Pitch attenuation to force kick bass to sub on some '80's music

[tlooknbill 10+ year member]

Would like to thank in advance all who'll respond on my somewhat odd proposal to solve or alleviate a long standing issue I've had with the harsh punch portion in the kick bass frequency on certain '80's style music (i.e. Hall and Oates "Maneater", "Method of Love") played on my 6x8 Polks installed (and properly dampened) in my back dash of my Nissan Sentra. I have an Alpine 250 watt amp with a built-in internal crossover network powering both the 6x8's and two 10 in. 2 ohm subs wired in series to present a 4 ohm load to the amp.

Want to emphasize modern recorded music and even most '80's recorded music don't have this problem and sound great playing the punchy part of the kick bass mostly through the subs.

My solution is to find out if there are car audio CD players around that offer an internal pitch attenuation adjuster that will lower the somewhat shrill sound of the music's pitch without slowing its playback. IOW it won't be like lower/slower sound you get slowing the spin speed on 33 rpm vinyl LP.

The Hall and Oates CD mentioned like some others during the '80's have a sound whose entire dynamic range seems shifted up to higher frequencies sort of shrill sounding. In fact with the Hall and Oates CD I have to set my Pioneer CD player's three band 6+-/3db EQ to 4Bass/-2Mid/-5Hi. Most of my CD's sound perfect at 3Bass/2Mid/-1Hi.

Just wondering if any you folks have heard of CD players that have this feature.

Thanks.

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[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Do these songs that sound shrill also tend to play louder than other CD's you are comparing to that dont sound shrill? I suspect the issue is with varying recording levels. This would cause a situation where, if you set your gains using a lower recording level material, when you play one that is at a higher level, your amplifier will be pushed into clipping, which would sound very much like what you describe, the bass notes sounding shrill or distorted.

 

[tlooknbill 10+ year member]

No, they play much quieter as if deliberately recorded in a tiny vacuum chamber. The sound is small if you know what I mean by comparison to modern digitally recorded music like Propellerhead's "Decks,Drums,and Rock and Roll", and the compilation CD "Mysterious Voyages-A Tribute To Weather Report" recorded by high end Dutch studio engineers, both sounding like an earthquake in my car, full bodied and loud without maxed out volume settings.

The volume setting for these are at 19 (out of 30 max) on my Pioneer CD player and the Hall and Oates has to be set at 23 just so I can hear it above open window road roar highway driving. The problem is at these volume levels, the kick bass timbre shifts to loud and thin without clipping or making a "thonking" noise. I can just feel I've plumbed the low end of that kick bass and don't increase the volume any further. Increasing the EQ Bass level will cause clipping.

The group War's CD's recorded in the '70's don't sound like this. I can crank them up without that harsh punch, but I can tell their bass guitar often doubles with the kick bass to get their full bodied bass sound at loud volumes.

Did a google search and found out they have pitch controllers on home CD players, but couldn't find anything for cars. I would think these could be a desired feature for just this purpose. There's only so much you can do to control crossover frequencies in a car. You now have to consider altering the source signal by lowering the overall timbre put out by the CD recording.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Yeah I know what you mean about sounding small.

You could always re-record the problem CD's (CD to HDD to new CD) and alter the recording they way you want while its in software form before burning it onto a new CD. I dont know enough about it to be able to suggest some free programs that will do this, but Im confident its possible and perhaps someone else here can offer more specific advice on it.

 

[tlooknbill 10+ year member]

I tried that route using iTune's EQ, (I know, not the best stuff) to re-record some Stan Kenton big band tunes that were recorded live in Vegas at the Tropical with the new Hi Fi recording technology that first came out back in the '50's. Lot of ambient mid range murkiness and noise and holes in some of the audio spectrum. After trying to EQ that out, I played it back on my car audio system and it produced a lot of peeks, valleys and odd sounding distortions. I guess there's only so much silk purse you can get out of hog's ear using tinker toy software.

The thing is I have the trumpeter Harry James Silver Collection CD recorded live around '59 in Germany by Germans (and you know those Germans and their prowess with audio and recording technology) that sounds phenomenal. The last kick bass hit at the end of one of the song hits you in the chest. It's big sounding!

Now I'm beginning to understand why everyone kept insisting back in the '80's to get the live versions of certain rock artists instead of their studio versions.

I may just have to get a live recording of Hall and Oates and see if that improves things.