ideal sounding stereo has to reproduce the same effect that the musicians / recording engineers wanted in the track. It is usually a good practice to get rid of any possible 'distortions' before you proceed to fine tune the system from an acoustic perspective. Distortion such as clipping can be avoided by proper level matching (gain setting).....at this stage, appropriate sine wave tracks can be used....a word of advice here.....if it's not sounding the same at volume 25 as it was sounding at volume 24, it IS distorting.
Once the levels and crossover points have been set, the system can be fine tuned by using some familiar tracks (lot's of good suggestions in this post, esp the Tears for Fears).
Usually, the tracks used should have a wide dynamic range, simply put.......a good mixture of all frequencies making up the audible range combined with variation of the levels of the freq over the range. A musical track with 20-20KHz is kinda hard to come by, but 30-16KHz should do the trick.
Most importantly, you should have a good idea of what the track SHOULD sound like from a reference perspective...that's the only way you will know if you're getting close in the harsh auto acoustic environment.
Lastly, it DOES NOT HAVE TO BE LOUD to sound good.....as a matter of fact, certain equipment may not sound good at all at high volume, but can still be somewhat pleasing if the volume is lowered......take note crowd pleaser enthusiasts.

[SR]

access to and rta helps alot when tuning the car for the first time as it wil show all the peaks and dips in frequencies and you can actually see where the system falls short rather than relyin on hearing.............after tuning with the rta then fine tuning can be done with actual music tracks as everyone has different personal tastes but the best tool is the rta to make sure that there are no missing frequencies from the system

[belalegosi]

.if it's not sounding the same at volume 25 as it was sounding at volume 24, it IS distorting.

terabyte are you refering to the sine waves being played?
and jus to clear it up, if the sound changes as the volume level is raised, the system is distorting right?

[Terabyte]

right.....it's kinda hard sometimes to distinguish between louder and different when playing sine waves, especially for the lower frequencies.